TIRED of INEQUALITY? Get used to it. Things look like they're only gonna get worse.

[Octafish]

Just when I thought, maybe, we had reached bottom and were ready to bounce up -- I discovered there may be no bottom -- for me and the large part of the 99-percent.



Economist Tyler Cowen of George Mason University has seen the future and it looks bleak for most of us. Thankfully, those at the top, though, are in for some more good times. He spoke about his findings with NPR's Steve Inskeep. I almost dropped my smartphone into my coffee while texting during rush hour, listening to the report this morning, I was so steamed.

Tired Of Inequality? One Economist Says It'll Only Get Worse

by NPR STAFF
September 12, 2013 3:05 AM

Economist Tyler Cowen has some advice for what to do about America's income inequality: Get used to it. In his latest book, Average Is Over, Cowen lays out his prediction for where the U.S. economy is heading, like it or not:

"I think we'll see a thinning out of the middle class," he tells NPR's Steve Inskeep. "We'll see a lot of individuals rising up to much greater wealth. And we'll also see more individuals clustering in a kind of lower-middle class existence."

It's a radical change from the America of 40 or 50 years ago. Cowen believes the wealthy will become more numerous, and even more powerful. The elderly will hold on to their benefits ... the young, not so much. Millions of people who might have expected a middle class existence may have to aspire to something else.

SNIP...

Some people, he predicts, may just have to find a new definition of happiness that costs less money. Cowen says this widening is the result of a shifting economy. Computers will play a larger role and people who can work with computers can make a lot. He also predicts that everyone will be ruthlessly graded — every slice of their lives, monitored, tracked and recorded.

CONTINUED with link to the audio...

http://www.npr.org/2013/09/12/221425582/tired-of-inequality-one-economist-says-itll-only-get-worse

For some reason, the interview with Steve Inskeep didn't bring up the subject of the GOVERNMENT DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT LIKE IN THE NEW DEAL so I thought I'd bring it up. Older DUers may recall the Democratic Party once actually did do stuff for the average American, from school and work to housing and justice. But, we can't afford that now, obviously.

Oh, the good news is the 1-percent may swell to a 15-percent "upper middle class" while the rest of the middle class goes the other way. Gee. That sounds eerily familiar.

[Dawson Leery]

1. Jeff Greene(who ran for Senate in Florida in 2010) put it in politically incorrect terms.

http://nymag.com/news/business/themoney/jeff-greene-2012-8/

"The Hamptons are Romney territory. But billionaire Jeff Greene thinks his neighbors would be wise to buy a little democracy insurance."

[Octafish]

9. ''Having money is great,'' Greene says. ''It’s fun. The more the better.''

Great article on the well-to-do, Dawson Leery. Didn't think I would like Greene as much as I now do. "Dream on."

[Wabbajack_]

19. The rich

will hire a few poor people to machine gun the rest of us if there is a 'revolt'.

[FiveGoodMen]

49. I think that's called the Army.

[HooptieWagon]

72. The police.

[FiveGoodMen]

73. Harder and harder to tell the difference, though.

[rurallib]

2. I was steamed also

Kept waiting for Innskeep to ask a question or two that wasn't a softball. .
Shut it off and remembered why I seldom listen to NPR any more.

[Octafish]

11. The guy's vocal intonations are very condescending.

The affect is spreading to other NPR reporters. You aren't missing much, rurallib. The "informed" liberal set doesn't know what's hitting them.

For instance, he was keynote speaker at the Night of Vonnegut:

http://www.vonnegutlibrary.org/night-of-vonnegut-profile-steve-inskeep-keynote-speaker/

[sendero]

70. Steve Inskeep..

.. is a major douchebag and when I hear his byline I switch stations for a few minutes. He's that fucking stupid.

[adirondacker]

29. Everytime I hear "koch foundation" I cringe. nt

[corkhead]

52. After 30+ years, I officially quit listening to NPR news for good about a week ago

I have seen its slow-motion decline take place over the past several years. The firing of Bob Edwards was only the beginning. The final straw was when I heard Inskeep do a teaser on an interview featuring "both sides" Syrian invasion argument: John McCain & Rand Paul.

Don't even get me started about Koch-y Roberts

The Republicons successfully infiltrated NPR news and they have drowned it in a bathtub. They just never got around to making a public announcement about it.

I have to admit I am going through withdrawals trying to figure out what to listen to in the AM while I browse the Intertubes and sip my morning coffee.

[rurallib]

66. If you have a computer you can listen to lefty radio all day

Most stations are on the net, so even if you are far away from the few stations that are over the air you can still listen. I listen to WCPT in Chicago here:
http://www.chicagoprogressivetalk.com/

I think that iheartradio has some lefty radio. And if you are desperate Sirius has a progressive station + MSNBC.

When NPR fired Edwards they took a decided right turn.

[JDPriestly]

71. I stopped listening in the early 1990s, late 1980s. The voice tone told me everything I needed to

know about NPR. Cokey Roberts? Please. The announcers don't even pretend to think for themselves. They are just reciting written material. I suppose all announcers do that, but NPR is most keen on boring everyone and avoiding any hint at an original thought or, God forbid, c o n t r o v e r s y ?????? Oh, noes. We can't have that! We might hurt the feelings of some rich potential funder.

NPR's announcements about who is sponsoring their shows are ads. That's all they are. There is no public in the radio of NPR. It's corporate sponsored radio pretending to be independent.

If you want independent radio, listen to Pacifica.

I have no interest in and do not work to Pacifica. Neither does anyone in my family. But Pacifica is the only radio I trust.

[leftstreet]

3. DURec

[Octafish]

40. Recovery for the Rich, Recession for the Rest

by Richard Eskow
Published on Thursday, September 12, 2013 by Campaign for America's Future Blog

Five years after the financial crisis, it’s become increasingly apparent that the government didn’t rescue “the economy.” It rescued the wealthy, while doing far too little for everyone else.

That didn’t happen by accident. Our government’s response was largely designed by – and for – the wealthiest among us, and it shows. Here’s one highlight from a new analysis: The highest-earning Americans saw their income rise by nearly one-third in a single year, while the needle barely moved for 99 percent of us.

This post-crisis inequality is amplifying an ongoing wealth grab that was already decimating middle-class and lower-income Americans.

Recovery for the Rich

New figures on wealth inequality from economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez show that the top 10 percent earned more than half of our nation’s income. That hasn’t happened since they started tracking these figures a century ago.

What about the bottom 99 percent? After being left out of the post-crisis boom, they finally saw an increase in their earnings last year – but it was only a paltry 1 percent.

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/12-7

I'm so old, I remember when Democrats actually used government to level the playing field instead of tilting things in favor of the wealthy.

[CrispyQ]

43. "I remember when Democrats actually used government to level the playing field ...

instead of tilting things in favor of the wealthy."

I remember that, too. It's why I'm no longer a democrat. I know there are those who say we have to take our party back, but I don't think we can. Our party leaders are on the gravy train & lovin' it. I'll still vote mostly dem, but no more straight party ticket for me. Voting for the lesser of two evils has gotten me exactly what I didn't want in the first place.

Does it make any sense to keep doing that?

[Octafish]

44. The social chasm in America

Jerry White
wsws.org, 13 September 2013

EXCERPT...

The new report on social inequality emerged as the American ruling class set out to launch another war in the Middle East. As the Obama administration sought to mobilize the propaganda apparatus for war, it encountered something that had not been expected: overwhelming opposition from the American people. Amidst a media propaganda blitz, opinion polls show that the percentage of the population that supports war ranges from a third to merely 10 percent.

The two phenomena are connected. The conflict that has emerged between, on the one hand, the drive by the ruling class to launch a new war with incalculable consequences and, on the other, the sentiments of the American people, is an initial political expression of the vast social gulf revealed in the report by Saez.

The current levels of social inequality are a culmination of a decades-long social counterrevolution. From the late 1970s onward, the American ruling class has responded to the decline in its world position through militarism abroad and class war at home.

Wealth has been redistributed from the working class to the rich through a policy of deindustrialization, accompanied by the most parasitic forms of financial speculation. From 1980 to the present, the share of income going to the top one percent has more than doubled, from less than 10 percent to more than 20 percent. This process has only accelerated since 2008.

The working class as a whole faces a future of mass unemployment and poverty-level wages, with the younger generation hit particularly hard. Between 2000 and 2011, inflation-adjusted wages fell 13 percent for recent high school graduates and 8 percent among recent college graduates, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The percentage of recent college graduates with employer-paid health care also dropped by half between 1989 and 2011.

CONTINUED...

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/09/13/pers-s13.html

As long as they're democratic, I'm for social progress, call is socialism, New Deal, progress, income redistribution, of whatever the plutocrats label it.

[raccoon]

53. You should start a thread with this, Octa. nt

[Raksha]

90. My sentiments exactly - thank you!

No more straight party ticket for me either. As I've said many times before, I did not vote for Obama in 2012. And unless the Democratic candidate in 2016 is Elizabeth Warren or someone else with NO ties to Big Oil, Monsanto, Goldman-Sachs et al. I don't intend intend to vote for the Democratic candidate in 2016 either. No Third Way Democrats, no "lesser of two evils," because they have already proven they are NOT!

[riderinthestorm]

4. Heard it this morn too but just got on and saw your excellent OP. HUGE K&R nt

[Octafish]

41. Tyler Cowen is a Harvard man.

Guy's blog provides insight on his thinking:

http://marginalrevolution.com/

Personally, he sometimes runs with people not all that into democracy:

http://prosperitycaucus.org/event-prof-tyler-cowen/

His tone of voice says something, too.

PS: Thank you for the kind words, riderinthestorm! Very much appreciated.

[hatrack]

86. Without question the highest level of condescension this side of Glenn Hubbard . . .

And that's saying something.

[questionseverything]

5. and how did we get here?

maybe just maybe it is because we do not actually count our votes

maybe the corps we hire to count them do not produce accurate results

those dems in co that just got recalled? ya know who decided that? a spanish company....

ABOUT SCYTL

SCYTL is a technology company specializing in the development of secure electronic voting and election modernization solutions. Based in Barcelona and with offices in Baltimore, Toronto, New Delhi, Athens, Kiev and Singapore, SCYTL’s solutions have been used in public elections by governments from countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, India and Australia. SCYTL is a portfolio company of leading international VC funds Nauta Capital, Balderton Capital and Spinnaker. More information is available at www.scytl.com.

ABOUT SOE SOFTWARE

SOE Software, based in Tampa, has developed Clarity, a suite of 8 software modules that allow election authorities to be more efficient and transparent in their management of elections and in their communications with citizens and media. Over 900 jurisdictions in 26 states across the United States, including 14 state-wide customers, currently use SOE Software solutions in their electoral processes. More information is available at www.soesoftware.com.

[FreakinDJ]

7. It has nothing to do with WHO counts the vote

We elected Obama by an overwhelming majority too numerous to steal an election from

But Obama is not going to help

99% of Dem Politicians are not going to help


You have no idea of what you are dealing with if you think any thing short of a "Blinding White Light Moment of Clarity" for the American Middle Class regarding this issue is going to help

[questionseverything]

32. ...

We elected Obama by an overwhelming majority too numerous to steal an election from.... but what about all the house seats we didnt win?

quoting bev harris of blackboxvoting.org

The public must be able to see and authenticate these four essential steps for an election to be public, democratic, and valid: (1) Who can vote (voter list); (2) Who did vote (3) The original count; (4) Chain of custody.

[FreakinDJ]

6. No Government Help for Shrinking Middle Class is going to happen

Only we the people can fix this and to fix this we have to unite - as in Unions as in loosely formed Cooperative Working Contracts as in demands for Higher Wages as we are seeing now by Fast Food workers

We need to end the "I got Mine" mentality because they will get around to fleecing the wealth from many more to come

[Left Coast2020]

23. That is unless we get generation coming up now involved.

I remember watching an extensive interview with Michael Moore. He believes it will get better. Many of the points/arguement he made is the "next generation" are much smarter than most people think(paraphrasing). We just have to get them to understand they have to vote.

So I take the positive side: things will get better. And we could see the results too.

We now return you to your positive program already in progress.

[jtuck004]

28. You can't fix the kids till you fix the adults that teach them.

Respectfully, when I hear people suggest this I think they are just abandoning the responsibility that an entire cohort of people should shoulder, like the adults that came before them did, the adults that sacrificed to give them what they gave away.

One can disagree, but I have been hearing this crap for 50+ years now, and the people of today were the kids back then, when we thought we had it fixed. So it really doesn't work the way one might hope.

And if by some miracle the kids do it better,( which I think history tells us isn't true, but hypothetically) if we let these bastards take it all, there won't be anything left fro them to work with, and it might well be insurmountable.

[adirondacker]

31. A conversation I had with a schoolteacher friend in MN stated that kids are acting more self centered

and "Libertarian". American Narcissism is taking hold of the youth. I dread getting old in this country.

[Stargazer99]

64. It is time to get pissed

[99th_Monkey]

8. Is this defeatism? he's conceding the fight altogether? for whom is he conceding?

Or perhaps a thinly veiled public service announcement that the "Zappa Moment" has finally arrived.

game over.

resistance is futile.

[socialist_n_TN]

83. Well see, THAT'S called "framing"..........

But I'm sure you knew that.

The MSM have a vested interest (literally vested-ALL of the MSM is owned by 5 or 6 international corps) in giving the average citizen a binary choice, usually between a libertarian style capitalism or a bat shit crazy proto-fascism. So things like even a mild form of democratic socialism isn't even mentioned as an option.

And yes, they WANT you to concede to your offered "choices".

[Fuddnik]

10. Orwell was an optimist.

[Octafish]

95. Orwell could never imagine the wealth involved.

The disparity in its distribution, yeah. Check out the facts courtsey Emmanuel Saez, UC Berkeley:

Striking it Richer:
The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States
(Updated with 2012 preliminary estimates)

Emmanuel Saez, UC Berkeley•
September 3, 2013

What’s new for recent years?

2009-2012: Uneven recovery from the Great Recession

From 2009 to 2012, average real income per family grew modestly by
6.0% (Table 1). Most of the gains happened in the last year when average
incomes grew by 4.6% from 2011 to 2012.

However, the gains were very uneven. Top 1% incomes grew by
31.4% while bottom 99% incomes grew only by 0.4% from 2009 to 2012.
Hence, the top 1% captured 95% of the income gains in the first three years
of the recovery. From 2009 to 2010, top 1% grew fast and then stagnated
from 2010 to 2011. Bottom 99% stagnated both from 2009 to 2010 and from
2010 to 2011. In 2012, top 1% incomes increased sharply by 19.6% while
bottom 99% incomes grew only by 1.0%. In sum, top 1% incomes are close to
full recovery while bottom 99% incomes have hardly started to recover.

Note that 2012 statistics are based on preliminary projections and will
be updated in January 2014 when more complete statistics become available.
Note also that part of the surge of top 1% incomes in 2012 could be due to
income retiming to take advantage of the lower top tax rates in 2012 relative
to 2013 and after.

1
Retiming should be most prevalent for realized capital
gains as individuals have great flexibility in the timing of capital gains
realizations. However, series for income excluding realized capital gains also
show a very sharp increase (Figure 1), suggesting that retiming likely explains
only part of the surge in top 1% incomes in 2012. Retiming of income should
produce a dip in top reported incomes in 2013. Hence, statistics for 2013 will

show how important retiming was in the surge in top incomes from 2011 to
2012.

Overall, these results suggest that the Great Recession has only
depressed top income shares temporarily and will not undo any of the
dramatic increase in top income shares that has taken place since the 1970s.
Indeed, the top decile income share in 2012 is equal to 50.4%, the highest
ever since 1917 when the series start (Figure 1).

Looking further ahead, based on the US historical record, falls in
income concentration due to economic downturns are temporary unless
drastic regulation and tax policy changes are implemented and prevent
income concentration from bouncing back. Such policy changes took place
after the Great Depression during the New Deal and permanently reduced
income concentration until the 1970s (Figures 2, 3). In contrast, recent
downturns, such as the 2001 recession, lead to only very temporary drops in
income concentration (Figures 2, 3).

The policy changes that took place coming out of the Great Recession
(financial regulation and top tax rate increase in 2013) are not negligible but
they are modest relative to the policy changes that took place coming out of
the Great Depression. Therefore, it seems unlikely that US income
concentration will fall much in the coming years.

PDF of complete report: http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2012.pdf

I know it's only been five years, but when are we gonna get that New New Deal I heard about back in '08?

[reformist2]

12. It's so obvious - we need a New New Deal, this time with guaranteed minimum income for all.

The 40-hour work week probably sounded outrageous and pie-in-the-sky to some when it was first proposed.

It's time to ask for even more - to literally share the wealth.

[Octafish]

96. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Completely agree, reformist2. It's way past time for the New New Deal. A good place to start is in nationalizing the defense and energy industries.

First, that would mean no individual would make money off of war -- and any profits in building weapons would be shared by the people. That way, no future appointed pretzeldent who lied America into war in Iraq and elsewhere who said "Money trumps peace" would run free.

Second, monies made through harvesting the nation's natural resources would be shared by the people, like they do in Alaska. As it stands, the oil companies get every break imaginable, last year alone $4.4 billion in tax rebates from the government. Something is very wrong, here.

Third, a New New Deal using the money saved from ending wars for profit and Empire would change the face of the nation and the future of the planet. For the cost of Iraq War, we could've built a new National 100% Renewable Clean Energy Grid. I kid you not, the math. Once completed, that would take our reliance on Saudi roils out of the equation faster than you can say Bandar Bush three times fast.

[deutsey]

13. What's happening now was always Reaganism's endgame

And so many useful idiots continue cheering it on and on.

[Dustlawyer]

15. I don't give Reagan much credit, his "handlers" had a lot of the ideas, but I do not think they had

this long term plan in mind. They just legislated what they wanted and it became something of a mantra. Big business liked it so they saw to it that it was continued, even under Democrats like Bill Clinton (NAFTA)! It has never stopped! They allow Obama some victories to cement his followers, then he quietly passes whatever he wants. They have no real opposition right now.
We can fight for Publicly Funded Elections and Campaign Finance Reform to take our Representative Government back.

[deutsey]

17. Reagan was a telegenic puppet for the right-wing reaction

that rose against the progressive social gains made by the New Deal, Great Society, and the countercultural movements of the '60s and '70s.

[rhett o rick]

45. I think we blame too much on the right-wing. The 1% isnt right or left they are power.

They use the right-wing as their Brown Shirts. I only say this because I think we spend too much time fighting the right-wing while the PowerToBe pick our pockets. Our worst enemies are the 1% puppets that we think work for us.

[deutsey]

48. I think you have a point

but I also use the "right" in its original sense of those in the French parliament that supported and wanted to preserve the traditional monarchist hierarchy. Similar to the Optimates in ancient Rome and the oligarchy under The Four Hundred in Athens, and others throughout history.

Probably just splitting hairs here on my part semantically, but I see today's American right as carrying on this legacy today.

[starroute]

22. Some of it even goes back to Nixon

The idea of establishing a "permanent Republican majority" started in the Nixon administration and was only derailed by Watergate. The agenda of "defunding the left" -- by destroying unions and groups that received federal funding for progressive causes -- began in the early Reagan years and was closely associated with the Heritage Foundation.

For these people, it's never really been about democracy or even politics, but only about power. They see the Democratic Party and its allies as a set of enemies to be weakened or destroyed and the endgame being permanent power for themselves.

Even things like the attacks on Social Security are only partially about funneling more money into the pockets of Wall Street. The even deeper purpose is to destroy everything about government that makes people's lives better as a way of leaving the Democrats without any reason why anyone should vote for them.

It's a war, and our own inability to recognize it as such has been our constant weakness.

[deutsey]

39. Exactly...I think I finally realized that

when I learned about the economic/political motivations behind the US-backed coup in Chile. Nixon, Kissinger, and Milton Friedman used it as a testing ground for what you're talking about here.

[LongTomH]

14. One vision of the future: Playgrounds for the rich in orbit

I posted this as a comparison to the world of Elysium: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017144422

[Octafish]

20. JFK Continued the New Deal as the New Frontier

The peaceful exploration of space was the best thing to happen to jobs in history. At its peak, 400,000 Americans were employed in the Apollo Project.



Imagine if President Kennedy had lived, where the nation would be today? I believe, if we could figure out how to the moon and back, we could face any problem on earth and solve it -- from ending hunger, poverty and ignorance to creating a lasting peace.

Problems today's GOP considers intractable (see Poppy Bush inaugural "More will than Wallet&quot such as joblessness, poverty, crime, would be tackled, instead of ignored, like they've done with public education. And the treasures accumulated since would be used to make life better for everybody on earth instead of sitting in a secret Swiss bank account.

But, no. The conservatives killed the New Deal after LBJ and the Great Society. For the space program, it started with Nixon. Instead, they gave the store away to War Inc, who sank the national treasure into the "Money trumps peace" crowd.

PS: Thanks for the heads up on the space station, LongTomH. Playboy instead of Pan Am, still corporate. JFK wanted a civilian space program for peace and prosperity for ALL. That's a real Democrat.

[starroute]

16. Or it could mean that Americans will actually get radicalized

The US has never been fertile territory for genuinely radical movements. (Well, a little bit a century ago, but even that was heavy on recent immigrants.) One reason that's often cited for this is that Americans are unwilling to see themselves as poor -- they all consider themselves as middle class with a good shot at becoming upper middle. If that belief is finally abandoned, what this author sees as people resigning themselves to being permanently poor might turn out very differently.

Another thing keeping down native radicalism has been old-fashioned pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die fundamentalist religion. But somehow I can't see the nouveau poor taking up Bible thumping as a way of compensating for their loss of worldly opportunities.

In fact, if the Millennials are any indication -- more politically radical, less religious, and generally pissed as hell -- we could be in for a very bumpy, but ultimately fruitful, ride.

[Tiredofthesame]

54. Great Post.

I see it this way as well.

The youth of this country, starting with recent college grads who can't find paying work in their field, are pissed. Its our job to "wake them up" if not already, because we need them.

We need the pissed off youth to vote for the likes of Elizabeth Warren. Or hell, run themselves if possible.

"we could be in for a very bumpy, but ultimately fruitful, ride." - I agree, the fruit we would bear from a smart, politically active, less religious, pissed off youth would be abundant.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

65. I think that is exactly what will happen

but its going to take 20+ years. The Generation that still gets its news from TV won't be much help. And anyone who thinks that meaningful change will resemble anything like a 1950's America, or that simply tweaking the status quo of politics, and economics is all thats required will not be a part of it.

Unlike any other time in history people have the power to mass communicate, and mass organize, and do so quickly. As long as that communication remains available, educated people will collaborate, 'radicals' will undermine the system, and movements will form spontaneously, increasing in size and scope. Most will be peaceful, but some elements will create fear among the PTB.

When the situation reaches a critical point for a sustained period, class consciousness will be self evident. Values will be reexamined and people will coalesce around basic demands: Food, shelter, equality, and a sustainable environment to raise their families in. Equality and a sustainable environment is not compatible with capitalism, global trade and imperialism as we know it.

There are already signs that some places are heading in this direction. South America banding together, realizing that they have more in common with each other than Washington, and working as regional bloc, along with the election of populist left wing leaders. The unanimous outrage over Evo Morales' plane being grounded was an excellent show of regional unity. Nation wide strikes also in Europe paralyzing the flow of business as usual.

Closer to home people on the inside, the Snowdens, Mannings etc, and hackers making public the rot within the system. And now even a few billionaires getting behind environmental causes. First Nation peoples banding together for the environment. Labor unions looking to reach out to any group of people wishing to improve the collective good. The resounding NO, that the people recently expressed to the MIC regarding Syrian intervention. Etc. Etc.

Over time the national mood and direction will have to shift because we have no choice. Degrees of socialism, collectivism, communalism, long term planning, and perhaps regional autonomy in some cases, are the only alternative to outright civil chaos.

[Uncle Joe]

18. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Octafish.

[Precisely]

21. Once business took over government all bets were off

[Arugula Latte]

24. Your OP title reminds me of the Shins song "No Way Down"

Seems like a song about the 1 vs. 99 Percent:

The son of a government man
And a pillar of salt
I was born with blood on my hands
And have all the signs of a bleeding heart

Living high on a giant hawk
On a mountain so steep
Keep your head in a hollow log
As the ruling fog are about to creep

What have we done?
How'd we get so far from the sun?
Lost, lost in an oscillating phase
Where a tiny few catch all of the rays

Out beyond the western squalls
In an Indian land
They work for nothing at all
They don't know the mall or the layaway plan

Dig yourself a beautiful grave
Everything you could want
Maybe those invisible slaves
Are too far away for a ghost to haunt

What do we charge?
Letting go of a claim so large
Oh, all of our working days are done
But a tiny few are having all of the fun

Get used to the dust in your lungs

Is there no way down
From this peak to solid ground
Without having our gold teeth
Pulled from our mouth

Make me a drink strong enough
To wash away this dishwater world they said was lemonade
Walk with me after the show
Maybe we can find a way through the minefield in the snow

What are they charged?
Letting go of a claim so large
Oh, all of our working days are done
But a tiny few are having all of the fun

Apologies to the sick and the young
Get used to the dust in your lungs

[hfojvt]

25. hey, it is NOT like Obama is doing NOTHING

Democrats did pass ATRA after all, and Obama signed it.

ATRA gives $1.3 trillion in permanent tax cuts to the top 5%
and gives $400 billion to the bottom 40%

So they did act to make inequality WORSE.

[bhikkhu]

27. The tax increases were for the top 2%

so you can make it look like a tax break for the wealthiest by lumping them together with the next 3%.

Nice way of spinning what was actually no change for the 98% (making existing tax cuts permanent), while increasing taxes on the top 2%. Capital gains taxes were increased as well, which disproportionately increases taxes on the wealthiest.

Addressing the inequality problem is one of our biggest issues, but bashing democrats for raising taxes on the wealthiest individuals isn't a good way to do it.

[hfojvt]

33. capital gains taxes increased automatically

when the Bush tax cuts expired.

I guess we should be thankful that Obama did not cut them

the way he cut the estate tax
the way he cut the tax on dividends (a move which saves Alice Walton about $100,000,000 (yes that is 100 million dollars) a year in taxes and saves Mitt Romney close to $1,000,000 a year in taxes.

So, sure, taxes went up on the top 2%. Yeah, sure.

This link shows that even the top 1% got $666 billion in tax CUTS. Not tax increases - PERMANENT tax CUTS.

http://ctj.org/pdf/bidenmcconnelldistribution.pdf

Meanwhile the bottom 40% only get $370 billion of permanent tax cuts.

No, the bill took the Bush tax cuts, which twice were scheduled to die, and instead made 85% of them permanent, and the major beneficiaries of that move are not the bottom 60%. They are the top 20%.

Now you may wish to lump 8% of the top 20% in with the bottom 60% to make it look like it benefits the bottom, but the analysis at that link shows
19% for the bottom 60%
36% for the top 5%
65% (!!!) for the top 20%

making society MORE unequal.

[bhikkhu]

34. When you include the lower estate tax rates ("death tax"), yes

the top 1% did wind up with a tax cut. And the estate tax is an very important piece of the long-term inequality picture, especially in how it affects "social mobility". No argument there.

The best solution, however, is to elect democrats to office. The republicans stand in the way of every reform, and the democrats (the minority in the house) negotiate and compromise for the best deal they can get. It should have been a better deal, but getting an increase in income taxes for the top 2% and the capital gains increase through the house was something of a feat, with everything that was on the table at the time.

[hfojvt]

37. it would have been a better deal to let them all expire

or to get a better deal by playing hardball as in "take this deal, or they all expire.

Democrats HAD control of the House in 2010, and they did not fight then. They promised "well, we will fight next time". And there we were at next time and THIS is what we got?

Elect Democrats for what? So Republicans will have somebody to lick their boots?

At this point, we will need to elect about 80 Democrats to the Senate and 270 to the House to have any chance of undoing that PERMANENT piece of crap that they just passed. Not to mention they just gave the rich more money to donate.

No, I am afraid the game is up. We had two chances at change, and they punted on both of them. And declared victory both times.

[hfojvt]

38. also, the estate tax cut is NOT that big a deal

the income tax cuts were $3.3 trillion and the estate tax cut a mere $369 billion over the next decade http://ctj.org/pdf/fiscalcliffdealrevenueimpacts.pdf

So of the $1.3 trillion in tax cuts going to the richest 5%, only .37 trillion of that comes from the estate tax cut - less than 29% of it. The other 71% of it comes from income tax cuts.

But thanks to OWS, we are all supposed to be happy that the 94-99% got $634 billion in permanent tax cuts. Because they are working folks just like us - only a heck of a lot richer.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

26. They want a world where the ONLY way to make it is to kiss their ass for a few crumbs.

[Rex]

30. Tired of it no, not that, just somewhat jaded by it.

Then again, I never expected there to be such a wide disparity between the rich and the poor in America. We all grow up eventually.

[livingwagenow]

35. Recced. nt

[mick063]

36. FOX News made a large portion of our nation collectively stupid.

24/7 propaganda.

It wasn't around fifty years ago, yet people, even here on DU, don't believe me when I say that FOX is the greatest single threat to our nation.

There is a definite dividing line of "before FOX" and "after FOX".

[Octafish]

47. Truth is what Democracy craves.

Which is why pukes and billionaires spend so much money on hiding it.

The Propaganda System That Has Helped Create a Permanent Overclass Is Over a Century in the Making

Pulling back the curtain on how intent the wealthiest Americans have been on establishing a propaganda tool to subvert democracy.

Wednesday, 17 April 2013 00:00
By Andrew Gavin Marshall, AlterNet | News Analysis

Where there is the possibility of democracy, there is the inevitability of elite insecurity. All through its history, democracy has been under a sustained attack by elite interests, political, economic, and cultural. There is a simple reason for this: democracy – as in true democracy – places power with people. In such circumstances, the few who hold power become threatened. With technological changes in modern history, with literacy and education, mass communication, organization and activism, elites have had to react to the changing nature of society – locally and globally.

From the late 19th century on, the “threats” to elite interests from the possibility of true democracy mobilized institutions, ideologies, and individuals in support of power. What began was a massive social engineering project with one objective: control. Through educational institutions, the social sciences, philanthropic foundations, public relations and advertising agencies, corporations, banks, and states, powerful interests sought to reform and protect their power from the potential of popular democracy.

SNIP...

The development of psychology, psychoanalysis, and other disciplines increasingly portrayed the “public” and the population as irrational beings incapable of making their own decisions. The premise was simple: if the population was driven by dangerous, irrational emotions, they needed to be kept out of power and ruled over by those who were driven by reason and rationality, naturally, those who were already in power.

The Princeton Radio Project, which began in the 1930s with Rockefeller Foundation funding, brought together many psychologists, social scientists, and “experts” armed with an interest in social control, mass communication, and propaganda. The Princeton Radio Project had a profound influence upon the development of a modern "democratic propaganda" in the United States and elsewhere in the industrialized world. It helped in establishing and nurturing the ideas, institutions, and individuals who would come to shape America’s “democratic propaganda” throughout the Cold War, a program fostered between the private corporations which own the media, advertising, marketing, and public relations industries, and the state itself.

CONTINUED...

http://truth-out.org/news/item/15784-the-propaganda-system-that-has-helped-create-a-permanent-overclass-is-over-a-century-in-the-making

Thankfully, to help spread light when the protectors of the First Amendment won't, Maria Galardin's TUC (Time of Useful Consciousness) Radio. The podcast helps explain how we got here and what we need to do to move forward, starting with putting the "Public" into Airwaves again:

Alex Carey: Corporations and Propaganda

The Attack on Democracy

The 20th century, said Carey, is marked by three historic developments: the growth of democracy via the expansion of the franchise, the growth of corporations, and the growth of propaganda to protect corporations from democracy. Carey wrote that the people of the US have been subjected to an unparalleled, expensive, 3/4 century long propaganda effort designed to expand corporate rights by undermining democracy and destroying the unions. And, in his manuscript, unpublished during his life time, he described that history, going back to World War I and ending with the Reagan era. Carey covers the little known role of the US Chamber of Commerce in the McCarthy witch hunts of post WWII and shows how the continued campaign against "Big Government" plays an important role in bringing Reagan to power.

John Pilger called Carey "a second Orwell", Noam Chomsky dedicated his book, Manufacturing Consent, to him. And even though TUC Radio runs our documentary based on Carey's manuscript at least every two years and draws a huge response each time, Alex Carey is still unknown.

Given today's spotlight on corporations that may change. It is not only the Occupy movement that inspired me to present this program again at this time. By an amazing historic coincidence Bill Moyers and Charlie Cray of Greenpeace have just added the missing chapter to Carey's analysis. Carey's manuscript ends in 1988 when he committed suicide. Moyers and Cray begin with 1971 and bring the corporate propaganda project up to date.

This is a fairly complex production with many voices, historic sound clips, and source material. The program has been used by writers and students of history and propaganda. Alex Carey: Taking the Risk out of Democracy, Corporate Propaganda VS Freedom and Liberty with a foreword by Noam Chomsky was published by the University of Illinois Press in 1995.

SOURCE: http://tucradio.org/new.html

If you find a moment, here's the first part (scroll down at the link for the second part) on Carey.

http://tucradio.org/AlexCarey_ONE.mp3

Here's an excellent overview from a guy who pointed out some important truth and was shot dead outside Richard Mellon Scaife's office one day, a "suicide" right.

The Origins of the Overclass

By Steve Kangas

The wealthy have always used many methods to accumulate wealth, but it was not until the mid-1970s that these methods coalesced into a superbly organized, cohesive and efficient machine. After 1975, it became greater than the sum of its parts, a smooth flowing organization of advocacy groups, lobbyists, think tanks, conservative foundations, and PR firms that hurtled the richest 1 percent into the stratosphere.

The origins of this machine, interestingly enough, can be traced back to the CIA. This is not to say the machine is a formal CIA operation, complete with code name and signed documents. (Although such evidence may yet surface — and previously unthinkable domestic operations such as MK-ULTRA, CHAOS and MOCKINGBIRD show this to be a distinct possibility.) But what we do know already indicts the CIA strongly enough. Its principle creators were Irving Kristol, Paul Weyrich, William Simon, Richard Mellon Scaife, Frank Shakespeare, William F. Buckley, Jr., the Rockefeller family, and more. Almost all the machine's creators had CIA backgrounds.

During the 1970s, these men would take the propaganda and operational techniques they had learned in the Cold War and apply them to the Class War. Therefore it is no surprise that the American version of the machine bears an uncanny resemblance to the foreign versions designed to fight communism. The CIA's expert and comprehensive organization of the business class would succeed beyond their wildest dreams. In 1975, the richest 1 percent owned 22 percent of America’s wealth. By 1992, they would nearly double that, to 42 percent — the highest level of inequality in the 20th century.

How did this alliance start? The CIA has always recruited the nation’s elite: millionaire businessmen, Wall Street brokers, members of the national news media, and Ivy League scholars. During World War II, General "Wild Bill" Donovan became chief of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA. Donovan recruited so exclusively from the nation’s rich and powerful that members eventually came to joke that "OSS" stood for "Oh, so social!"

Another early elite was Allen Dulles, who served as Director of the CIA from 1953 to 1961. Dulles was a senior partner at the Wall Street firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, which represented the Rockefeller empire and other mammoth trusts, corporations and cartels. He was also a board member of the J. Henry Schroeder Bank, with offices in Wall Street, London, Zurich and Hamburg. His financial interests across the world would become a conflict of interest when he became head of the CIA. Like Donavan, he would recruit exclusively from society’s elite.

CONTINUED...

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-overclass.html

Thanks, mick063. They have all most of the money and guns. We got something better -- the truth.

[FiveGoodMen]

57. A lot of us were already stupid enough that we didn't make it a crime to lie and call it news.

[CrispyQ]

42. This vid should go viral, but at six and a half minutes, I guess it's too long for most people.

If people would just watch this, they would be outraged.

[rhett o rick]

46. And the nitwits among us obsess over trashing Greenwald. They cant discuss the intelligence

Last edited Fri Sep 13, 2013, 07:59 PM - Edit history (1)

agencies, they can only throw mud at Greenwald. They are carrying water for the 1%.

[Maedhros]

62. Oh, please. Just stop.

Your posts make you look like a petulant child.

[rhett o rick]

63. Tell me that those that obsess over Greenwald arent trying to deflect attention from other

problems. Isnt that what the 1% wants?

[Maedhros]

69. Nobody is "obsessing over Greenwald", other than hacks who continue to target him with smears.

There are a large number of people outraged at the massive, pervasive, invasive, abused NSA surveillance program and the hundreds of billions of dollars it is soaking up from the treasury at a time when we talk about shutting down social services because of "austerity."

I understand: you don't think the issue is important and think that putting the spotlight on the NSA is a veiled attack on Obama. I disagree with your position, but I understand it. Trying to frame the debate as "obsession" with a journalist only weakens your argument, because you're avoiding the issue.

[rhett o rick]

74. My greatest apologizes. You misunderstood my intent and I can see why

going back and rereading my post. I will go back and edit it to make myself more clear.

[Maedhros]

78. It is possible that I'm a bit over-reactive when it comes to this particular issue.

My apologies as well.

[rhett o rick]

81. I completely understand the overreaction, I've done it myself. nm

[winter is coming]

50. Ooh, just what we need: a country full of impoverished people with a lot of guns.

That'll end well.

[Sunlei]

58. for profit prisons can take millions more as all those angry people break laws, their lobby wrote.

[awoke_in_2003]

80. And not for us...

after all, they have the military and the police.

[Vashta Nerada]

51. Maybe it's time for the young generation to think about leaving the country to find

a better living elsewhere.

It doesn't look like it's going to happen here.

[HughBeaumont]

55. The RIGHTward move this country has taken in 35 years on nearly ALL fronts is KILLING us.

Even one of their own (Nick Hanauer) greatly disapproves of America moving towards a pure Capitalist Plutonomy, stating . . .

Here’s a bottom-line example: My investment portfolio includes Pacific Coast Feather Co., one of the largest U.S. manufacturers of bed pillows. Like many other manufacturers, pillow-makers are struggling because of weak demand. The problem comes down to this: My annual earnings equal about 1,000 times the U.S. median wage, but I don’t consume 1,000 times more pillows than the average American. Even the richest among us only need one or two to rest their heads at night.

An economy such as ours that increasingly concentrates wealth in the top 1 percent, and where most workers must rely on stagnant or falling wages, isn’t a place to build much of a pillow business, or any other business for that matter.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-19/the-capitalist-s-case-for-a-15-minimum-wage.html

[Sunlei]

56. this could change if gov would cut the barriers that prevent people from working out of their homes.

Doubt the 'big boys' want thousands, millions of small family run businesses again.

[KansDem]

59. Hey! I don't see "In God We Trust" on that image of paper money!

What are you? Some kind of atheist socialist communist, hellbent on hating us for our freedoms?

[Octafish]

60. I'm trying not to go insane every time I remember 1984.

If you haven't read the novel, please STOP. The ending is that good -- unforgettable, thankfully.

SPOILER ALERT
SPOILER ALERT
SPOILER ALERT

---------------- SPOILER ALERT ---------------------------


For I fear what Orwell wrote may yet come to pass:

"He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother”.

[Ursus Rex]

61. I was bothered all day by that interview.

No questions about cause, and the part about "the creatives" having tremendous upward mobility was really just the worst. SO, for content, it was depressing.

Also, has either of those two guys been reading ANYTHING about this for, like, 15 years? William Gibson could have been this guy's template, as well as a slew of other dystopian authors.

The complete lack of context is yet another reason why I don't find NPR informative or interesting anymore. It's just bleh, not left enough to be an alternative, not right enough for Hannity and Limbaugh listeners to quit complaining.

[Octafish]

91. Thank you for putting it into words, Ursus Rex.

The "inevitability" of it all so troubled me that I had to do something in the hope that it would engender some change.

Science Fiction writers like Harry Harrison, Anthony Burgess and Brian Aldiss believed that tackling ideas in the present through their work would prevent the world from becoming what they feared. Interesting how the Platonic principal of ideals has been so corrupted.

The Democratic leadership has tossed the middle class under the bus the same way they did the poor to appease the rich in the ending of welfare as we know it 90s.

Those who think they'll be safe as one of the creatives using the Internet all day would do well to remember what happened to the players and proles at ENRON. They LAUGHED at the little old ladies going broke at their juiced-up electric bills in California only to CRY when they discovered that Kenny Boy Lay was gaming them for all they were -- emphasis on WERE -- worth.

As Dr. King noted: true democracy includes economic justice.

[TeamPooka]

67. K&R!

[KG]

68. and guess what - 'electing more democrats' won't help one bit.

[Octafish]

89. How about Liberal Democrats? They're infinitely better than the Wall Street lubbers.

But, perhaps, we need some Euro-Vermont type Social Democrats. Lord knows the right-wing hates them so much they've spent a fortune to keep theirs.

Maria Galardin's TUC (Time of Useful Consciousness) Radio tells how we got here and sheds light on how to get where we need to be -- without having to destroy everything to save it:

Alex Carey: Corporations and Propaganda
The Attack on Democracy

The 20th century, said Carey, is marked by three historic developments: the growth of democracy via the expansion of the franchise, the growth of corporations, and the growth of propaganda to protect corporations from democracy. Carey wrote that the people of the US have been subjected to an unparalleled, expensive, 3/4 century long propaganda effort designed to expand corporate rights by undermining democracy and destroying the unions. And, in his manuscript, unpublished during his life time, he described that history, going back to World War I and ending with the Reagan era. Carey covers the little known role of the US Chamber of Commerce in the McCarthy witch hunts of post WWII and shows how the continued campaign against "Big Government" plays an important role in bringing Reagan to power.

John Pilger called Carey "a second Orwell", Noam Chomsky dedicated his book, Manufacturing Consent, to him. And even though TUC Radio runs our documentary based on Carey's manuscript at least every two years and draws a huge response each time, Alex Carey is still unknown.

Given today's spotlight on corporations that may change. It is not only the Occupy movement that inspired me to present this program again at this time. By an amazing historic coincidence Bill Moyers and Charlie Cray of Greenpeace have just added the missing chapter to Carey's analysis. Carey's manuscript ends in 1988 when he committed suicide. Moyers and Cray begin with 1971 and bring the corporate propaganda project up to date.

This is a fairly complex production with many voices, historic sound clips, and source material. The program has been used by writers and students of history and propaganda. Alex Carey: Taking the Risk out of Democracy, Corporate Propaganda VS Freedom and Liberty with a foreword by Noam Chomsky was published by the University of Illinois Press in 1995.

SOURCE: http://tucradio.org/new.html

If you find a moment, here's the first part (scroll down at the link for the second part) on Carey.

http://tucradio.org/AlexCarey_ONE.mp3

I still believe we need a New New Deal for the 21st Century. If the Party weren't so busy fallating Wall Street and War Inc, we could've built National 100% Renewable Clean Energy Grid, I kid you not:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/for-the-price-of-the-iraq-war-the-u-s-could-have-a-100-renewable-power-system/5330881

[gopiscrap]

76. sadly I tend to agree with you

[awoke_in_2003]

77. "people who can work with computers can make a lot"...

tell that to American IT people.

[Octafish]

88. The guy hit all the right chords, didn't he?

It shouldn't make a bit of difference where an IT person works, Mumbay, Minneapolis, Madrid -- right?

If we keep going the way we are, we'll all be paid interns -- paying for the privilege of a place to work indoors during the day. At night, it'll be back to the street.

I thank the people who own and operate the wonderful Mr. Thomas Friedman.

Empty Pockets, Angry Minds.

EXCERPT...

India is the second-largest Muslim country in the world, but the cartoon protests here, unlike those in Pakistan, have been largely peaceful. One reason for the difference is surely that Indian Muslims are empowered and live in a flourishing democracy. India's richest man is a Muslim software entrepreneur. But so many young Arabs and Muslims live in nations that have deprived them of any chance to realize their full potential.

The Middle East Media Research Institute, called Memri, just published an analysis of the latest employment figures issued by the U.N.'s International Labor Office. The I.L.O. study, Memri reported, found that "the Middle East and North Africa stand out as the region with the highest rate of unemployment in the world": 13.2 percent. That is worse than in sub-Saharan Africa.

While G.D.P. in the Middle East-North Africa region registered an annual increase of 5.5 percent from 1993 to 2003, productivity, the measure of how efficiently these resources were used, increased by only about 0.1 percent annually — better than only one region, sub-Saharan Africa.

The Arab world is the only area in the world where productivity did not increase with G.D.P. growth. That's because so much of the G.D.P. growth in this region was driven by oil revenues, not by educating workers to do new things with new technologies.

CONTINUED...flat earth flat head flat heart...

[awoke_in_2003]

97. He is either dense or a liar...

bringing up the computer field makes me think the latter.

[matt in france]

79. something else to aspire to...selling drugs

despite having a masters degree.... ..

[washnwmn]

82. Tired of gloom & doom.

IMO - I'm tired of hearing more and more gloom and doom nonsense. Lets see some stories about positive activities that are happening in your area.
There are plenty of people out there showing the way to a better future. There are things that can and are being done. Worker owned companies, worker owned co-ops and community owned banks. If you don't like certain business practices - boycott them and tell your friends. Support positive organizations you believe in. Volunteer or donate to causes that are positive steps, Habitat for Humanity, Doctors w/o Borders, Green Peace or Amnesty International.
Promote and use green technologies, where you can. Drive a hybrid. Put up your own solar setup and/or a wind turbine on your farm. Start an organization to help others get them, especially poorer folks. If you're a church person or if you're not, start a food bank, or a shelter, or work with established ones.
If you wait around for the government and big business to get their act straight, yes gloom and doom will happen. Fight back against the negative with some positive actions from the grassroots level.

[Octafish]

84. Please, write an OP. Meanwhile, the Banksters who destroyed the American middle class...

... are preparing for what may come next:

The Really Creepy People Behind the Libertarian-Inspired Billionaire Sea Castles

The stinking rich are planning billion-dollar luxury liners that keep the land-based Americans they've plundered at a safe distance.

AlterNet / By Mark Ames
June 1, 2010

What happens when Americans plunder America and leave it broken, destitute and seething mad? Where do these fabulously wealthy Americans go with their loot, if America isn't a safe, secure, or even desirable place to spend their riches? What if they lose faith in their gated communities, because those plush gated communities are surrounded by millions of pissed-off Americans stripped of their entitlements, and who now want in?

The first such floating castle has been christened the " Utopia"--the South Korean firm Samsung has been contracted to build the $1.1 billion ship, due to be launched in 2013. Already orders are coming in to buy one of the Utopia's 200 or so mansions for sale- -which range in price from about $4 million for the smallest condos to over $26 million for 6,600 square-foot "estates." The largest mansion is a whopping 40,000 square feet, and sells for $160 million.

SNIP...

Both Thiel and Milton Friedman's grandson see democracy as the enemy--last year, Thiel wrote "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible" at about the same time that Milton Friedman's grandson proclaimed, "Democracy is not the answer." Both published their anti-democracy proclamations in the same billionaire-Koch-family-funded outlet, Cato Unbound, one of the oldest billionaire-fed libertarian welfare dispensaries. Friedman's answer for Thiel's democracy problem is to build offshore libertarian pod-fortresses where the libertarian way rules. It's probably better for everyone if Milton Friedman's grandson and Peter Thiel leave us forever for their libertarian ocean lair--Thiel believes that America went down the tubes ever since it gave women the right to vote, and he was outed as the sponsor of accused felon James O'Keefe's smear videos that brought ACORN to ruin.

SNIP...

While neither Bush nor the Bin Ladens are principals in the Frontier Group, its founding director, Frank Carlucci, is a name they know well, and you should too. Carlucci ran the Carlyle Group as its chairman from 1989 through 2005, right around the time that the wars started going undeniably bad, and floating castles started to look like a viable plan. But Carlucci's past is much weirder and scarier than most of us care to know: whether it's his strangely timed appearances in some of the ugliest assassinations and coups in modern history, or serving as Carter's number two man in the CIA, and Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Defense, if Frank Carlucci (nicknamed "Creepy Carlucci" and "Spooky Frank&quot is the founding director of a firm that's building floating castles, it's a bad sign for those of us left behind.

I'll get into Carlucci's partners in the Frontier Group in a moment, but first, let's reacquaint ourselves with Frank Carlucci. From an early age, Carlucci learned the importance of getting to know the right people in the right places. He studied at Princeton in the mid-1950s, where as luck should have it, Carlucci roomed with Donald Rumsfeld. Both Carlucci and Rumsfeld shared a passion for Greco-Roman wrestling at Princeton, and both went on to serve in the Navy after Princeton. Their paths would split and merge several times over the next few decades, even as they remained close personal friends throughout their lives. In the late 1950s, Carlucci briefly served as an executive at a lingerie manufacturer, Jantzen (the Victoria's Secret of its day), but quickly left to join the State Department.

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/story/147058/the_really_creepy_people_behind_the_libertarian-inspired_billionaire_sea_castles

Frank Carlucci, of Carlyle Group fame, also was instrumental in opening up Africa in the early 1960s.

"Carlucci" bleeped from HBO version of Lumumba

Ex-CIA official threatened lawsuit

By Joanne Laurier
15 March 2002

Home Box Office (HBO), the US cable television network, is currently broadcasting a censored version of Lumumba, the award-winning film about Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of independent Congo, assassinated by imperialist agents in January 1961.

Haitian-born director Raoul Peck’s work fictionally reconstructs Lumumba’s coming to power in 1960 and the intrigues which led to his brutal murder. The film shown on HBO is a version of the French-language original dubbed into English, which bleeps out the name of Frank Carlucci, a future deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and secretary of defense, in the dialogue and masks his name in the credits. At the time of Lumumba’s death, Carlucci was the second secretary at the US embassy in the Congo and, covertly, a CIA agent.

This attempt to keep Carlucci’s role in the Congo from television audiences follows the release of US government documents revealing that President Dwight Eisenhower ordered the CIA to murder Lumumba. Minutes of an August 1960 National Security Council meeting confirm that Eisenhower told CIA chief Allen Dulles to “eliminate” the Congolese leader. The official note taker, Robert H. Johnson, testified to this before the Senate Intelligence Committee in 1975, but no documentary evidence had been previously available to back up his claim.

Carlucci’s lawyers threatened Peck and distribution company Zeitgeist Films with legal action if the name of the former US official was not bleeped out of a scene that shows American Ambassador Clare Timberlake and Carlucci, along with Belgian and Congolese officials, plotting Lumumba’s assassination. Carlucci insisted that only the altered version of the film, with his name missing, could be used for mass market venues, such as television, video and DVD, allowing the original track to remain intact for theater showings. Zeitgeist officials said they were too small and weak financially to fight a case in court.

Carlucci is an immensely wealthy individual, with connections at the highest levels of the US government. Deputy chief of the CIA under Jimmy Carter and secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan, Carlucci is now chairman of the Carlyle Group, a private equity investment group with billions of dollars of assets in the defense industry. The company employs prominent ex-officeholders, such as former president George Bush, former British prime minister John Major and former president of the Philippines Fidel Ramos. Carlucci has the closest financial, political and personal ties to the Bush family. Other figures involved in Carlyle Group operations include former secretary of state James Baker, who headed up George W. Bush’s effort to block vote recounts in Florida in 2000 and hijack the presidential election. Carlucci has a long-term political relationship with his former classmate and wrestling buddy from Princeton, the present secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld.

At a January 24 screening of the film in New York held at the Council on Foreign Relations (CRF), publisher of Foreign Affairs magazine, Peck confirmed that the film had been changed in response to Carlucci’s legal threats. Despite considerable media presence at the event, during which Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, for one, raised a question about Carlucci’s name being removed, virtually nothing has appeared in the mainstream media about the issue.

The WSWS spoke with freelance journalist Lucy Komisar, who attended the screening and wrote an article about Carlucci’s action for the Pacific News Service. She commented: “This is censorship. This is a story that he does not want to talk about. Although he was not in charge , he was involved in what was going on. It is a part of his history. The honorable thing to do would have been to acknowledge that the Americans helped in doing away with a man who could have helped that region—that they supported Mobutu, who for decades led a brutal dictatorship which caused enormous suffering. I think the incident shows the extremes to which people like Carlucci will go to cover up actions they know were wrong—even to censoring a movie.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2002/03/carl-m15.html

So, yes. I'm fighting back with information. Otherwise, the only things that will be left are what's not nailed down. And that will be polluted beyond usability.

[hatrack]

85. I heard this and wanted to throw up . . .

He's not wrong - standardized testing for everything, especially job performance, the rich get richer, most people just getting by, but he horcched up one huge glob of glib that made me want to reach into the radio and punch him.

It was all about how there will be more and more opportunities for clever and ambitious poor people, because the Internet.

Nothing more than a big pipe full of Hopium offered as an aside to all us peasants-in-waiting. Fucking ridiculous.

[Octafish]

87. In boosting the ''size'' at the top of the pyramid from 1- to 15-percent he added a lot of Hopium.

Of course, that's all it is.

What it accomplishes, though, is further frame discussion as to what "is possible," as well as limit discussion of what can be expected ever rightward.

It is revolting -- especially when one remembers what one president who stood up to Wall Street said:

"If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich"
-- Inaugural Address of John F. Kennedy, Friday, January 20, 1961



So, in the short time he had, President Kennedy did what he could to balance the interests of concentrated wealth with the interests of the average American -- necessary for the good of the country.

Professor Donald Gibson detailed the issues in his 1994 book, Battling Wall Street: The Kennedy Presidency.

From the book:

"What (J.F.K. tried) to do with everything from global investment patterns to tax breaks for individuals was to re-shape laws and policies so that the power of property and the search for profit would not end up destroying rather than creating economic prosperity for the country."

-- Donald Gibson, Battling Wall Street. The Kennedy Presidency

More on the book, by two great Americans:

"Gibson captures what I believe to be the most essential and enduring aspect of the Kennedy presidency. He not only sets the historical record straight, but his work speaks volumes against today's burgeoning cynicism and in support of the vision, ideal, and practical reality embodied in the presidency of John F. Kennedy - that every one of us can make a difference." -- Rep. Henry B. Gonzalez, Chair, House Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs

"Professor Gibson has written a unique and important book. It is undoubtedly the most complete and profound analysis of the economic policies of President Kennedy. From here on in, anyone who states that Kennedy was timid or status quo or traditional in that field will immediately reveal himself ignorant of Battling Wall Street. It is that convincing." -- James DiEugenio, author, Destiny Betrayed. JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

What a difference between what we were going to be and what we became.

[Raksha]

92. K & R, bookmarked.

[bobthedrummer]

93. 10% of NPR employees are going to be looking for other jobs-the airwaves belong to the people-right?

K&R-we have got to retake what is ours by any and all means. Yep, by any and all means.

[liberal_at_heart]

94. kick.

[KoKo]

98. Sounds like this guy is an Elder Basher in the vein of Pete Petersen Foundation...

I'd have to do some research on him...but, I get tired of hearing this:

"It's a radical change from the America of 40 or 50 years ago. Cowen believes the wealthy will become more numerous, and even more powerful. The elderly will hold on to their benefits ... the young, not so much. Millions of people who might have expected a middle class existence may have to aspire to something else. "

Petersen Foundation wants to do away with Social Security and always have "peeps" who go out and talk about "Wealthy Elderly." The elderly these days are suffering...because what they've saved is being eaten away with higher costs on everything and what they did save (those who had anything to save) are making almost 0% interest rates in a Safe Savings Account. And there are folks who call my Father every day trying to get him to invest to get more income because he's not making anything in his savings account. And, yes he has Call Block on his old phone...but, they get through anyway. Fortunately he's not gullible but it pisses him off that he saved all his life and it's being eaten away. He's too elderly to be in the stock market...which he realizes and his mutual funds he had did badly during the meltdown and he pulled out of them in panic. He lost quite a bit and he was in pretty safe highly recommended funds with low commission. But, he just was too afraid when Paulson was carrying on about how the "US would MELT DOWN..if the Banks didn't get a Bailout."