Maybe President Obama should do what the 2008 Candidate Obama said that he would do and oppose the shipping of American manufacturing jobs to foreign countries with NAFTA.

Now we are on the verge of having the White House approve of another let's-send-even-more-jobs-to-foreign-countries "free-trade" agreement.

If this makes sense, I don't get it.

The GOP started this free trade agenda when Reagan took office and it has grown ever since. The free trade pandemic also has infected Europe as well. And it is largely a RW agenda pushed by the super rich because it grossly benefits them.

The other problem that I see is when Democrats run on a pro worker higher wage and labor regulated economy that favors the working guy they are labeled socialists and they actually get their butts whipped. We ran a union guy in a local district and the fundy church and the GOP won big time.

If you run a a pro union person pushing job security with wages and benefits people vote against you as a thug. Dems I know are forced to the right and rarely push a pro worker agenda. They push education as a way to compete in the "global economy". It is bullshit because education makes no sense if all you can get is a low wage job.

She is pro-global economy all the way. Active Democrats need to explain that to the Democrats who will be picking our candidate. Thanks for you explanation. I agree with you.

We would really see how much poverty there is in the country. The lack of health care is a huge crisis because we have so many people who do not make enough money to even buy insurance. We are a third world nation.

"Our" government claims the unemployment rate is around 7% when it is closer to 20%.

Slave wages are the norm. TPTB keep shipping jobs overseas, Americans have actually almost reached the point where third world wages are acceptable here.
"Free trade" has always been an insane practice for anyone who claims the least bit of allegiance to America.
"Fair trade" has the goal of raising the quality of living for workers while "Free trade" can only result in losses for the workers whose wages are (were) higher.

Free trade has already been one of the main causes that America IS a third world nation.

My teenaged Son was talking to me last night. He said, "really Dad it doesn't matter if we vote for President. We are really just trying to influence the electoral college to vote like we did but it doesn't have to. Actually, we do not have a Democracy." (not even a real republic)

That is another way that we are defined as a "banana republic" (3rd world, no control over TPTB elite).

America is a low wage (for the vast majority), non-democratic country run by and for the small minority of wealthy people.
That is a third world country...

Only if we unite and say "fuck the wedge issues that they use to keep us divided," can we ever hope to become a 1st world nation and then start a real Democracy.

Excellent post.

It is all around, and the "comfortable" middle class (just like the wealthy) pretend they don't see us...

You would think the impoverished majority were ghosts and only a cute child clairvoyant could see them.




Faux liberalism and DLC financial theories are what has rendered us invisible, few Democrats mention or even care, always talking about helping the comfortable middle class while silence is all the consideration WE are given.

The GOP hates us, and the post Clinton Democrats with their welfare deform ignore us.

What happened to the war on poverty?

I'm not sure which is worse.

The GOP have done a fine job convincing their base that if they're just bootstrappy enough, they too can climb the ladder and be the 1%. They never mention how those at the top devote a non-trivial amount of time and money to pulling that ladder up after themselves.

the party of the people and the Democrats belonged to the Robber Barons. That's pretty much the whole point of having two and only two political parties.

situation, our casinos would all close down.

Fact is, Americans are incurable optimists. And if you aren't an incurable optimist, you are viewed as "negative." Americans don't like to face the truth. That's why the liars are in power.

Just dreaming of wealth is enough to keep a lot of Americans in a kind of anesthetized state. They don't even taste the junk food that is killing them because when they eat it, they believe, truly believe it is caviar.

I entered the Income Based Student Loan repayment program. They slashed my payments to the bone. Even if the pay had been what I was led to believe (a classmate and I were each lied to by HR people at the local hospital about the MLT starting salary) and even if I'd gotten the amount of work that I was led to believe (the University lied about employment rates for MLTs; half our class couldn't even get interviews on graduation and the rest only got minimal part time/per diem) I would still qualify for the program.

That may be one reason red states refused to enter the exchanges. They don't want people to learn the hard truth of their situations -- we're poor and doomed to stay that way.

It's a shock for me. I grew up middle class and thought of myself as working class, then middle, then back to working...

I think the numbers of those in poverty have been undercounted.

There is a move in Congress by GOPPERS to eliminated federal reports. They claim that these reports are no longer needed.

We're so thoroughly wrapped up in the manufactured fantasy world of Praestrigia Americana, that we've lost all perspective.

We talk about $50K being a decent living and then turn around and say that some making 5 times that much shouldn't be so heavily taxed, and someone else born with 10,000 times that much is entitled to it.

We have no idea just how much the rich have, nor how little the rest of us struggle to hold onto.

hole should NEVER have been allowed.

poverty than reported