I find it interesting that the Dems claim to have had a victory in the 2-month extension of the payroll tax cut.  What victory?  We face a new fight in February over this tax cut, we are now saddled with less unemployment benefits by 20 weeks and the recipients will have to be drug tested and have a high school diploma or GED to get benefits, despite not needing them to work in the past, and the continuation of the tax cut means less money to Social Security, requiring the general fund to make up the difference, turning it into an entitlement program instead of the insurance program it is suppose to be.  Explain to me why this is a victory again!?!  Not jobs.  Not economic stability.  Just more pain for those who are already in pain, and this is suppose to be a Democratic victory?  Save me from such victories.

If the President wants to think big, then start by actually thinking for himself instead of letting his advisers tell him what to think.  Forget his 2M jobs initiative and put forth a 20M jobs initiative with federal jobs programs to rebuild our infrastructure, our education system, our agricultural system, and to train young people to be leaders in all these fields both through education and practical experience.  They would be paying taxes on their earnings and they would be paying payroll taxes as well.  And if they are paid a living wage of $15 per hour, they could feed half of what would be allocated back into the free market in the first year alone, with an additional 6.2 percent into SS.  That is what is needed, not these anemic proposals we have seen, not health care reform now (especially with its mandatory purchase clause and no jobs to pay for it), not giving away the social safety net while not demanding taxes on the wealthy commensurate with their profits. 

This was no victory, except maybe the one manufactured by the media for the Dems.  It was a disgrace, and every American who wants to face the reality of what it means should be paying attention.

http://www.weeeevoteamerica2012.org
http://www.devonnnollforpresident2012.org
Please follow my video campaign on YouTube through 2012. I have already posted videos on the jobs program, nationalizing the banks and creating a housing lottery, and changes to military spending I would propose.  Look for ones on Social Security/Medicare, tax code changes, educational spending, immigration, and other topics in the months ahead. Thanks, Devon Noll.

gerard,

Would it not be more effective to make your arguments without the use of tricks? People, in my opinion, are a good deal smarter than you believe.

Do you have a reference to the Minnesota Occupy/foreclosure item you write of? And, what does it matter that the Grandmother you write of is black? You seemed to have gone out of your way to make that an important point.

Trouble is, capitalism is a series of beliefs and methods for doing business in order to get rich regardless of moral values and standards. That’s bad enough (as we can now see cumulative bad effects on a grand scale).  Worse yet, capitalism is “believed in” as a kind of economic religion—The Market is is viewed by many as a God that works in mysterious ways most of the time (“creating jobs, hiring and firing, engagng investments and making profits, even supporting gruesome wars—only accidentally engaging in occasional projects for human betterment. and is believed to be able to automatically correct its mistakes. Losers lose because they are not quite up to snuff compared to winners.
  People worship this mythology; they want to believe it even though in hard times they have occasional doubts.  But its orthodoxy is so drummed into our heads, and we are so afraid to question it, that it can go clear off the rails and kill people by the millions without fear of being confronted and demanded to change. Governments that should know better find themselves held in thrall along with everyone else, and even they go to great lengths to prevent even threats of change by arresting complainers and throwing them in jail to try to shut them up.  Inquisition, anyone?

Whether it was 2 months or 12 they are still just kicking the can down the road.  If Soc Sec is to survive, the incoming flow of cash has to be turned back on SOME day.  Economists in general say the future is pretty dim for more than one year ahead. 

A better plan would be to shift a billionaire surtax into the Soc Sec coffers for a while - but that will never happen since conservatives have convinced voters that nobody but billionaires and millionaires create jobs.  (<=== The biggest fib of 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 combined).

Most Senators and Reps are millionaires and above - guess who they favor now and forever.  My Wallet ‘Tis Of Thee -  their national anthem.

The government has, for 30 or 40 years, been commingling Social Security funds with general revenue funds in order to create the ILLUSION that there was enough money in the federal “bank account” to make possible tax cuts and more tax cuts for the rich and for the corporations.

It is time, now, to recoup from the Very Rich and the corporations some of the money that was obtained under FALSE pretenses.

Yes, let us go back even 40 years, to the Nixon administration: the TOP marginal tax rate then was 70%.  Let’s levy that tax rate on the Very Rich again and we will be able to recoup enough of our Social Security money to put all that “borrowed” money back into the Social Security bank account.

The Very Rich and the corporations have had the fun of playing with our money for 30 or 40 years; now it is OUR turn—and we want our money back in OUR Social Security bank account.

The Republocrats aren’t interested in the average American except at election time - they are too busy serving their corporate masters to care about you or me - except when needing taxpayer money.

“History will little note nor long remember that the payroll tax holiday was
extended for two months rather than 12. The complex and difficult questions
we’re avoiding, however, may haunt us through the century.”

The “payroll tax holiday” means the cancelling of FICA or payments into social
security which Mr. Robinson avoids through his re-naming of it.  New names
for the old don’t change anything; in this case, it refers to a safety net from 70
years ago that nearly everyone will have to rely on whether through age or
infirmity.  We should be thankful that the holiday was so short-lived.  Besides,
why would anyone consider something being robbed from them in a stealth
manner as a form of holiday. Since when was pick-pocketing considered a
vacation? 

There’s nothing complex about social security.  A child can understand and
appreciate it.  The complexity lies in the obfuscation. 

The difficult question is why are Democrats backing cuts to their social
security?  The extra forty dollars a month will hardly reenergize the American
economy, especially since it will be channeled into paying off bills.  But there’s a
conspicuous hush on economic policies that resemble Bush’s trickle-down
advocacy, along with our forfeiting a future that most of us have paid into for
years. 

What is actually complex are the dynamics at work which allow for the Obama
administration to have little accountability for initiating a gutting of social
security and its rationalization.  This is something Grover Norquist would
applaud and that the Republicans would ordinarily endorse.

IMax:  Thanks for the citation to “Raw Story.” The video of Minnesota Occupy helping to get a foreclosed home back into the possession of its owner, a black grandmother taking care of young children, was terrific!  I understand there have been a number of similar successes in various places nationwide.

“...the system didn’t break itself…” nor do free-
markets run themselves.  Puppets don’t perform without
a puppeteer pulling their strings. 

Assigning an identity to a free-market other than being
merely an abstract term, and at the same time assuming
that it runs itself is pure idiocy. The people pulling
its ‘strings’ would have us believe that they’re not. 
It’s a big lie and until we recognize it as such, they
will continue to run it and we will continue to suffer
the consequences.

It looks like this writer is revving up for the Go Obama! campaign to re-elect him come 2012. Just what I suspected - criticize the Dems and Reps but always vote Dem once you get into the voting booth. So why criticize him in the first place? You’re not interested in changing anything at all!

i suggest that judiciary or supreme court functions perfectly or just as cia/fbi,
generals, congresspeople, w.h wants the judges to function.
w.h wants a war? not to worry, the supreme court [and lots of people] wld be silent
about it or wld find it legal if w.h and war-sellers wld ask for a judicial ruling on
the planned war.
but they won’t ask and the judges will not ever judge. people don’t seem to see the
obvious: that one cannot separate church, judiciary, cia/fbi, msm, u.s, schooling,
army echelons, bankers, large shareholders, congress, w.h from ALL OF IT: THE
SYSTEM. TNX

according to the leaders of arriving europeans, indigenes of america had wrong
structure of society and wrong ideology.
they actually had no ideology or religion and because of that left us a pristine and
rich continent. [caveat, no religion or ideology is still an ideology and a religion]
europeans, on the other hand, had ‘perfect’ or an ‘infallible’ religion and ideology.
so, what happened?
well, wars, global warming, “most reactionary and clueless faction in congress”,
“progressives and pragmatic conservatives”, perry, bachmann, bush, obama,
gingrich, robinson, priests, other msm columnists, that’s what happened!

Well said, Copeland! This country’s leadership is wedded to the Status Quo, and to paraphrase Solzhenitsyn, being wedded to the Status Quo is a sure sign that a country has reached the end of its development ...

Gerard,

Here, again, are the wise-ass children you so passionately support. These smart and brave kiddies you rave on about.

Anti-capitalist vandals do $30,000 in damage to Albany holiday display

I hope gerard begins to take a good long look at what it is she’s doing when she lends these idiots her blind, unwavering, support.

Gerard is finally seeing that her views and asperations are shared by very few people. Very few are seeking ‘revolution’.

This is a far cry from the past few months of manic and emotional claims that she speaks for 99% of Americans.

More power to her in seeing more clearly from this day on!

“Let me be clear that I applaud
President Obama and the Democrats for the political victory they won last week.” - Eugene Robinson

-

These are the things that are important? A sense of political victory?

Mr. Robinson needs to get his head out of the cloudy Washington media elite mindset and into the homes and workplaces of the rest of America.

There is no way out of our downward spiral that does not include reform of the
financial institutions and its regulation, that which determines our nation’s growth;
and we must go on to remove the incentives of empire and the constant
expansion of the military. The prisons must be reformed to eliminate the
incentive that privatization has brought to them, so that we can scale back the
massive incarceration we have now. There has to be a turnaround in education
that restores the opportunities of the middle and lower class to first-rate public
education and access to higher education. There has to be an end soon, and for
all time, to corporate personhood.

It is the system we have, of broken accountability and violence, that is
spreading the collective death wish in a multitude of ways. And a nation that
keeps taking more than it gives back is a declining nation.  The greatest
danger is that we will not negotiate among ourselves, and among other nations,
to stand down, and give up our empire; seeing that we desperately need to
curtail our military monstrosity; while we also need to work to change the
conviction of too many Americans that it is necessary to acquire this
disproportionate power over other nations, dominating their resources, and
bending all of them to our will, with the threat of outright destruction and
other forms of violence.

We need to rethink what it means to be American; and also rethink our goals and priorities. When G. H. W. Bush said our way of life was not negotiable, I think he was saying the 1%, the owners, like the setup to remain as it is.

Our current challenges are far from insurmountable. We faced a more serious
threat in December 1941 and found the political will to mobilize the nation and to
not only overcome the immediate challenge but went on to rebuild the our nation
and others in the years following the war.

Today we have a political system and media empire that persuades the citizens
that we can have all we want without paying the bills and we have become soft and
self centered.

There is no mystery about what has to be done. The Bush tax cuts all need to be
repealed, the military budget needs to be reduced, entitlements need to be
reformed, and our expensive medical non-system needs to be overhauled. The
Simpson/Bowles and Rivlin/Domenici study committees and the affordable Care
Act provide the basis for much of the work that needs to be done.

Unfortunately we the public are willing to concede our voting power to the wealthy
and powerful and prefer to fight among ourselves for the few scraps we are
allowed while the income and wealth flow upward and the yellow rain showers us.

We continue to swallow the pap fed us by the well paid pundits and TV “news” and
as Eugene observes the real problems and sacrifices needed to build a better
future for children and grandchildren are ignored.

The only segment of the nation that is willingly making meaningful sacrifices is
the military including the families. They are the 1% giving their all while the other
1% at the top are coddled.

Happy New Year

Robinson:  “Our elected officials put in place the rules that create dysfunction ...”

Reminder:  Our dysfunctional Supreme Court makes it legal for corporate wealth to put those dysfunction-al officials in place where they then sponsor and permit further dysfunction.

Then the military-industrial complex (Pentagon and weapons makers from tear gas to drones to Abombs to Purple Hearts) work together to determine and promote the dysfunctional policies that create war, fear and pain, stunt growth and stymie innovation needed to improve the lives of people and of the planet.

The people’s corrective influence is either ignored or imprisoned.

After years of all this dysfunctional behavior, it now appears that everybody in the country has an unrecognized but pernicious death-wish except the young, who are desperately trying to figure out what to do and how to do it.  Why?  Because they are mentally and physically healthy and eager to stay alive. More power to them!