TRICKLEDOWNBLUES: IT'LL GET WORSE BEFORE IT GETS BETTER

ABRAHAM LINCOLN ON CORPORATIONS

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country...corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war."

President Abraham Lincoln

Friday, July 18, 2008

IT'LL GET WORSE BEFORE IT GETS BETTER

It will get much worse in the short term, although it has been no bed of roses for us regular working folks since Reagan and trickledown economics anyway.

The bill has come due for the parasitic feeding by the wealthy and corporate raiders upon a once prosperous America built after World War II on progressive, bottom up tax and spending policies.

25 Billion to bail out Bear Stearns a few weeks ago, maybe a couple hundred billion more for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae so far. Far more to come folks - can't have the wealthy losing money now can we?

Phil Gramm just stepped down as McCain Chief Financial Advisor - While in the Senate as head of the powerful banking committee he helped cram through a 268 page deregulation of the financial industry before the 2000 elections that helped create the current sham banking scandal that will require a trillion plus before it's over. Of course, not to be outdone, his wife helped deregulate the energy markets so Enron could prey upon little old ladies in California with glee.

This is what the Republican Party has to offer America, no matter the candidate. They haven't had a new idea since the Great Depression. Lower taxes and less regulation for the rich and powerful and peanuts for the rest.

After the 1976 Buckley V Valeo decision legalized graft by politicians no other result was possible than the current meltdown we are witnessing. But the criminals will walk off Scot free and us "average Joes" will foot the bill again, like always.

Among the forgotten lessons of the past financial cataclysms is that most regulations were created to rectify a wrong or save a people from those who would profit regardless of harm to others or country.

Since we dumped actual retirement plans for 401Ks in the eighties everyone got sucked into thinking all regulations were bad for the portfolio.

As it turns out those regulations protected our children and communities from rapacious, soulless capitalism that deposits its profits in the Cayman Islands and its toxic byproducts in China - all we lost was our Democracy.

We're allowed to create rules that don't allow our country to be destroyed by profiteers, people.

It's not socialism if we don't allow companies to rape and pillage our Democracy or "We The People".

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FROM "WHO IS LOYAL TO AMERICA?" BY HENRY STEEL COMMAGER

"It is easier to say what loyalty is not than to say what it is. It is not conformity. It is not passive acquiescence to the status quo. It is not preference for everything American over everything foreign. It is not ostrich-like ignorance of other countries and other institutions. It is not the indulgence in ceremony-a flag salute an oath of allegiance, a fervid verbal declaration. It is not a particular creed, a particular version of history, a particular body of economic practices, a particular philosophy. It is a tradition, an ideal, and a principle. It is a willingness to subordinate every private advantage for the larger good. It is an appreciation of the rich and diverse contributions that can come from the most varied sources. It is allegiance to the traditions that have guided our greatest statesmen and inspired our most eloquent poets-the traditions of of freedom, equality, democracy, tolerance, the tradition of the higher law, of experimentation, co-operation, and pluralism. It is a realization that America was born of revolt, flourished on dissent, became great through experimentation."

A WALL OF SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem & approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful & zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, and in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more & more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.

Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from presenting even occasional performances of devotion presented indeed legally where an Executive is the legal head of a national church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect.]

Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the common Father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves and your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.(signed) Thomas JeffersonJan.1.1802.

WAPO REPORTS TAX CODE HURTS MOST AMERICANS

Our chart shows the combined effect of the Bush tax cuts. It leaves no doubt that the tax system has become less progressive, even as the need for progressivity has grown. Over the past quarter of a century, the tide of the American economy has failed to lift the bottom half of society, damaging the faith on which capitalism depends. Seven out of ten say the nation is headed in the wrong direction even though economic growth is galloping, and many are hostile to trade, immigration and big business. But rather than crafting a tax policy that responds to those sentiments, the administration has done the opposite.The chart makes a second point. The loss of tax progressivity has not occurred in the middle of society; it's not as though someone a quarter of the way down the income scale is doing better at the expense of someone three-quarters of the way down. Rather, it's the top tenth who have benefited, and the top within the top has done fabulously well. According to Thomas Piketty of the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and Emmanuel Saez of the University of California at Berkeley, the top 0.01 percent of households has seen its tax bite fall by 6 percentage points since 2000 and by an astonishing 25 percentage points since 1980. From the Washington Post

FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT 1932

I have consistently set forth the doctrine of the present day democracy. It is the program of a party dedicated to the conviction that every one of our people is entitled to the opportunity to earn a living, and to develop himself to the fullest measure consistent with the rights of his fellowmen.

You are familiar with that program. You are aware that it has found favor in the sight of the American electorate. The movement comes not from the leaders of any group, of any faction, or even of any party. It is the spontaneous expression of the aspirations of millions of individual men and women...

...There can be only one great principle to guide our course in the coming years. We have learned the lesson that extravagant advantage for the few, ultimately depresses the many.

To our cost, we have seen how, as the foundations of the false structure are undermined, all come down together. We must put behind us the idea that an uncontrolled, unbalanced economy, creating paper profits for a relatively small group, means or ever can mean prosperity....

While the families upon our farms are in want, there can be no safety for the families of the workers in our cities.

There is an interdependence in economics, just as there is a brotherhood of humanity. Loss to any is loss to all...

...The next administration must represent not a fraction of the United States, but all of the United States. No resource of mind or heart or organization can be excluded in the fight against what is, after all, our real enemy. Our real enemies are hunger, want, insecurity, poverty and fear.

Against these there is no glory in a victory only partisan.

The genius of America is stronger than any candidate or any party.

ROOSEVELT TO CONGRESS JAN. 06, 1941 - THE FOUR FREEDOMS

As men do not live by bread alone, they do not fight by armaments alone. Those who man our defenses and those behind them who build our defenses must have the stamina and the courage which come from unashakeable belief in the manner of life which they are defending. The mighty action that we are calling for cannot be based on a disregard of all the things worth fighting for. The nation takes great satisfaction and much strength from the things which have been done to make its people conscious of their individual stake in the preservation of democratic life in America. Those things have toughened the fiber of our people, have renewed their faith and strengthened their devotion to the institutions we make ready to protect. Certainly this is no time for any of us to stop thinking about the social and economic problems which are the root cause of the social revolution which is today a supreme factor in the world. For there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy. The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are : Equality of opportunity for youth and for others. Jobs for those who can work. Security for those who need it. The ending of special privilege for the few. The preservation of civil liberties for all. The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living. These are the simple, the basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world. The inner and abiding straight of our economic and political systems is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations. Many subjects connected with our social economy call for immediate improvement. As examples : We should bring more citizens under the coverage of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance. We should widen the opportunities for adequate medical care. We should plan a better system by which persons deserving or needing gainful employment may obtain it. I have called for personal sacrifice, and I am assured of the willingness of almost all Americans to respond to that call. A part of the sacrifice means the payment of more money in taxes. In my budget message I will recommend that a greater portion of this great defense program be paid for from taxation than we are paying for today. No person should try, or be allowed to get rich out of the program, and the principle of tax payments in accordance with ability to pay should be constantly before our eyes to guide our legislation. If the congress maintains these principles the voters, putting patriotism ahead pocketbooks, will give you their applause. In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression --everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way-- everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants --everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor --anywhere in the wold. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called "new order" of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb. To that new order we oppose the greater conception --the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear. Since the beginning of our American history we have been engaged in change, in a perpetual, peaceful revolution, a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly, adjusting itself to changing conditions without the concentration camp or the quicklime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society. This nation has placed its destiny in the hands, heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women, and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end save victory.

Corporations Are NOT The People

ABRAHAM LINCOLN ON CORPORATIONS

Friday, July 18, 2008

IT'LL GET WORSE BEFORE IT GETS BETTER

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