DHFabian,

It is tragic what has been done to the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION by the Nobles and Nearly Nobles, but if the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION will forget their differences over trivial matters, become aware of who they are united, and the power and control they possess when united, and start pulling together in unison as the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION they are, knowing who they are, and the power they possess united, leaders will emerge and the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION united, can and will be able to turn the Nobles and Nearly Nobles PLAY HOUSE completely around.

Awareness is the choice that is going to have to be made by each member of the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION to the betterment of the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION.

Prior to Clinton, families hit by hard times fell back on welfare if their unemployment benefits were exhausted. Welfare rolls would always rise significantly with economic downturns, then fall significantly when the economy improved.  Welfare always did primarily go to working people, with some going to those with significant limitations (physical/mental disabilities, caretakers of a seriously ill relative, etc.) Low wage jobs tend to be temporary, and welfare tided people over in between jobs (which is why the great majority of recipients received welfare for only between 3-6 months).

It’s tragic that we let the government shred the social safety net.

I like the theme of health whether it is mind, spirit, or body.  I do believe that is the direction the oppressed must move.  I haven’t been formally active in any organized religion for the better part of my life, however the 2 years of Sunday school that I did attend as a child have taught me references that I often refer to today.

I have read much of the hidden history of Corporations throughout U.S. History.  Things were very different prior to the 1880’s when Corporations were granted Personhood.  Not only did they become recognized as persons they eventually were granted limited liability.  Members of the board of directors liability is reduced only to their holdings of stock of the corporation.

A Corporation is not a person it has no conscience.  Its sole concern is making profits and it does not care about the human investment into making those profits.  We have seen boards who were not even concerned with making profits for the shareholders.  They have munipulated the share price up then dumped their holdings.  They have run their corporations into the ground because they could depend on taxpayers to bail them out.  Sometimes they may be removed for their malicious behavior only to have a golden parachute reserved for their egress from power.

The whole system as it is lends itself to corruption.  Not only are corporations people but a corporation is also a minority so they can be futher protected.  They generate huge sums of money and if they share it with the right lawmakers they will continue to reap enormous benifits. 

They are imortal because really they are no more then an assembly of paper with a few signatures.  They will never bleed or die a terrible death.

We need a whole round of new biting regulations, but what do the oppressed have to motivate the lawmakers.  After all the majority of lawmakers are lawyers who can look good losing or winning their arguments and they will do their best to do whatever puts the most money in their pockets.

I think the unemployed better roar before the elite turns off our chips because it won’t be long before all the slaves better make themselves useful or they will be exterminated.

“Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness sake”

Casey Seven——You forgot to mention where you
watched the program about Ralph Nader.  Sounds like
you have an excellent regime of dieting and exercising.  Keep it up.  I have to force myself to
do the same.  It almost has to become like bootcamp
in the military.  Discipline!  Discipline! Discipline!  The large multi-national corporations
have been using an old military tact.  Diversion!
The divert the masses with ballgames, corrupt movies,
television programs,etc., insted of making the masses
aware how their thoughts and behaviors are being
conditioned to eat foods which make them obese.  That
could be done in the school systems but the economy
has been so manipulated that school systems don’t have the money to do so.  Looking forward to reading
your book.  I am also writing a book for teenagers
about how the Bible relates to their everyday lives.
I’m a long way from completing it but I’ll go back
to what I said previously, it takes DISCIPLINE!

Christian96:

Speaking of the unemployed and workers in general, I just finished a great book called The End of Over Eating.  Written by a former head of the FDA, it goes to great lengths to show how chain restaurants hide the high amounts of salt, fat and sugar in the their food, and how that content makes us food addicts, addicted to a high level of calories that our sedentary lifestyles simply do no justify or burn up. 

There is a supreme irony in this:  Paying for health care is a burden for businesses and individuals because so many Americans are obese (more than 30 pounds over weight).  But those same people who don’t want business responsible for providing insurance, who don’t want government providing insurance, also don’t want the government to regulate how corporate restaurants fatten us with food like cows on our way to slaughter. They don’t realize how certain corporations have been irresponsible and downright diabolical in their behavior and it’s making health care more expensive for everyone because so many people are in bad shape. 

It’s why this article is interesting. Workers need to rise up, not just because of unemployment, but also because they are being lied to and fooled on every front, from the amount they pay for health care to the amount salt, fat and sugar in their food.  It’s literally killing and bankrupting us.

Much of the lying and fooling comes about by making us hate each other. You are a Christian. I am not. But your beliefs are none of my business.  What I do care about is how we are both being bent over a barrel by the powers that be. While we’re fighting each other, they’re sticking it to us.  It’s time to start overlooking what they want us to fight about—the wedge issues—and look for what we both have in common that we could improve to make our lives better, better for us, better for descendants.   

As for your question, I have been controlling my portions and exercising up to two hours a day, sometimes just doing push-ups and taking a short walk, other days busting it at the gym. I have no choice. I’m young and I have heriditary heart disease that won’t kill me; it will just take my mind and my ability to have sex long before either should wither on the vine. I loosely follow a Mediterranean diet: Nuts for snacks, lots of tomatoes and garlic, olive oil in judicious amounts, plenty of fish, plenty of fruits and vegetables. 

The theme of my book is how managers in corporate America often have the same ambitions, drives, and morals of sex industry workers who work legally in LA in the adult entertainment industry. It’s a book of poetry if you can believe that.  I’m not expecting it on the bestseller list anytime soon, I can tell you that. Like I say, Publisher is saying mid-August for release. 

Kesey Seven

Kesey Seven——Sounds like you are trying to get in
shape.  Keep up the good work.  I joined a gym about
3 weeks ago and have been there twice.  Not much
will power.  As the old saying goes, “I can overcome
everything but temptation!” Ha!  I’m 5” 10” and weigh
208 pounds.  I graduated from high school in 1958 at
165 pounds.  It’s Monday morning.  I’m going to get
serious.  I’m going up to the track and walk two miles and then go down to the gym and workout with
light weights.  I moved from Ohio to Florida on
December 1st.  The trailer I was renting starting
on December 1st was right next door to a Wendy’s.
How many 1/2 pounders with cheese do you think I ate
over the basketball season.  Every now and then I’d
through in a double cheese burger with large french
fries and a large diet pepsi from McDonald’s.  The
Bible reads, “You reap what you sow!”  What channel
was the program about Ralph Nader on?  I am on DISH
network and looked all over the channels for the
program.  I liked Ralph Nader.  I thoght he was
serious about trying to do right for people and the
planet.  I voted for him several years ago and realiized I had wasted my vote.  I took a vote away
from someone else.  Well, you take care and keep at
the exercise.  Do you follow a strict diet?  Instead
of a diet I’m trying to change my life style.  By the
way, what’s the general premise of your book?

There will be no outcry…..

the premis that the loss of unemployment benefits will trigger mass misery manifested in uproar is laughable.

unemployment benefits do not provide a “safety net.” they do not tide people over until they secure new employment. those that exist on these “benefits” are in real trouble. I collect $300 per week. I live in the Florida Keys. I live modestly. this “benefit” covers maybe 35% of my fixed monthly expenses. and that is before I eat.

it is a disgrace.

Hi Christian96:

Yep. I went for the walk, went for a swim this morning, too, and went to the gym this afternoon.  Trying to reverse some things but it takes time.

Yeah, on this blog, I tend to quote other people’s rhymes, but I’ve been known to write a word or two myself, though not very rhythmical. My book is due out next month. I’ll let you know when it’s published. But to paraphrase the ol’ guy in Brighty of the Grand Canyon:  Oh, you ain’t a-gonna like it, Sheriff.

More on topic, tonight I’m watching a documentary called An Unreasonable Man. It’s about Ralph Nader, but more interestingly it notes how the decline of Nader’s power in Washington and with the media coincided with the rise of Ronald Reagan and the rise of lobbyists and right-wing think-tanks controlling Congress.  It culminated in George W. Bush taking power. 

I know a lot of people have strong opinions about Nader but do check out the movie and remember this: Gore chose Lieberman—yes, the guy who spoke at the Republican convention in 2008—as his running mate. Gore might be a great environmentalist and a great PowerPoint presenter, but as a presidential candidate, his judgment was foul. But I digress. Just check out An Unreasonable Man, the Nader documentary.  Good stuff.

Kesey Seven

Once we were proud citizens.  Then we were demoted to mere consumers.  Now we are expendable.

Kesey Seven——Did you go for that walk?  Ya, I’d
like to see the big shots fix it up so that people
on the bottom of the deck got to enjoy some of that
money while they’re still walkin around on earth
but you know and I know, IT AIN’T GOIN HAPPEN!
I see you like to play with rhymin words.  My
grandpa worked 50 years in the coal mines of Tenn.,
Kentucky and West Virginia.  He use to say:

Make you a rhyme
Any old time
Come rain or come shine
For a nickle or a dime.

Where’d you git those little red shoes?
Where’d yo git that dress so fine?
Got the shoes from a railroad man
got the dress from a driver in the mine!

there will be no roar…........there will only be calls for free anti-depressants that Big Pharma
will be more than happy to dispense lest the masses
actually do get straight enough to notice they are
being screwed.  we are a complaicent bunch of sheep.
we are so afraid of losing what little we do have,
we are too scared to make any waves.

We are always knocking the French, but anytime they
get their shorts in a wad - they take to the streets
and shut the country down.  That used to be us…...

Clash:

You have the right to free speech
as long you’re not dumb enough
to actually try it

or how about this one:

i believe in this and it’s been tested by research
he who ... will later join the church

Yeah, that Joe Strummer had a way with words, now didn’t he?

my daddy was bank robber
but he never hurt nobody
he just loved to live that way
and he loved to steal your money

Not sure if Joe wrote that last one or not. Coulda been a cover. 

Ah, if the music could talk

Where are the so called captains of industry? Those that have raped and abused the populace of the world all the while stuffing their pockets for past 50 years.
How can an economy based on consumption be made to work when the very consumers that allow it to exist no longer are able to participate? What use is a fractional banking system built to provide credit, when the would be the debtors can no longer repay that debt? So the banks have their money back, and we get unemployment, foreclosure, and a promise that things are going to change.

Rise up? Revolution? That’s a good one. There is an inability for even those that are well practiced at this rhetoric to stay focused on a common idea, goal or cause. As of yet I have not even seen the ability of any propagandist to tolerate a difference in opinion let alone hold a tolerant exchange of ideas. As for the streets, until the populace is ready for the sacrifice needed when self defense is required, they will find the government unmoved.

Unemployment will continue, the war will go on, the numbers of impoverished will increase, the rich will hoard their wealth, until we all decide to drop the ropes pulling the stones for the pyramids.

Christian96:

You make a good point.  The money seems to be injected at the top of the system with the hope that it will trickle down.  What you describe seems much more likely to work. Place the money lower in the system and let it percolate up. Money always percolates up; it rarely trickles down. 

The Internet itself could use an infrastructure upgrade. Sure would be nice to download at four gigabytes per second. But that would take a lot of pipes, a lot of conduit, a lot of digital lines, a lot of work.  Hmm.  Seems like there are some people around looking for work…. 

Yeah, overall—unless it’s been Obabma’s plan all along to ask for two stimulus packages—the first one seems like a bust.  Businesses don’t let money go down once they get it. They spread it around their executives, they invest it in mergers that usually result in layoffs, they flush it away on CEO bonuses, but they don’t let it trickle down unless it’s an accident, call it corporate incontinence. 

The money needs to start lower in the system. Help the homeowners, help the workers, help the underemployed and the unemployed. Their money does go in the system, it does go in banks, it peculates up and spreads around a nice rich aroma: money. 

Alright, Christan96, I just finished my salad, I’m about to eat some chicken, and after that it’s time for a walk.  Hopefully I’ll meet a friend along the way who can keep a conversation going.

Cheers.

Kesey Seven

Good post, Kesey, on the function of hte American truth system.  But the people will eventually rise up, again and again, as part of an historical process as the US power system degenerates.  But not led by the unemployed.

How about putting the unemployed to work on the
failing infrastructures throughout America.  Instead
of just handing out money put these people to work.
Have the government assist contractors to convert
many homes on the market into two home houses for
the people working on the infrastructures.  Then,
let the government co-sign for bank loans to help
the people working on the infrastructures to buy
the homes they are living in.  Come on folks, quit
watching TV long enough to come up with some ideas
for helping our country.  Maybe people working 40
hours a week should get the same pay for only 30
hours a week.  Then, hire other people to fill up
the hours vacated in the cut from 40 to 30 hours.
Throw in a national insurance plan along with some
American auto companies producing a better product
than Japan and Germany, cars that get at least 50 mph
and run efficiently.  Where is that good old American initiative?  By the way, start eating fruits, vegetables, fish, drinking a lot of water,
and walking an hour a day.  I thought Americans
took pride in being fighters.  Well, get off that
lard behind, and get to work.

Yes, I have to agree with the folks who say it is unlikely the unemployed will roar. 

We’ve been in a constant and perpetual state of war since 1941, with varying degrees of hot and cold, death and mayhem for Americans. But the war has been constant and vicious for the rest of the world. 

One thing that has been constant and consistent for Americans has been a clamping down on the communication systems.  In the 1950s when the American intelligence agencies were regularly attempting to overthrow governments, parachuting men to their deaths in attempted coup attempts in Eastern Europe and successfully overthrowing governments in South America and the Middle East, what were Americans watching?  Leave it to Beaver.  Obscene comment here.

We have grown up with it. Elder journalists have been brainwashed slowly over time that “security” justifies censorship; when the reality is most of government “covert” operations are known very well by our enemies. The only people who don’t know about them are American citizens, not at first anyway. 

From there, when our jobs require a lot of time and our government forces us to live beyond our means or be faced with sending our kids to crappy schools and attempting to live without health care, we don’t have time for politics. 

And the television media of course is the most censored form of communication in the history of humanity. Television news serves as a public whipping post to humiliate ordinary citizens. It is the dreaded nun, the a-hole principal, the sodomizing priest, the philandering preacher, the cruel mother, the violent father—it is what keeps us in our place when our place is bad. 

All of this prevents people from speaking out. Or when they do, it’s what allows their voices to be drowned in the noise. That’s the secret of American “free speech.”  Let anyone say what they want, write what they want, publish what they want.  But drown them out with network television, local news, and “family” newspapers.

And above all, keep the schools crappy. Keep health care just out of reach. Keep them scrambling, working like madmen and when they become unemployed, they’ll blame themselves. They won’t join together and roar; they huddle alone and whimper.

Here’s to hoping I’m wrong.

Kesey Seven

The unemployed are noy going to roar. They are going to struggle. From week to week and from day to day. And they are going to hope for help that will not arrive and cannot arrive from this government. Their jobs have been shipped overseas and they are not coming back. But our government will allocate more billions to AIG and their compadres. It’s the new downward spiral of the new depression. It’ll take historians a few decades to figure out why we complacently allowed this to happen. Grab another mouthful of grass and say “Moo…...”

Paul, it was Liebknect’s colleague Rosa Luxembourg who said that the major enemy is at home, but I’m surre he agreed with it.  They formed the Sparticist League fter the main Social Democratic party supported WW1. Lenin was shocked when they sold out, having opposed the war until it occurred.

When I started my primary profession as an apprentice receiving half my H&W benifit I was easily able to pay my premiums plus deductables.  I worked more hours / year then and I usually had excess that I could get reimbursed for non covered medical expenses. 

Now I have to work just shy of 1800 hours at more then twice the contribution to pay just my premiums.  What used to be a $100.00 / person deductable $500.00 / family is now $500.00 / person $1000.00 per family as a single parent with children with 80%/20% on the next $1000.00.  Thats what managed competion did for my family.

We need Single payer healthcare at least for basic coverage to include dental.  Any other plan is just going to morph the same old racket into another racket for the insurance companies to milk.

People want to work.  People take pride in producing products in a team effort.  It gives them value, a social outlet and the pride of being part of something.  The system run by greedy racketeers pay off the lawmakers in order to rob the consumers.

Wouldn’t it be great if Congress, supposedly representing all of the unemployed victims of the economic crises, extended Medicare benefits to ALL of the unemployed to lessen their suffering.

As Karl Liebknecht said, “THE ENEMY IS AT HOME.”

It is very difficult to organize the unemployed.  Which is why headlines in the mainstream media ‘the unemployed will roar’ is permitted.  the unemployed tend to concieve unemployment as their own fault and do not like to indentify with the other unemployed, who they do not know personally and do not have a tradition working with.  This headline and the presuppositions of this piece are more delusive propaganda.  If the unemployed roared, no class-based power system would be left standing.

It is the THREAT of unemployment by the employed that mobilizes people to action.

Mary,

I think you are quite right.  There is a dividing line between what “The United States of America” will allow from “We The People” before they will lay down their iron fists upon “US” (The People). 

“We the People” of this nation and the People who have their jobs employed by “The United States of America” have to justify within ourselves the conflicting principals signified by the oathes we took and the perverse practices currently in use in some circles.  We have to decide if we will enforce practices or orders that are UnConstitutional.

Who rules Who?  Who is the enemy?  Who are We? and Who Made Who!!!

Purple Girl,

I agree with you that this is a result of a moral decline initiated by Reagans Trickle Down principals.

It is stagering personally to know how many brothers and sisters who work in Construction that are unemployed.  Granted most of my experience is on large jobs however I have adaquate experience on smaller comercial/residential projects. 

In my home area there are and have been a number of small Commercial Projects that have received tax incentives, grants and now even stimulus money.  Too many ignor any thought of being held to either Federal or state prevailing wage requirements.  When they get caught they may be required to pay the employees the wage that legally should have gone to the employee, but seldom is there a punitive fine or a ban from bidding on the next project.

Prevailing rate requirements ensure that the workers have responsible employers with required benifit packages.  The use of idependent contractors and the unresponsible contractors make an art out of having taxpayers pick up healthcare costs and paying substandard wages where they get any enforcement agent to look the other way.  Its just one more corrupt practice that has added to our downturn.

“How many batallions does the Pope have?”. Nikita Khruschev once asked in a response to a fellow Soviet communist’s question about endless Roman Catholic denunciations of godless communism. 

“How many batallions do the unemployed have?”, Obama asks when questioned about the desperation of the unemployed.  “If they get out in the streets en masse, we’ll shoot them down and put a stop to any questioning of the president’s wisdom and suthority.”  Make no mistake; he’d do it if he absolutely felt it was necessary to maintain Republican/Democrat political hegemony over the United States.

If things are still bad in 2012, I’ll just bet the Repubs will be using the “D” word all the time—AND they’ll spin their message to make it seem like it’s all the Demos’ (and Obama’s) fault, not theirs (it started with Bush, after all). How many people will fall for it? Stay tuned.

If this ‘recession’ (depression) goes deeper and longer than expected- it will not be the Obama admin I will blame, but those who voted against the Stimulus bill and those who watered it down.
Tax Cuts??? Who needs a damn Tax cut when your income has been cut in half, or nullified, by unemployement, or your hours cut and Your Home Foreclosed?
Who didn’t calculate the mass economic devastation from the Wall Street Embezzlers- Try the SOB’s who legalized their money laundering and Rackeeting over the last few decades!The Modernization Act,amongst other legislation, Was Economic Treason!
Anyone with half a brain realized what Reaganomics Was the new name for Feudalism. What Economy has ever survived when the masses are relegated a mere ‘Trickle’ of wealth and resources- NONE! When the upper echelon are beholden to no regulations and encouraged to hoard and siphon off as much ‘liquidity’ as possible?
This is not ‘Obama’s Economy’, This it the End Game of Trickle Down. Infact the Economy will probably not even be the next Presidents in ‘16, because of the mass Dehydration which has sucked the life blood out of US over the last 3 decades!

The clock is ticking. Or is it a bomb?

The poor in this country are easy prey for the ruling elites. Americans are so well indoctrinated to believe in social Darwinism that when they suffer misery, they readily believe it’s simply the judgment of Nature. Any other explanation would be unscientific.

Another favorite belief of the right-wing populist poor (read: low-income red-state whites)  is that capitalism has failed to reward their labors with the good life — as it “naturally” ought to have — only because our capitalist system has been contaminated.

A favorite culprit is the abandonment of the gold standard: “If only we were still on the gold standard, the faultless mechanisms of capitalism would be working smoothly and making life good for me. Social Darwinist capitalism can never be questioned as the best of all possible systems, and so when it doesn’t seem to work, it must mean that someone has tampered with its purity!”

Truth Driller,

That’s fascism.  Corporate control is fascism.  There’s no denying it, the United States government and the media are being controlled by fascists.  Fascism has its clutches in very strongly and will be difficult to stop, but stop it we must. The DLC, Democratic Leadership Council is REPUBLICAN fascist controlled and the DLC through the New Democrats and the Blue Dogs run the Democratic Party and must be voted out of the Democratic Party, as no third party has a chance.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/140493/grand_illusion:_the_myth_of_voter_choice_in_a_two-party_tyranny/?comments=layout#comments

Tom Semioli said:

“What amazes me is how the corporate media is in lock-step with the government regarding the errant reportage on uneployment.”

Simple:  Corporations control the media and govt.

Hulk2008 said:

“As a 63-year-old degreed software developer, and having never been “on the bench” for the last 45 years, I waited a couple of months before I even filed for unemployment - I was in total disbelief that I would not be snapped back up by some other project.  Now it’s been 16 weeks beyond even that - basically 6 months without a real nibble.”

Hulk - The problem is that your resume is not being seen.  There are tons of consulting companies that flooding employers with H1B resumes.  Also, many of those resumes are false - padded with keywords and experience that they don’t have.  Employer’s simply can’t easily tell because they are given tons of these resumes.  You need to beef up your resume and find ways to get it in front of employers.  You’re up against greedy consulting companies that are bringing in cheap labor, marketing them as experts and locking you out.  Don’t give them your resume.  They’ll copy your experience and put it on the H1Bs!!!  Send your resume directly to employers.

Corporate America outsourced American jobs to India, China, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe.

Then they brought in tons of foreign workers on H1B visas. 

The media has been covering this up.  This is the MAIN reason why unemployment is so high here in the US.

Some outsourcing and foreign labor is okay during good times but completely unacceptable during a depression.  Make no mistake.  Corporate America wants it this way.

The United States has a full blown DEPRESSION.  According to statistics, 20.6% of the population is out of work, that is 61.6 MILLION people, not 650 thousand, and you are right, they will try to roar and will be thrown in prison, because homelessness has been criminalized and humongous warehouse prisons have been built.  The homeless were not criminals in the last depression, but its set up now to criminalize the homeless. 

http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/topstocks/archive/2009/07/06/true-unemployment-rate-already-at-20.aspx

http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/topstocks/archive/2009/07/06/true-unemployment-rate-already-at-20.aspx
The United States has a full blown DEPRESSION.  According to statistics, 20.6% of the population is out of work, that is 61.6 MILLION people, not 650 thousand, and you are right, they will try to roar and will be thrown in prison, because homelessness has been criminalized and humongous warehouse prisons have been built.  The homeless were not criminals in the last depression, but its set up now to criminalize the homeless.

http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/topstocks/archive/2009/07/06/true-unemployment-rate-already-at-20.aspx

The United States has a full blown DEPRESSION.  According to statistics, 20.6% of the population is out of work, that is 61.6 MILLION people, not 650 thousand, and you are right, they will try to roar and will be thrown in prison, because homelessness has been criminalized and humongous warehouse prisons have been built.  The homeless were not criminals in the last depression, but its set up now to criminalize the homeless.

http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/topstocks/archive/2009/07/06/true-unemployment-rate-already-at-20.aspx

The United States has a full blown DEPRESSION.  According to statistics, 20.6% of the population is out of work, that is 61.6 MILLION people, not 650 thousand, and you are right, they will try to roar and will be thrown in prison, because homelessness has been criminalized and humongous warehouse prisons have been built to warehouse them.  The homeless were not criminals in the last depression, but government has set up now to criminalize the homeless.

Big Question:  When are you “retired” or just permanently “unemployed” ?
  As a 63-year-old degreed software developer, and having never been “on the bench” for the last 45 years, I waited a couple of months before I even filed for unemployment - I was in total disbelief that I would not be snapped back up by some other project.  Now it’s been 16 weeks beyond even that - basically 6 months without a real nibble.  Companies, state and local governments, even non-profits are cutting back workers.  As always, CEOs and the bottom-line beancounters have decided that workers are not needed; the “boss class” wasn’t punished for the huge losses they caused for their own companies last year - so where is their incentive to do anything but cut this year?  This year they are merely blaming “the economy” and the Pres and Congress and “the liberals” for all the problems their poor managerial decisions caused.
  Actually I am learning to conserve: cutting back on gas (no job to drive to), lunches (a PBJ at home is better than a rushed burger on the job), clothes (T-shirts and shorts are cheaper than white collars and ties any day), even ink and pencils and paper and an occasional coffee at the 7-11 on the way to work.  I’ve even learned to re-use my paper napkin - maybe I’ll get a new one at Thanksgiving.
  When benefits run out, maybe I will have learned to conserve so well I won’t even need a job.

“There are many, many more folks who are unemployed, partially employed or simply have family ‘carrying’ them.”—Steve Gadsen

“Unemployment rates are double than what is reported.”—Tom Semioli

From the beginning of the crisis, Paul Craig Roberts has been writing about this issue, and in his articles, he explains how the standard of measure has changed over the years. Consistently, he reports the unemployment numbers to be twice what our government states in their reports. 

I think that it’s David Simon who calls it “juking the stats.”

Howard Zinn suggests it’s up to all of us to “roar” as Ms. Cocco puts it.  Unemployed and those dealing with
foreclosure, as well as those who are ill and poor insured (if at all) are busy in “survival mode”.

The rich have spent (money and time) much over the last century, at least, to propagandize the people in the US that “anyone can ‘make it’ with opportunity”,
e.g. Michael Jackson’s media coverage yesterday on NPR,
which I rarely listen to and that all the things the
people indicate we want is “socialism”.  Labor in this country compared to labor in Europe is so different, because of the propaganda. 

Howard Zinn has a regular column on The Progressive Magazine’s site.  And a wonderful summary earlier this week, in a short segment on DemocracyNow, the last segment, on McNamara’s death: that people in the streets do more for change than the person who thinks they can make change “from the inside”.  Once you are inside “empire” or gov’t, you learn to keep quiet.  He says it better.

  I think the comment (earlier, on here)about privatization is interesting to factor in. My cynical favorite is: “throwing money at education” doesn’t improve it (so why do the rich spend more per child on education?), or anything else.  Where has public housing for the poor gone?  Where has rental housing for moderate income gone? 

  Corporate media practices not only divide and conquer, but perpetuates myths like, “We have the best health care”, “We have the highest standard of living” (neither is true) as well as the others I have noted above.  Media also gives the impression that “you are the only one complaining” and “it’s your fault if you are…(fill in any of these or your own list choices: poor, sick, homeless, facing losing your apartment or house, jobless -as in “you didn’t get enough education” nonsense when you couldn’t afford it), OR the other one that’s worked so well, blame the “other” in case “blame the victim” doesn’t work, like: “it’s the immigrants” or
“it’s the minorities” taking your jobs, etc etc.

  The corporate media NEVER point to the rich sucking
the money upwards, but might do a song and dance, smoke and mirrors (nice cliches) about the greedy
bankers’salaries or bonuses, while missing the BIG story from design or lack of education of reporters.

  Glen Ford of BlackAgendaReport http://www.blackagendareport.com made a wonderful statement at a joint meeting/public event of the
Harlem Tenants Council and Take Back WBAI in NYC recently: “The only thing more powerful than organized money is organized people.”.  You can
see/hear him say it on http://www.wbixradio.org  Go to
the ON-DEMAND section below the video screen in the center for a list of the videos.  June 27th or 30th event.

The privatization of government will prevent a large scale federal job program like the WPA or CCC.  Could you imagine the backlash from the wealthy road contractors or the unions if the government directly hired qualified unemployed people to implement infrastructure projects?  These companies spend a great deal of money in the form of campaign contributions and lobbying, so they’re guaranteed a front row spot at the stimulus trough.  A large portion of the stimulus money is being eat up by contracting firms before the first dollar is hitting the street in the form of jobs. 

The rich are getting richer and unemployed construction workers are still sitting idly by wondering when the new bridges, roads, and schools will get built.

Obama ia trying to fix the economy by doling out borrowed money to the rich. That is not working, and it can’t work. You can’t have a functioning economy with this many people unemployed. FDR brought us out of the great depression by putting people to work. Unemployment is the most serious problem facing our country today, and our elected leaders refuse to address it in any meaningful way.

The majority of citizens in this country are so glassy eyed and apathetic that it would take massive hunger among the unemployed before they will take notice of the pillaging of our nation by the ruling class.  The pols in Washington know this, and they also know that it would be cheaper and more politically expedient to push through an extension in benefits than to put down the insurrection.  The Republicans will howl “socialism and let the free market work” and the Democratic majority will roll over and play dead, but the new extension will pass just in time to make sure everyone has a shiny unemployment check for the holiday shopping season. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if we all got a tax credit check in our mailbox right before the time holiday shopping starts.  We gotta boost those retail earnings now!  The future can be damned!  We’ll deal with that some other day…