wakeup Eaglekeeper, no more payote for you
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Organizing Help Wanted We must defend America’s middle class before millionaires and billionaires own the entire country.
by Bernie Sanders There is a war going on in this country and I am not referring to the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. I am referring to the war waged by the wealthiest people in America on the disappearing and shrinking middle class of our country. The nation’s billionaires are on the warpath. They want more, more, more. Their greed has no end and they are apparently unconcerned for the future of this country if it gets in the way of their accumulation of power and wealth. On the floor of the Senate, we discuss a lot of things. But one thing we fail to talk about is who is winning in this economy and who is losing, and what that means for parents struggling to survive while working longer hours with lower wages, and worrying about whether their children will have the same kind of standard of living they have. Right now, the top 1 percent controls more than 23 percent of all income earned in America. The top 1 percent controls more than the bottom 50 percent. It’s not only that the rich are getting richer. The very, very rich are getting richer. In the last 25 years, we have seen 80 percent of all new income going to the top 1 percent. On top of all this, while the millionaires get richer and there are more and more billionaires, as a result of the Citizens United decision, what we are beginning to see in elections is unbelievable—a group of billionaires getting together and deciding where they are going to spend their money. Billionaires are going to flood states with all kinds of negative, dishonest ads in an effort to defeat people defending the middle class and to elect people who will stand up for right-wing billionaires. The Republicans’ goal—and to their credit, they have been pretty honest about it—is to bring this country back to where we were in the 1920s. All of the progressive legislation that started with FDR is on the chopping block. Despite the great successes of Social Security over the last 75 years, despite the fact that Social Security today has a $2.6 trillion surplus, they are targeting Social Security. They are targeting Medicare. In Arizona today, people on Medicaid who need transplants are no longer able to get them—that is a real death panel. Right now, according to a number of studies, we are losing about $100 billion every year because corporate America and the very wealthy are stashing their money in tax havens like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. We should be aware that in 2009, ExxonMobil made $19 billion in profits and not only did the company not pay anything in taxes, it got a $106 million refund from the IRS. We should also be aware that since 1997, we have almost tripled funding for the military. So if we are serious about reducing the deficit, those are things we need to look at—not at Social Security, not programs everyday Americans need. Our job now is to rally Americans to put pressure on a handful of Republicans—to tell them, go into your hearts, talk to your constituents and tell me if it is appropriate to hold hostage the future of this country for an agenda that benefits only the very rich. If we act, we can win this fight. It is crucial that we do, because if we don’t—if they roll over us now—there is no stopping them. It is time we organize. Your help is wanted.
Hoffa: Middle-Class Needs Jobs, Not Economic Warfare February 11, 2011 Teamsters President Calls on Local Chambers to Break from U.S. Chamber
(Washington, D.C.)—Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa today said concerted and coordinated attacks on government workers will kill jobs in the states where the attacks are launched.
Today, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker not only announced a job-destroying, budget plan that attacks that the state’s public sector workers and their unions. He then told the news media he had prepared the National Guard for problems that might arise from the proposal. This sounds like a page out of the 1930’s. “It isn’t right for politicians to attack the thousands of dedicated public servants who make our government run instead of big banks and big corporations that caused our economic problems,” Hoffa said. “Gov. Walker’s attack on working families in Wisconsin is part of a concerted, coordinated war on the middle class. It’s funded by billionaires like the Koch brothers and multinational corporations represented by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and it’s just wrong.
“Working people are struggling, and now politicians backed by billionaires and multi-national corporations are trying to cut their wages and benefits. It’s clear that they’ll stop at nothing, including calling in the National Guard and running undercover smear campaigns against unions and other organizations that represent working families,” Hoffa said.
Hoffa was alluding to recent revelations that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce paid for private security firms to spy on individuals who work for unions and bloggers who have criticized its agenda, and to spread lies and false accusations to discredit them.
“The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is dominated by multinational corporations that want to send more U.S. jobs overseas and destabilize working families by forcing down wages,” Hoffa said.
“It revealed its true anti-worker agenda when it decided to pay for spies and smear campaigns against groups willing to stand up to the big corporations.
“I’m calling on state and local chambers of commerce to break from the U.S. Chamber if they haven’t already,” Hoffa said. “That way they can show they’re truly committed to creating jobs and protecting middle-class families.”
4 comments:
Yeah that was pretty sad before Reagan saw the light !
Yeah that was pretty sad before Reagan saw the light !
Organizing Help Wanted
We must defend America’s middle class before millionaires and billionaires own the entire country.
by Bernie Sanders
There is a war going on in this country and I am not referring to the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. I am referring to the war waged by the wealthiest people in America on the disappearing and shrinking middle class of our country. The nation’s billionaires are on the warpath. They want more, more, more. Their greed has no end and they are apparently unconcerned for the future of this country if it gets in the way of their accumulation of power and wealth.
On the floor of the Senate, we discuss a lot of things. But one thing we fail to talk about is who is winning in this economy and who is losing, and what that means for parents struggling to survive while working longer hours with lower wages, and worrying about whether their children will have the same kind of standard of living they have.
Right now, the top 1 percent controls more than 23 percent of all income earned in America. The top 1 percent controls more than the bottom 50 percent. It’s not only that the rich are getting richer. The very, very rich are getting richer. In the last 25 years, we have seen 80 percent of all new income going to the top 1 percent.
On top of all this, while the millionaires get richer and there are more and more billionaires, as a result of the Citizens United decision, what we are beginning to see in elections is unbelievable—a group of billionaires getting together and deciding where they are going to spend their money. Billionaires are going to flood states with all kinds of negative, dishonest ads in an effort to defeat people defending the middle class and to elect people who will stand up for right-wing billionaires.
The Republicans’ goal—and to their credit, they have been pretty honest about it—is to bring this country back to where we were in the 1920s. All of the progressive legislation that started with FDR is on the chopping block. Despite the great successes of Social Security over the last 75 years, despite the fact that Social Security today has a $2.6 trillion surplus, they are targeting Social Security. They are targeting Medicare. In Arizona today, people on Medicaid who need transplants are no longer able to get them—that is a real death panel.
Right now, according to a number of studies, we are losing about $100 billion every year because corporate America and the very wealthy are stashing their money in tax havens like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. We should be aware that in 2009, ExxonMobil made $19 billion in profits and not only did the company not pay anything in taxes, it got a $106 million refund from the IRS. We should also be aware that since 1997, we have almost tripled funding for the military. So if we are serious about reducing the deficit, those are things we need to look at—not at Social Security, not programs everyday Americans need.
Our job now is to rally Americans to put pressure on a handful of Republicans—to tell them, go into your hearts, talk to your constituents and tell me if it is appropriate to hold hostage the future of this country for an agenda that benefits only the very rich.
If we act, we can win this fight. It is crucial that we do, because if we don’t—if they roll over us now—there is no stopping them. It is time we organize.
Your help is wanted.
Hoffa: Middle-Class Needs Jobs, Not Economic Warfare
February 11, 2011
Teamsters President Calls on Local Chambers to Break from U.S. Chamber
(Washington, D.C.)—Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa today said concerted and coordinated attacks on government workers will kill jobs in the states where the attacks are launched.
Today, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker not only announced a job-destroying, budget plan that attacks that the state’s public sector workers and their unions. He then told the news media he had prepared the National Guard for problems that might arise from the proposal. This sounds like a page out of the 1930’s.
“It isn’t right for politicians to attack the thousands of dedicated public servants who make our government run instead of big banks and big corporations that caused our economic problems,” Hoffa said. “Gov. Walker’s attack on working families in Wisconsin is part of a concerted, coordinated war on the middle class. It’s funded by billionaires like the Koch brothers and multinational corporations represented by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and it’s just wrong.
“Working people are struggling, and now politicians backed by billionaires and multi-national corporations are trying to cut their wages and benefits. It’s clear that they’ll stop at nothing, including calling in the National Guard and running undercover smear campaigns against unions and other organizations that represent working families,” Hoffa said.
Hoffa was alluding to recent revelations that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce paid for private security firms to spy on individuals who work for unions and bloggers who have criticized its agenda, and to spread lies and false accusations to discredit them.
“The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is dominated by multinational corporations that want to send more U.S. jobs overseas and destabilize working families by forcing down wages,” Hoffa said.
“It revealed its true anti-worker agenda when it decided to pay for spies and smear campaigns against groups willing to stand up to the big corporations.
“I’m calling on state and local chambers of commerce to break from the U.S. Chamber if they haven’t already,” Hoffa said. “That way they can show they’re truly committed to creating jobs and protecting middle-class families.”
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