"The gap in income and living standards is too wide."...... Why is that so hard to say?

[Armstead]

We get so tied up into pretzel knots over these new bonuses to financial titans. The mantra is that since they failed they do not deserve it.

Who cares? That's just a symptom. We did not need a financial crisis to see the problem.

The plain and simple truth is that for several decades we have allowed the systemic destruction of the notion of a large and secure middle class. We have done it through a combination of shitty and stupid social values, shitty and stupid policies and a lame and impotent political dialogue.

Only the upper classes are secure and prosperous these days, and the upper-upper class has sucked up the wealth of the nation, to an obscene extent.

Everyone else has been thrown under the bus. The poor have been allowed to rot. The working/lower middle class has been systematically pushed down the scale. The upper middle class is under attack.

It is our own damn fault as a general population because we have enabled this to happen. It's the fault of the Republicans for obvious reasons. But it is also the fault of the Democratic Party for going AWOL on these issues for too many years -- right up to the present.

Screw the big bankers. let them take their bonuses and go on permanent vacation. Just get those bastids out of our hair. And let's all collectively as a country and as Democrats (that includes President Obama) acknowledge what we all know, and do something about it.

---End of vent.

[FirstLight]

1. Too true, my friend...

Not only that, but the actual probability that the money will soon cease to flow (i.e. "trickle down" will be slowed to a drip, maybe) has most in denial...

check this out http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7686455


we are seeing the demise of capitalism ...consumerism finally consumed itself, eh?

get back to the land, man. It is the only way to go.

[Armstead]

2. I've got four acres -- But the woodchucks have always done in my farming efforts

Lil Bastards

[proudohioan]

14. Thanks for the link, FirstLight.

I also signed and sent the petition while I was at it. No, i'm not on UI (employer denied me and frankly, I was too stressed and tired at that point to fight it), but I feel for everyone out there in some real dire situations. However, after 6 months of being unemployed, I am finally feeling my "fight" coming back and am looking forward in my new spare time to start getting off my ass and doing something for the people of this country. The social and economical injustice is absolutely abhorrent to me.

t.

[amandabeech]

3. Thank you for posting.

I've been screaming about this since the '70s.

I cannot believe that so many supposedly progressive democrats here on DU can't see what has happened and is happening to what used to be a great country.

[Armstead]

4. It has amazed me for three decades that we take this so readily

That basic reality is what I believes underlies many of the surface political battles on DU and elsewhere between the "moderate centrists" and "the left."

[amandabeech]

5. I think that there are two "lefts" here.

One is most concerned with Guantanamo.

The other is most concerned with jobs.

I'm the latter, and I think that I am in a real minority here.

[Armstead]

9. There is also the "politics as sport" aspect

Our team versus their their team -- but, as Robert redford said in The Candidate after winning election -- "Now what do we do?"

[amandabeech]

10. One wonders if that's what Obama asked, too.

Unfortunately, he asked the wrong people.

[Armstead]

16. The Clinton Administration Re-Employment Act

[autorank]

6. Because the people who should act are on the take

Outstanding question! The three pillars of governance - executive, legislative, judicial - are the
minions who enforce the skewed distribution of wealth. They are on the take in a variety of ways
like the revolving door, etc.

Asking this question is as hard as mentioning that there a million dead Iraqi civilians.

It's all about The Money Party



http://tinyurl.com/yvatp

[hay rick]

7. Dead Iraqi civilians?

Iraqis? Aren't they members of the species homo sapiens nonamericanus? 1,000,000 Iraqis? Yawn. 4,000 American troops? Now there's a story!

[Autumn]

8. 4,000 American troops? No

story there. Damn few people give a flying fuck. The anti war is crowd is nothing more than a bunch of attention whores. Those bad wars ended Jan 2008.

[autorank]

11. That number is much higher ... dead and seriously injured

The 4,000 are combat deaths. There are another 4,000 or more soldiers who died as part of the war effort. But when you get to seriously injured - for life - the numbers go way up. It's a disgrace and it doesn't matter who is president.

[Autumn]

12. "It's a disgrace and it doesn't matter who is president. "

What you said there, says it all. Thank you for that. My nephew came home after 2 tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan and put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. He isn't counted.

[autorank]

18. Welcome!

I am so sorry that happened. 3 tours, what did they think would happen?
This is how we treat *our* people who volunteer and serve.

They can come up with any storyline that they want, a loss is a loss. The
thousands with PTSD are long term conditions, given the lack of treatment, and
the physical disabilities won't vanish.

[Armstead]

17. A very graphic graphic

One showing how the pay of top execs compared to average workers in a company has changed in the last 30 years would also be startling.

[havocmom]

13. Righteous rant, thank you

Folks who are shy or insecure about writing LTTE might do well to pinch some points from your post. It is a message that should be everywhere.

[Armstead]

15. It's common knowledge but we're afraid to talk about it for fear of the "S" word

I think many Democrats too often are terrified of talking about such core issues publicly for fear of being called Socialists.

[Zoeisright]

19. Yep. The economy has been crushed because there's too much money

at the top. Tax the hell out of the rich. It's the only way out of this mess.

[Armstead]

22. Or at least the heck out of them...But this also goes beyond laws

This is one of this things where pubvlic attitudes as well as politics and policy are required to deal with.

We as a population have to stigmatize this as unacceptable.

But, of course we also need political leaders (Democrats presumably) who will use the bully pulpit to help make that shift happen.

[avaistheone1]

20. Will our Democrats

interpret this message as the gap should be wider? ...given how they don't tend to get it in D.C.

[mitchum]

21. Because we can publicly talk about oral sex in our society, but class is a forbidden topic