dagblog - Comments for ""The Preacher And The Slave""

This one's for

CVille Dem — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 05:00:33 +0000

In reply to "The Preacher And The Slave"

This one's for you:

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/problem_is/2009/12/obama-diagnosed-with-dyslexia.php#comment-3694654

Thanks for the advice, and I

CVille Dem — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 04:38:27 +0000

In reply to "The Preacher And The Slave"

Thanks for the advice, and I think you're right; the funny bone is the best one to beat someone over the head with (hahahaha!). You and I have sparred from time to time, but I've also learned from you. I am glad that I am still capable of that, and I appreciate your feedback.

Thanks, Wendy - haven't

barefooted — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 01:31:08 +0000

In reply to "The Preacher And The Slave"

Thanks, Wendy - haven't thought about that tune in ages.

http://unionsong.com/u103.html

You're aboslutely right. I

oleeb — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 22:38:00 +0000

In reply to "The Preacher And The Slave"

You're aboslutely right. I look forward to the left hitting the streets and pray for it daily. That's what woke up the government in the 30's and it's what it will take today.

The Joe Hill reference is

Kali Star — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 22:09:33 +0000

In reply to "The Preacher And The Slave"

The Joe Hill reference is right on and its implications may turn to something scary for this government. I heard an African-American member of Congress talking about unemployment in minority communities. He said in all seriousness that the time was close at hand when unemployed might march on Washington. Cobra is running out for thousands. Unemployment checks also. No small dip in the jobless rates is going to turn this thing around. Working people are in too much trouble already. Where are those high-paying green jobs? How is that a government is so stupid as to not spend money to build infra-structure, to immediately put working people into a job. College grads are not finding work and leaving school with $25,000 in debt. There is a tipping point here at which the social fabric dissolves for so many people that anything can happen.

I wonder if anyone up in that White House, all those government people with a job and health insurance--which they keep when they leave office--are thinking on what might be coming down the street.

If you're nervous about the Right acting up, you'd better start thinking about acting up on your own. The Left is mighty tough on the blogs these days. The Right Wing is hitting the streets.

Joe Hill, a blogger? I think not.

I got to thinking also about

wendy davis — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:55:45 +0000

In reply to "The Preacher And The Slave"

I got to thinking also about campaign promises; I remember that Obama spoke about the need to re-draft some of our international trade agreements. As soon as some folks yelled "Protectionism!!!!" he backed off, yes?
I'm just listening to (god save me) Hardball while I'm doing chores. Tweety and Chuck Todd are agreeing about Obama's trip to Allentown, PA, being god, so that O can show how he does empathize, like the sainted Bill Clinton (of de-regulatory and NAFTA fame) "feel the pain of the worker." Again, they point to the Perception of Obama; not the reality of the policies put forward by "Pointy-headed intellectuals."
I'm a regular person, and I don't care much about selling empathy; I care about the health of the middle and lower classes. Where do the folks at the top think this will end? Apparently there have been a number of conceal gun permits issued to Goldman Sachs employees. WTF?
And I had forgotten totally about Leona Helmsley!

Remember Wendy that Leona

oleeb — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:19:57 +0000

In reply to "The Preacher And The Slave"

Remember Wendy that Leona Helmsley expressed about taxes, what the punditocracy and their patrons really believe which is that like taxes, the rules are for the little people and they can be changed at any time by our betters to make sure it is the little people who always must adapt in order to preserve our obscene wealth and privelege. God forbid the rules should be applied to the rich and powerful. They might have to do something other than grow fatter and greedier and lazier.

The biggest problem with all

oleeb — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:16:25 +0000

In reply to "The Preacher And The Slave"

The biggest problem with all of that is that small business cannot, under any circumsances, create the literally millions of jobs that we need to get our people back to work within any reasonable time frame. It would take decades for small business to produce that number of jobs at any income level, let alone at a level that pays living wages.

Other than big business, which obviously could not care less about the welfare of it's own employees let alone the American worker generally speaking, only the federal government has the resources to put large numbers of people to work quickly enough in productive activity to make a real difference. The conservadems, unfortunately led by our President, reject government work programs, not because they don't work because they do, on ideological grounds. That is the only way out of this economic depression and it is, indeed, a depression. If Obama stays on his present conservadem course he's going to look a whole lot more like Hoover than any Democratic President since Hoover. We are hearing from him the same nostrums that the Hoover administration ladled out to the public between 1929 and 1933 and all we have to do is recall how badly out of touch and off the mark Hoover and his response to the economic collapse was.

Now, in the aftermath of the first economic collapse since the 30's our officials remain in the same sort of denial the stalwart free enterprisers of the 30's were in as they are stymied by the situation and not having any adequate response they counsel the nation to allow the all benificent marketplace to magically regenarate the 8 million jobs lost in the past year. The surreal scenes depicted on our tv's of our highest government officials discussing a "jobless recovery" demonstrates just how out of touch they are with reality and the circumstances of our people. The vast numbers of unemployed are merely and intellectual construct for the chumps in the White House and in Congress. It is not a reality they recognize, acknowledge or feel any urgency doing anything about. Their emergency was last year. Their chief client, Wall Street's criminals, was saved from anything like the pain they should have suffered as a result of the criminal fraud, ponzi schemes, and irresponsibile greed thus they tell us that had they not given them nearly a trillion dollars in free, freshly minted money from our treasury it would all have been worse and it was the only way that it could have been done. This is, of course, a pathetic lie that is being allowed to stand by our media and even much of left blogistan because it is such a mind boggling situation. But the truth is one needn't understand all the details to know that giving a bunch of unethical crooks free money is a bad idea. At minimum, every dime given away should have been given only on condition that it be repaid with substantial interest and that the industry do nothing to oppose the regulation required to prevent the greed addicts from falling off the wagon again and destroying the world economy a second time.

History will not be at all kind to the capitalists, but likewise it will not be kind at all to Obama or his henchmen (particularly Geithner and Summers) or the Congressional Democrats all of whom failed to protect the interests of the nation or it's people going forward.

We keep hearing from the

wendy davis — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 18:57:08 +0000

In reply to "The Preacher And The Slave"

We keep hearing from the punditocracy that Down-sized Workers need to be re-educated for Tech jobs. Huh? Wasn't that what the Clinton Administration said when they got NAFTA passed? It's some magical thinking that people who always do the practical work in this country, or used to do the manufacturing jobs, would be better off sitting at computers. They forget how much of the tech work got outsourced to India and the Phillipines, and how sending the manufacturing jobs off-shore will screw the country long-term. It's so popular to blame it on "Federal regulations (environmental), Union demands, and tax-policy-that-kills-business." How many American companies like Rubbermaid, did Walmart kill, trying to sqeeze every penny-per-unit out of them until they could no longer compete with a Chinese version?
Remember when some business models were based on the idea that if you paid your workers well, they could actually BUY the products they made? And when there were ads on the teevee of huge groups of Union Workers advocating in song:

"Look for the Union label..."?

And don't even get me started

SleepinJeezus — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 18:47:50 +0000

In reply to "The Preacher And The Slave"

And don't even get me started on the GOP meme that we must pass tax cuts for small businesses because that is where all the new jobs are being created.

I fear they might be right about the creation of new jobs. But just how many of those jobs are family supporting? Probably not many, especially given the GOP's concern that HCR is too much for small businesses to absorb. It seems providing health care benefits for workers is simply too extreme a cost for these job providers to shoulder.

And is it not the case that small business is where the jobs are at only because we have transferred almost all manufacturing jobs to other countries?

Don't get me wrong. I appreciate small business entrepreneurs. But I never felt comfortable trying to build a sustainable economy on a series of bed and breakfasts or a whole network of craft shops selling the latest in homemade fashion wear. I most certainly don't expect these entrepreneurs to provide jobs that can sustain a family, and I fear instead that the GOP and "WE" would argue that such wage and benefit levels are simply unreasonable to expect in today's economy. (Meaning, "WE" win and you lose! Get used to it, sucker!)

It's far better to fight back, and it will take some real creative leadership to arrive at a plan - and a movement - that can knock "We" on "OUR" asses.