If you haven't read this article...you need to....it's a "must read"

[RedEarth]

This has been posted on the DU editorial section and if you haven't read this speech by Bill Moyers you need to....it is absolutely outstanding......it will make you realize we truly do have "The fight of our lives" going on right now....

This is the Fight of Our Lives
by Bill Moyers
Keynote speech
Inequality Matters Forum
New York University
June 3, 2004



And this, too, is something to get mad about. Nothing seems to embarrass the political class in Washington today. Not the fact that more children are growing up in poverty in America than in any other industrial nation; not the fact that millions of workers are actually making less money today in real dollars than they did twenty years ago; not the fact that working people are putting in longer and longer hours and still falling behind; not the fact that while we have the most advanced medical care in the world, nearly 44 million Americans -- eight out of ten of them in working families -- are uninsured and cannot get the basic care they need.

Astonishing as it seems, no one in official Washington seems embarrassed by the fact that the gap between rich and poor is greater than it's been in 50 years -- the worst inequality among all western nations. Or that we are experiencing a shift in poverty. For years it was said those people down there at the bottom were single, jobless mothers. For years they were told work, education, and marriage is how they move up the economic ladder. But poverty is showing up where we didn't expect it -- among families that include two parents, a worker, and a head of the household with more than a high school education. These are the newly poor. Our political, financial and business class expects them to climb out of poverty on an escalator moving downward.

snip....



"When powerful interests shower Washington with millions in campaign contributions, they often get what they want. But it's ordinary citizens and firms that pay the price and most of them never see it coming. This is what happens if you don't contribute to their campaigns or spend generously on lobbying. You pick up a disproportionate share of America's tax bill. You pay higher prices for a broad range of products from peanuts to prescriptions. You pay taxes that others in a similar situation have been excused from paying. You're compelled to abide by laws while others are granted immunity from them. You must pay debts that you incur while others do not. You're barred from writing off on your tax returns some of the money spent on necessities while others deduct the cost of their entertainment. You must run your business by one set of rules, while the government creates another set for your competitors. In contrast, the fortunate few who contribute to the right politicians and hire the right lobbyists enjoy all the benefits of their special status. Make a bad business deal; the government bails them out. If they want to hire workers at below market wages, the government provides the means to do so. If they want more time to pay their debts, the government gives them an extension. If they want immunity from certain laws, the government gives it. If they want to ignore rules their competition must comply with, the government gives its approval. If they want to kill legislation that is intended for the public, it gets killed."

I'm not quoting from Karl Marx's Das Kapital or Mao's Little Red Book. I'm quoting Time magazine. Time's premier investigative journalists -- Donald Bartlett and James Steele -- concluded in a series last year that America now has "government for the few at the expense of the many." Economic inequality begets political inequality, and vice versa.

more.....

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0616-09.htm

[RoyGBiv]

1. "Drowned in the Bathtub"

This paragraph needs to be repeated over and over and over again. I don't think many people truly get this.

These deficits have been part of their strategy. Some of you will remember that Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan tried to warn us 20 years ago, when he predicted that President Ronald Reagan's real strategy was to force the government to cut domestic social programs by fostering federal deficits of historic dimensions. Reagan's own budget director, David Stockman, admitted as such. Now the leading rightwing political strategist, Grover Norquist, says the goal is to "starve the beast" -- with trillions of dollars in deficits resulting from trillions of dollars in tax cuts, until the United States Government is so anemic and anorexic it can be drowned in the bathtub.

[donco6]

3. That's exactly what's happened in Colorado

On a state-wide basis.

The RW enacted a tax-limitation measure - the taxpayers bill of rights (TABOR) which limits spending increases to a combination of population growth plus inflation. Well, the economy promptly tanked thanks to his shrubesty, so the state fell into financial chaos.

Over the past two years, the RW legislature has cut all sorts of social programs, EXCEPT for K-12 education, which they can't touch because of another constitutional amendment which requires them to increase K-12 funding by inflation plus 1% for ten years! Makes 'em CRAZY! It's the one program they are DYING to get their hands on, and they can't.

In the meantime, higher ed has been cut by double-digit amounts each year, mental health services are gone, health care for indigent is non-existent, job counseling, vocational rehab, pfft! The only thing they put money into now is prisons and roads.

So, I think this is EXACTLY Bush's plan - run up the deficit until it's so high that spending cuts are demanded by both sides of the aisle, and then use the majority to cut funding for social programs.

[RoyGBiv]

5. Yup, that's the blueprint...

What's also troubling is that some who actually recognize the results of what is happening are reluctant to accept that this is official policy with a long-term goal to change fundamentally our entire society.

I have a good friend who is a professional historian trained to look past the stuff and nonsense into the deeper meanings of issues, but on this one I think he has a blind spot. He's so sensitive to avoiding the pitfalls of explanations described as conspiracies, that he sometimes fails to label a duck a duck.

His argument is that what Reagan really intended was to whittle the federal government and delegate authority back to the states as per Reagan's interpretation of original intent. His economic policies, thus, were simply to remove the national government from the process, but with the understanding that the same programs would exist, only under state control. Indeed, that's how it was sold. The problem occurred, again according to him, when Republicans at local levels emulated Reagan's national strategy without realizing the overall purpose. IOW, by his argument, States dropped the ball in not keeping up their end of the bargain.

This is wrong, I think, on many levels, even if on the surface it seems the right way to explain how this could happen in a world where all intentions are inherently good ones. As Moyers has argued and as you show in your example, this whole thing is intentional and reflective of the true intentions revolving around greed and a thirst for private power. Starve not just the national beast, but government in general, or more specifically, government run by "the People." Government by "Corporate Interest" is still okay.

As they say, I want my country back.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Why don't these people go colonize Mars, and the the rest of us the heck

alone?! Stupid nutty neocons and freepers.

[RedEarth]

9. Paul Krugman also mentions the term "starve the beast" in his article

"The Tax Cut Con". If you haven't read this article it too is worth reading.

The Tax-Cut Con

"While the Reagan tax cuts didn't produce any visible supply-side gains, they did lead to large budget deficits. From the point of view of most economists, this was a bad thing. But for starve-the-beast tax-cutters, deficits are potentially a good thing, because they force the government to shrink. So did Reagan's deficits shrink the beast?

A casual glance at the data might suggest not: federal spending as a share of gross domestic product was actually slightly higher at the end of the 1980's than it was at the end of the 1970's. But that number includes both defense spending and ''entitlements,'' mainly Social Security and Medicare, whose growth is automatic unless Congress votes to cut benefits. What's left is a grab bag known as domestic discretionary spending, including everything from courts and national parks to environmental cleanups and education. And domestic discretionary spending fell from 4.5 percent of G.D.P. in 1981 to 3.2 percent in 1988.

But that's probably about as far as any president can shrink domestic discretionary spending. And because Reagan couldn't shrink the belly of the beast, entitlements, he couldn't find enough domestic spending cuts to offset his military spending increases and tax cuts. The federal budget went into persistent, alarming, deficit. In response to these deficits, George Bush the elder went back on his ''read my lips'' pledge and raised taxes. Bill Clinton raised them further. And thereby hangs a tale."

more.........of "The Tax Cut Con" at the Krugman archive..

http://www.pkarchive.org/economy/TaxCutCon.html

[OneBlueSky]

2. and while you're at it, here's another Moyers " "must read" . . .

Democracy in the Balance
How do we nurture the healing side of religion over the killing side? How do we protect the soul of democracy against bad theology in service of an imperial state?
by Bill Moyers
Sojourners
August, 2004

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0408&article=040810

OVER THE PAST few years, as the poor got poorer, the health care crisis worsened, wealth and media became more and more concentrated, and our political system was bought out from under us, prophetic Christianity lost its voice. The Religious Right drowned everyone else out.

And they hijacked Jesus. The very Jesus who stood in Nazareth and proclaimed, "The Lord has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor." The very Jesus who told 5,000 hungry people that all of you will be fed, not just some of you. The very Jesus who challenged the religious orthodoxy of the day by feeding the hungry on the Sabbath, who offered kindness to the prostitute and hospitality to the outcast, who raised the status of women and treated even the tax collector like a child of God. The very Jesus who drove the money changers from the temple. This Jesus has been hijacked and turned into a guardian of privilege instead of a champion of the dispossessed. Hijacked, he was made over into a militarist, hedonist, and lobbyist, sent prowling the halls of Congress in Guccis, seeking tax breaks and loopholes for the powerful, costly new weapon systems that don't work, and punitive public policies.

Let's get Jesus back. The Jesus who inspired a Methodist ship-caulker named Edward Rogers to crusade across New England for an eight-hour work day. Let's get back the Jesus who caused Frances William to rise up against the sweatshop. The Jesus who called a young priest named John Ryan to champion child labor laws, unemployment insurance, a minimum wage, and decent housing for the poor - 10 years before the New Deal. The Jesus in whose name Dorothy Day challenged the church to march alongside auto workers in Michigan, fishermen and textile workers in Massachusetts, brewery workers in New York, and marble cutters in Vermont. The Jesus who led Martin Luther King to Memphis to join sanitation workers in their struggle for a decent wage.

That Jesus has been scourged by his own followers, dragged through the streets by pious crowds, and crucified on a cross of privilege. Mel Gibson missed that. He missed the resurrection - the spiritual awakening that followed the death of Jesus. He missed Pentecost.

Our times cry out for a new politics of justice. This is no partisan issue. It doesn't matter if you're a liberal or a conservative, Jesus is both and neither. It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or Republican, Jesus is both and neither. We need a faith that takes on the corruption of both parties. We need a faith that challenges complacency of all power. If you're a Democrat, shake them up. If you're a Republican, shame them. Jesus drove the money changers from the temple. We must drive them from the temples of democracy. Let's get Jesus back.

- much more . . . and very worth you while . . .

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0408&article=040810

[RedEarth]

6. Outstanding.......without question another Moyers "must read"..also

check this link out I posted earlier today regarding the religious right...."The Christian Right is Neither"



I had the opportunity to see Jan Linn give a sermon a few months ago and came away very impressed. Linn, a pastor at a Disciples of Christ Church in MN, has written a book titled "What's Wrong with the Christian Right"(link below) and also wrote the article posted at Commondreams.





Falwell and His 'Christian Right' Have It Wrong
by Rev. Jan Linn et al

Enough is enough. When Jerry Falwell declares on national television that Mohammed was a terrorist and Christians believe there will be no peace in Jerusalem until the second coming of Jesus, the time for silence on such religious arrogance is over.

Put bluntly, the Christian right that Falwell represents is neither.

It is not Christian in attitude or actions because both represent what Jesus spoke and acted against. Those who lead the Christian right are the Pharisees of today's Christianity. They play the role of moral and thought police, condemning to hell anyone whose actions they consider wrong and whose views are different from their own. Their religiosity runs a mile wide but their spirituality is an inch deep.

The Christian right is not right because it is intellectually dishonest. Falwell speaks as if he knows the Bible when what he actually knows is that which he already believes and imposes on the Bible.

He doesn't interpret the Book of Revelation, which he claims is the basis for his views on the Middle East, the fate of the world, the second coming of Jesus, and just about anything else he says he believes.

Instead, he espouses the views of a man named John Darby, whose interpretation of Revelation was popularized by the Scofield Bible in the 19th century.

more....

http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/vie...


Amazon review of his book.....


Editorial Reviews
Book Description
With careful documentation, this book exposes the extent to which the Christian Right is influencing American politics, who its political allies are, the ways it is working to re-shape America into its own image, and the hypocrisy it practices in the process. The book also takes issue with the Christian Right's agenda on major issues, and the distorted image its extremism presents of Christianity. What's Wrong With The Christian Right is ultimately a call to all liberal minded people, especially people of faith, to join the effort to offset the Christian Right as the dominant religious voice in America today.





Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.

A must read, especailly for Mainstream Christians, July 1, 2004
Reviewer: Mark MacWhorter (Maple Grove, MN United States) - See all my reviews
This book offers another viewpoint of Christian thinking by challenging the thoughts of the Christian Right and exposing the non-bibical and political agenda that are behind their ways of thnking and acting. This book is very enlighhtening and thought provoking. As the author states, 'Enough is Enough.'







A Powerful Expos?, June 28, 2004
Reviewer: David & Kitty Polk (North Port, FL United States) - See all my reviews
Christians in the US who do not share the convictions of the Christian Right often feel frustrated that the news media ignore us altogether. At last a bold and powerful voice has arisen to set a lot of records straight. Jan Linn's forceful and carefully reasoned analysis of what's wrong with the Christian Right sets out an agenda for dialogue that needs to be taken very seriously, especially in this pivotal election year. The demonizing of the opposition, the linking of a particular way of reading the Bible with in-your-face patriotism, the baptizing of a single brand of political engagement, all are exposed here with page-turning potency. What Paul Waldman has done on presidential fraud and Al Franken on lying liars, Jan Linn has done on the radically politicized right wing of American Christianity. And not a moment too soon!









http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/158112424...

"I'd vote for the

[Flubadubya]

7. RedEarth...

Could you correct this link, please? It leads to nothing...

http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/vie ...

Thanks.

[RedEarth]

8. Here we go.....lets see if this works....

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0616-09.htm