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May 18, 2013
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 Bernie Sanders, a Violin and the Disappearing Middle ClassPosted on Jul 23, 2011
In December, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., made a noble attempt to filibuster against the extension of the Bush tax cuts. Predictably, his effort failed, and President Obama and members of the 111th Congress assumed responsibility for $858 billion in public money lost over the following two years. Sanders’ testament serves as a rare archive of grim and disgusting statistics rarely mentioned by U.S. politicians and the mainstream press. Fortunately, Nation Books published his eight-and-a-half-hour speech in March, and excerpts have appeared in numerous articles and videos all over the Internet, including this especially moving piece by multimedia artists Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese. —ARK Advertisement TAGS:
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By zonth_zonth, July 26, 2011 at 11:31 pm Link to this comment
perhaps start with the folks on deathrow.
Report thisBy Shenonymous, July 25, 2011 at 6:06 pm Link to this comment
Steve E - It looks like you are diabolically suggesting mass death of
Report thismillions of humans for what you perceive to be a solution to what you
see as overconsumerism. Are you willing to sacrifice yourself and your
family or anyone else you love to the cause? And what method of
murder do you prefer and when do you plan to start the executions?
By Steve E, July 25, 2011 at 2:16 pm Link to this comment
Bottom line, there are too many people and most of them are vile consumers. Until
Report thisyou fix that issue we and the planet are toast. It seems to me, famine, world war
or a plague would thin the soulless and useless humanity out considerably and in
short order. Still, we would eventually screw it all up. Man is a curse on the planet.
Do you think Sanders’s shallow blathering is gonna change anything. Until Bernie
and others in Congress start to condemn many of our so called representatives as
the true enemies of the nation, its all just kabuki.
By lp, July 24, 2011 at 3:06 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
For about a century now we’ve been living the fantasy of limitless energy. Our machines have had the fuel to build any sort of fairy castle we could imagine: Disneyland/world, space stations, rockets, cities in the desert, skyscrapers—we’ve forgotten to be impressed by the unimaginable hubris of that word. We take it for granted. That dream is coming to an end.
It takes millions of calories—real, not metaphorical calories—to support each of us in our modern, middle class lifestyle. Calories generated by food to fuel human muscle, fuel to power machines. The latter is getting hard to find, dangerous to mine. And its use is fouling the only home humankind will ever have.
We have to de-globalize. Not because we hate or distrust the Chinese, Japanese or Muslims. We aren’t going to have the fuel to run a global economy. Five years, fifty. Doesn’t matter. We have to re-localize our economy.
Progressives seem to think this is the time to “rebuild our infrastructure.” Which parts? Fixing the interstates instead of rebuilding the railroads and roads between towns (that we’ve bypassed so recently) would be completely wrong-headed.
Their only idea is to crank the consumer economy back up full steam.
Continue stealing raw materials from third world countries. Supporting dictators who let that happen. All the trappings of empire progressives conveniently ignore until a shooting war breaks out. A world of sweat shops to support shopaholics and tatoo parlors.
Working people create wealth; thieves create riches.
Report thisBy Shenonymous, July 24, 2011 at 12:25 pm Link to this comment
I would have had their names shown on the placards each character
Report thisheld. The video did omit the puppetmaster Rove and one of the
celebrity puppets, Gonzales.
By SoTexGuy, July 24, 2011 at 10:58 am Link to this comment
Check out that YouTube author’s collection.. informative and inspiring..
Excellent example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=AviOb1Y6qHQ
Report thisBy Shenonymous, July 24, 2011 at 10:22 am Link to this comment
The unbridled greed of the corporate power and wealthy, the 1%ers,
tripled since the 70s. We have two choices, Stand Together, or let the
country devolve into two extreme edges: the poor and the wealthy.
The Deep Blue Democrats must retrieve their core principles and learn
what the words prevail and determination mean.
It is advocated here that the middle class be allowed to disappear.
Report thisThat the demarcation between those 1% who have the wealth and
hence power, and those who are bereft, depleted, ill-provided with
no hope, that the periphery is the condition of life be acceptable be the
is illustration of life, that capitulation to an enslavement out of which
would never be possible be permitted to happen. It is a condition not
worth living and all 99% ought to simply commit mass suicide, and give
the entire Earth to the wealthy forgetting there was ever a possibility of
upward mobility, which was a phantasmic vision. It is that, or… we
courageously redraw reality.
By Louis Patrick, July 23, 2011 at 10:22 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Yes, the middle class is disappearing. Good! The sooner the better. It’s a failed experiment. We keep building highways to nowhere; that’s what the MC is. Wasteful, lazy, self-indulgent. Consumptive.
We’re killing the earth. We’ve set China, India, Japan, Korea and much of the rest of the world on the same self-destructive path.
It’s time to abandon killing carbon fuels and go back to work with our hands. To restore the dignity and honor of working people.
And give them the wealth they generate.
Report this