Friday, July 3, 2009
Emails to the President
I'm a public school social studies teacher and a campaign worker for you. What happened to withdrawing out troops from Iraq. What happened to fixing NAFTA and GATT? Lobbyist seem to have taken over the executive branch, again. The Rolling Stone article, "The Great American Bubble Machine " has turned my stomach towards the Democratic party that I have always supported. Do the bankers own you? The #1 thing to change the culture of politics is to take away private financing of elections. Our country is rotting away from the inside out. I believed in you Mr. President, don't let them corrupt you.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
THOM HARTMANN'S INDEPENDENT THINKER REVIEW OF THE MONTH FOR BUZZFLASH
THOM HARTMANN'S INDEPENDENT THINKER REVIEW OF THE MONTH FOR BUZZFLASH
The Republican Great Depression of 1929-1939 has been an unending source of mystery, fascination, and disinformation for the past four generations. As you’re reading these words, there’s a huge push on by conservative think-tanks and wealthy political activists to reinvent the history, suggesting that Roosevelt prolonged the Depression or that New Deal programs were ineffective. At the same time, folks like David Sirota are valiantly pushing back with actual facts and statistics, showing that Roosevelt’s New Deal was startlingly effective, particularly when compared with the Republican policies of 1920-1929 that formed the bubble that crashed in 1929, and the Republican failures to deal with its consequences during the last three years of the Herbert Hoover administration (1929-1933).
To really understand what brought about the great crash, however, it’s most useful to read an historical narrative written by one of the world’s preeminent economists when that world-changing event was still fresh in his and his readers’ minds. “The Great Crash” is that book, first written by Galbraith in 1953-54 (and published in 1955) and updated for modern readers in 1997 (the author is now deceased).
Reading The Great Crash is an eerie experience; it’s as if somebody had taken the Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush years – particularly the W. Bush years – and written a screenplay about them, just changing the names. The parallels between the Republican zeal for deregulation and “free” markets of the bubble 1920s and the bubble 1990s and 2000s are shocking, particularly given that Ben Bernanke’s PhD theses was on the Republican Great Depression and there is no shortage of so-called “experts” on the topic in the Bush administration and both political parties.
Still, in retrospect, there it is. And its damn near impossible to read this book without coming to the conclusion that when the current generation knowledgeable of the Republican Great Depression of 2007-201? dies off, as the generation that remembered the RGD of 1929 has largely recently died off, history will again repeat itself. There will always be greedy men and women, and there will, in all probability, always be Republicans trying to elevate greed into a noble philosophical construct.
There was even, in late 1929, the era’s own Bernie Madoff – a fellow by the name of Clarence Hatry. All the players are there. An incompetent president, regulators willing to look the other way, libertarian ideologues who think they’ll change the world for the better (and get rich at the same time), Democrats and free-market skeptics yelling, a hype-driven press, insiders making out, average people getting wiped out. It’s all there.
And, perhaps most interesting, because this is history, we get to find out how it turned out, what helped and hurt, and extrapolate from that what we should be doing now.
The Great Crash is a quick Saturday afternoon read at a comfortable and well-written 194 pages. It’s difficult to put down once you start; it reads like a novel. And you’ll be infuriated, entertained, and – ultimately – enlightened and better prepared to deal with the further downturn that is certainly coming.
Thom Hartmann is a New York Times bestselling Project Censored Award winning author and host of a daily talk show on Air America Radio. You can learn more about Thom Hartmann at his website and find out what stations broadcast his program. You can also listen to Thom over the Internet.
The Republican Great Depression of 1929-1939 has been an unending source of mystery, fascination, and disinformation for the past four generations. As you’re reading these words, there’s a huge push on by conservative think-tanks and wealthy political activists to reinvent the history, suggesting that Roosevelt prolonged the Depression or that New Deal programs were ineffective. At the same time, folks like David Sirota are valiantly pushing back with actual facts and statistics, showing that Roosevelt’s New Deal was startlingly effective, particularly when compared with the Republican policies of 1920-1929 that formed the bubble that crashed in 1929, and the Republican failures to deal with its consequences during the last three years of the Herbert Hoover administration (1929-1933).
To really understand what brought about the great crash, however, it’s most useful to read an historical narrative written by one of the world’s preeminent economists when that world-changing event was still fresh in his and his readers’ minds. “The Great Crash” is that book, first written by Galbraith in 1953-54 (and published in 1955) and updated for modern readers in 1997 (the author is now deceased).
Reading The Great Crash is an eerie experience; it’s as if somebody had taken the Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush years – particularly the W. Bush years – and written a screenplay about them, just changing the names. The parallels between the Republican zeal for deregulation and “free” markets of the bubble 1920s and the bubble 1990s and 2000s are shocking, particularly given that Ben Bernanke’s PhD theses was on the Republican Great Depression and there is no shortage of so-called “experts” on the topic in the Bush administration and both political parties.
Still, in retrospect, there it is. And its damn near impossible to read this book without coming to the conclusion that when the current generation knowledgeable of the Republican Great Depression of 2007-201? dies off, as the generation that remembered the RGD of 1929 has largely recently died off, history will again repeat itself. There will always be greedy men and women, and there will, in all probability, always be Republicans trying to elevate greed into a noble philosophical construct.
There was even, in late 1929, the era’s own Bernie Madoff – a fellow by the name of Clarence Hatry. All the players are there. An incompetent president, regulators willing to look the other way, libertarian ideologues who think they’ll change the world for the better (and get rich at the same time), Democrats and free-market skeptics yelling, a hype-driven press, insiders making out, average people getting wiped out. It’s all there.
And, perhaps most interesting, because this is history, we get to find out how it turned out, what helped and hurt, and extrapolate from that what we should be doing now.
The Great Crash is a quick Saturday afternoon read at a comfortable and well-written 194 pages. It’s difficult to put down once you start; it reads like a novel. And you’ll be infuriated, entertained, and – ultimately – enlightened and better prepared to deal with the further downturn that is certainly coming.
Thom Hartmann is a New York Times bestselling Project Censored Award winning author and host of a daily talk show on Air America Radio. You can learn more about Thom Hartmann at his website and find out what stations broadcast his program. You can also listen to Thom over the Internet.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Commentary: Secrets to success in Washington
By Ed Rollins
CNN Contributor
Editor's Note: Ed Rollins, who served as political director for President Ronald Reagan, is a Republican strategist who was national chairman of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's 2008 presidential campaign.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- To most Democrats and many Americans, the Bush/Cheney nightmare is over!
With the start of the new Congress, and President Barack Obama's inauguration two weeks away, there is a new hope that both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue can work together on some of the most serious problems facing this country in recent history.
The answers to solving those problems may not be apparent to ordinary Americans, but what they do know is the old way didn't work. And the voter's patience will be short, because they need help -- and they are scared.
As a veteran of several administrations who has worked in the White House and in Congress, I have watched a lot of smart people come to town with massive ideas and end up failing big time. So I am going to offer some unsolicited advice.
First to the Democrats:
Remember the game is now all yours. If you get the problems solved, the glory is all yours, too. If you fail, you don't have Bush and Cheney to blame anymore -- or any other Republican, for that matter.
The consequences of your actions will be far reaching. You are about to change the order of things and it's imperative that you work hard, make careful decisions and be strategic and look to the long view.
Don't be rushed by current events. Do something Congress has never done before. Plan. Read the bills that you are passing. And think of the kids who are going to have to pay for all this in the future.
To Speaker Nancy Pelosi:
Guide, don't dictate. Make your chairmen your allies, your members your customers, and punish those members who misbehave. Allow dissent but not rebellion!
Don't Miss
* Feinstein slams Obama's CIA pick
* Commentary: Can Obama, Congress share power?
* Rollins: Election 2008 is heading for history
* In Depth: Commentaries
You are still the public face of the Congress, the most unpopular body in town. You have to convince voters that you hear them and that this Congress is going to be different. If the public likes you, it will like the Congress. If it doesn't, you and your members will pay a price sooner or later.
Never be strident or petty. The steel fist inside the velvet glove is the rule. Think political at all times but never appear political. And don't be partisan. Be the leader of the House and always remember your party has a big majority and at the end of the day you can win.
To Majority Leader Harry Reid:
Seat Roland Burris! This is one battle you don't need. The last thing you and your caucus wants now -- or the new president needs -- is a battle over seating his replacement for the last two years of his term.
Roland Burris is a distinguished trailblazer who has been elected statewide four times. He will also be one of your safest votes. None of us like what Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has allegedly done, but don't make this the fight on principle to prove your point.
He is still the governor, he still has the appointment power and if the criminal justice system finds him guilty, he will be sitting in jail long after you and Sen. Burris are retired.
Also remember that after Inauguration Day, you are the most unpopular figure (according to polls) in town and not much better back home. Tone down your rhetoric. You can ask your pal Tom Daschle (former senator and majority leader from South Dakota) how one of the biggest men in town can lose his seat back home.
To my Republican friends in the House and Senate:
Be a real opposition party. Articulate what you stand for and stand up to the president and the Democrats with ideas that can counter the direction they will be taking the country.
Don't be timid and don't feel you have to be bipartisan because the media thinks that's the way to go. Also, don't get sucked into lowest common denominator solutions and vote with the Democrats on things that violate your stated principles.
Realize you are going to be in the wilderness for a time. The country needs an opposition party and you're it. Along with the Republican governors, you are going to have to cobble together the concepts and solutions that will attract voters back to our party.
To the president-elect:
Beware of your own party. Republicans are not your problem. Each member of Congress will think they are your constitutional equal. The more senior they are, the more they will test you.
You will have to remind them from time to time that if they want to be the constitutional equal, they need to bring the other 434 members over to your office.
Either that or they can go get another 66 million or so votes to add to their congressional total to be your equal. Many will have their own agendas and some of their ideas will be good ideas. Many more will be disastrous.
Also be careful how you staff your White House. You seem to have a lot of layers. Czars and counselors and assistants galore. You may have built in conflict on your own team.
What you really need is a small loyal staff who will present you the best options for the very tough decisions you will have to make every day.
Have somebody who is your reality check who will tell you the truth. That is a tough job but desperately needed. And lastly, make only big decisions. You've got a whole government out there to make the small ones.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ed Rollins.
CNN Contributor
Editor's Note: Ed Rollins, who served as political director for President Ronald Reagan, is a Republican strategist who was national chairman of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's 2008 presidential campaign.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- To most Democrats and many Americans, the Bush/Cheney nightmare is over!
With the start of the new Congress, and President Barack Obama's inauguration two weeks away, there is a new hope that both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue can work together on some of the most serious problems facing this country in recent history.
The answers to solving those problems may not be apparent to ordinary Americans, but what they do know is the old way didn't work. And the voter's patience will be short, because they need help -- and they are scared.
As a veteran of several administrations who has worked in the White House and in Congress, I have watched a lot of smart people come to town with massive ideas and end up failing big time. So I am going to offer some unsolicited advice.
First to the Democrats:
Remember the game is now all yours. If you get the problems solved, the glory is all yours, too. If you fail, you don't have Bush and Cheney to blame anymore -- or any other Republican, for that matter.
The consequences of your actions will be far reaching. You are about to change the order of things and it's imperative that you work hard, make careful decisions and be strategic and look to the long view.
Don't be rushed by current events. Do something Congress has never done before. Plan. Read the bills that you are passing. And think of the kids who are going to have to pay for all this in the future.
To Speaker Nancy Pelosi:
Guide, don't dictate. Make your chairmen your allies, your members your customers, and punish those members who misbehave. Allow dissent but not rebellion!
Don't Miss
* Feinstein slams Obama's CIA pick
* Commentary: Can Obama, Congress share power?
* Rollins: Election 2008 is heading for history
* In Depth: Commentaries
You are still the public face of the Congress, the most unpopular body in town. You have to convince voters that you hear them and that this Congress is going to be different. If the public likes you, it will like the Congress. If it doesn't, you and your members will pay a price sooner or later.
Never be strident or petty. The steel fist inside the velvet glove is the rule. Think political at all times but never appear political. And don't be partisan. Be the leader of the House and always remember your party has a big majority and at the end of the day you can win.
To Majority Leader Harry Reid:
Seat Roland Burris! This is one battle you don't need. The last thing you and your caucus wants now -- or the new president needs -- is a battle over seating his replacement for the last two years of his term.
Roland Burris is a distinguished trailblazer who has been elected statewide four times. He will also be one of your safest votes. None of us like what Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has allegedly done, but don't make this the fight on principle to prove your point.
He is still the governor, he still has the appointment power and if the criminal justice system finds him guilty, he will be sitting in jail long after you and Sen. Burris are retired.
Also remember that after Inauguration Day, you are the most unpopular figure (according to polls) in town and not much better back home. Tone down your rhetoric. You can ask your pal Tom Daschle (former senator and majority leader from South Dakota) how one of the biggest men in town can lose his seat back home.
To my Republican friends in the House and Senate:
Be a real opposition party. Articulate what you stand for and stand up to the president and the Democrats with ideas that can counter the direction they will be taking the country.
Don't be timid and don't feel you have to be bipartisan because the media thinks that's the way to go. Also, don't get sucked into lowest common denominator solutions and vote with the Democrats on things that violate your stated principles.
Realize you are going to be in the wilderness for a time. The country needs an opposition party and you're it. Along with the Republican governors, you are going to have to cobble together the concepts and solutions that will attract voters back to our party.
To the president-elect:
Beware of your own party. Republicans are not your problem. Each member of Congress will think they are your constitutional equal. The more senior they are, the more they will test you.
You will have to remind them from time to time that if they want to be the constitutional equal, they need to bring the other 434 members over to your office.
Either that or they can go get another 66 million or so votes to add to their congressional total to be your equal. Many will have their own agendas and some of their ideas will be good ideas. Many more will be disastrous.
Also be careful how you staff your White House. You seem to have a lot of layers. Czars and counselors and assistants galore. You may have built in conflict on your own team.
What you really need is a small loyal staff who will present you the best options for the very tough decisions you will have to make every day.
Have somebody who is your reality check who will tell you the truth. That is a tough job but desperately needed. And lastly, make only big decisions. You've got a whole government out there to make the small ones.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ed Rollins.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Laissez-Faire Capitalism Should Be as Dead as Soviet Communism
Arianna Huffington
Posted December 22, 2008 | 02:47 PM (EST)
The collapse of Communism as a political system sounded the death knell for Marxism as an ideology. But while laissez-faire capitalism has been a monumental failure in practice, and soundly defeated at the polls, the ideology is still alive and kicking.
The only place you can find an American Marxist these days is teaching a college linguistic theory class. But you can find all manner of free market fundamentalists still on the Senate floor or in Governor's mansions or showing up on TV trying to peddle the deregulation snake oil.
Take Sen. John Ensign, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, who went on Face the Nation and, with a straight face, said of the economic meltdown: "Unfortunately, it was allowed to be portrayed that this was a result of deregulation, when in fact it was a result of overregulation."
Or Gov. Mark Sanford, who told Joe Scarborough he was against bailing out the auto industry because it would "threaten the very market-based system that has created the wealth that this country has enjoyed."
If a politician announced he was running on a platform of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" he would be laughed off the stage. That is also the correct response to anyone who continues to make the case that markets do best when left alone.
It's time to drive the final nail into the coffin of laissez-faire capitalism by treating it like the discredited ideology it inarguably is. If not, the Dr. Frankensteins of the right will surely try to revive the monster and send it marauding through our economy once again.
We've only just begun to bury the financially dead, and the free market fundamentalists are already looking to deflect the blame.
In a comprehensive piece on what led to the mortgage crisis and the subsequent financial meltdown, the New York Times shows how the Bush administration's devotion to unregulated markets was a primary cause of our economy to ruin. But the otherwise fascinating piece puts too much focus on the "mistakes" the Bush team made by not paying attention to the warning signs popping up all around them.
"There is no question we did not recognize the severity of the problems," claimed Al Hubbard, Bush's former chief economic adviser. "Had we, we would have attacked them."
But the mistake wasn't in not recognizing the "severity of the problems" -- the mistake was the ideology that led to the problems. Communism didn't fail because Soviet leaders didn't execute it well enough. Same with free market fundamentalism. In fact, Bush and his team did a bang-up job executing a defective theory. The problem wasn't just the bathwater; the baby itself is rotten to the core.
William Seidman, the longtime GOP economic advisor who oversaw the S&L bailout in 1991, cuts to the chase: "This administration made decisions that allowed the free market to operate as a barroom brawl instead of a prize fight. To make the market work well, you have to have a lot of rules."
Even Alan Greenspan, whose owl-eyed visage would adorn a Mount Rushmore of unregulated capitalists, has begun to see the light, telling a House committee in October that he "made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms."
But most Republicans are still refusing to see what's right in front of them. Especially Bush, our CEO president, who lays the blame not on the failures of the marketplace but on past administrations and corporate greed. "Wall Street got drunk," he says. Maybe so, but who made the last 8 years Happy Hour, and kept serving up the drinks?
Last week, Ben Smith reported that the GOP was launching "a new, in-house think tank aimed at reviving the party's policy heft." In a private memo explaining the think tank, RNC chairman Mike Duncan wrote: "We must show how our ideology can be applied to solve problems." But, of course, it's that very ideology that's causing the problems. It's like the old horror movie cliché: "We've traced the call -- it's coming from inside the house!"
We've got to do everything we can to make sure there will be no sequels to this political horror. The blame shifters cannot be allowed to make their case without the truth being pointed out at every turn. It's time to relegate free market fundamentalists to the same standing as Marxist ideologues: intellectual curiosities occasionally trotted out as relics of a failed philosophy.
Posted December 22, 2008 | 02:47 PM (EST)
The collapse of Communism as a political system sounded the death knell for Marxism as an ideology. But while laissez-faire capitalism has been a monumental failure in practice, and soundly defeated at the polls, the ideology is still alive and kicking.
The only place you can find an American Marxist these days is teaching a college linguistic theory class. But you can find all manner of free market fundamentalists still on the Senate floor or in Governor's mansions or showing up on TV trying to peddle the deregulation snake oil.
Take Sen. John Ensign, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, who went on Face the Nation and, with a straight face, said of the economic meltdown: "Unfortunately, it was allowed to be portrayed that this was a result of deregulation, when in fact it was a result of overregulation."
Or Gov. Mark Sanford, who told Joe Scarborough he was against bailing out the auto industry because it would "threaten the very market-based system that has created the wealth that this country has enjoyed."
If a politician announced he was running on a platform of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" he would be laughed off the stage. That is also the correct response to anyone who continues to make the case that markets do best when left alone.
It's time to drive the final nail into the coffin of laissez-faire capitalism by treating it like the discredited ideology it inarguably is. If not, the Dr. Frankensteins of the right will surely try to revive the monster and send it marauding through our economy once again.
We've only just begun to bury the financially dead, and the free market fundamentalists are already looking to deflect the blame.
In a comprehensive piece on what led to the mortgage crisis and the subsequent financial meltdown, the New York Times shows how the Bush administration's devotion to unregulated markets was a primary cause of our economy to ruin. But the otherwise fascinating piece puts too much focus on the "mistakes" the Bush team made by not paying attention to the warning signs popping up all around them.
"There is no question we did not recognize the severity of the problems," claimed Al Hubbard, Bush's former chief economic adviser. "Had we, we would have attacked them."
But the mistake wasn't in not recognizing the "severity of the problems" -- the mistake was the ideology that led to the problems. Communism didn't fail because Soviet leaders didn't execute it well enough. Same with free market fundamentalism. In fact, Bush and his team did a bang-up job executing a defective theory. The problem wasn't just the bathwater; the baby itself is rotten to the core.
William Seidman, the longtime GOP economic advisor who oversaw the S&L bailout in 1991, cuts to the chase: "This administration made decisions that allowed the free market to operate as a barroom brawl instead of a prize fight. To make the market work well, you have to have a lot of rules."
Even Alan Greenspan, whose owl-eyed visage would adorn a Mount Rushmore of unregulated capitalists, has begun to see the light, telling a House committee in October that he "made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms."
But most Republicans are still refusing to see what's right in front of them. Especially Bush, our CEO president, who lays the blame not on the failures of the marketplace but on past administrations and corporate greed. "Wall Street got drunk," he says. Maybe so, but who made the last 8 years Happy Hour, and kept serving up the drinks?
Last week, Ben Smith reported that the GOP was launching "a new, in-house think tank aimed at reviving the party's policy heft." In a private memo explaining the think tank, RNC chairman Mike Duncan wrote: "We must show how our ideology can be applied to solve problems." But, of course, it's that very ideology that's causing the problems. It's like the old horror movie cliché: "We've traced the call -- it's coming from inside the house!"
We've got to do everything we can to make sure there will be no sequels to this political horror. The blame shifters cannot be allowed to make their case without the truth being pointed out at every turn. It's time to relegate free market fundamentalists to the same standing as Marxist ideologues: intellectual curiosities occasionally trotted out as relics of a failed philosophy.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
2008 Thankgiving Frank Factor
At this Thanksgiving dinner I will toast some very, very wonderful things to be thankful for; my friends, family Frank Factor supporters and the collapse of Republicanism, and the utter failure of the unregulated free market doo doo economic theory. Also cause for thanks, an election outcome that put a dent in American racism, fear mongering and paranoia. One of my sincere hopes for future Thanksgiving toasts will be the death of homophobia, another relic of the socially retarded. And maybe beyond that the relegation of Religion to the same fate as The Pet Rock.
For some the resounding implosions we hear of right wing financial and ideological failure will be denied. They'll claim that there just wasn't enough "no regulation" and that a one man Muslim terrorist sleeper cell pied pipered hapless dupes into supporting him for election as President of the United States.
Those suffering from these delusions are many of the same people that believe in talking snakes, three day weekends inside whale bellies and that Sarah Palin is Presidential material.Many of them worship the blubber of that famous unicorn salesmen Milton Friedman and sociopath Ayn Rand. Peddling their religion of uber-hedonism like Jerry Falwell selling shame to the morally and ethically hobbled. The damaged and psychologically infirm hoping to be made whole and cleansed of the original sin of self examination, altruism, compassion and reality.
For eight of the longest political years of my life I have had to suffer the administration of George W. Bush; a grotesque monster made of arrogance, ignorance and violence patched together with the thread of propaganda and intimidation. Everyday tainted by the tint and stench of mendacity, hubris, violence and contempt. Now, thankfully, those days will be coming to an end very soon.
Will the Republicanistas be replaced by angels of goodness? Hardly, but with the bar set to such depths Millard Fillmore and Richard Nixon are saints by comparison. And as the disgraced criminals of the Bush Administration slither out the back door they leave the world with another catastrophe as a parting gift- the utter collapse of the world financial market and the shackling of every single American and their children with tens of thousands of dollars of debt.
The party of moral and financial superiority has shit the bed and left the building. Granted, there were some rotten Democrats in this poison concoction of selfishness but by far the best friends of corporations, greed and graft are the Republicanistas.
The party that scrutinizes every single tax dollar to see that it doesn't risk ending up in the hands of some shiftless minority or providing health care to the working poor, rebuilding and equipping public schools, helping Americans get college educations, advancing clean energy, or any other horrible "communist" enterprise that might provide for the welfare of American citizens has just financed their own failure with your money- tax payer money. More accurately, your labor and the labor of your children into the future. The tax haters are in line for their hand outs. If they had any sense of shame they would NEVER whine about taxes and government assistance ever again. But you can bet they will.
Remember when Bush wanted to privatize Social Security? What a fuckin' joke! More of that brilliant self-reliance fiscal bull shit. It has finally be laid out plain as the nose on your face- these low tax, free market, self reliant, moral giants are colossal frauds and intellectual neanderthals. They are stricken with a moral illness that prevents them from giving a shit about anyone but themselves. Fearful, violent witch hunters, empty moral midgets and ethical pygmies that protect themselves from themselves with denial, superstition and Religion -and now tax dollars.
This lesson comes to us at a tremendous cost so to maximize our return on investment I recommend we never forget who and what put us in this position and at what price. As of this date, the cost of the debt we are paying to amoral wall street gamblers and liars looks something like this:
Adding the cost of The Marshall Plan, Louisiana Purchase, Race to the Moon, S&L Crisis, Korean War,The New Deal, Invasion of Iraq, Vietnam War, and NASA: you come up with a total of $3.92 trillion dollars... Inflation Adjusted dollars!
The current Wall Street gamblers, liars and failures bailout is costing us $4.62 trillion dollars. As as I speak more billions are being added. It is estimated to be approaching 8 TRILLION dollars! And these right wing twits want you to believe Barney Frank and ACORN pulled this off ( RADS, Republican Accountability Denial Syndrome).
Universal health care, securing Social Security, providing books and supplies for our children's class rooms, enhancing veteran's benefits? Those are godless Communist programs for which we can not spend those precious tax dollars. Picking up the tab for billionaires who lost money gambling on irresponsible bets and playing multi-billion dollar ponzi schemes? That's the patriotic, self reliant thing to do. What better way to spend those evil, ill gotten tax dollars? Spend them on anyone but the poor and working class.
On this Thanksgiving I pray we never forget the Bush Cheney disaster and the crash of the Republican corporate free market, diaper changing ideology. You're paying for it and will be for a long time. If we've learned our lesson, we can be thankful.
Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
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