America's Proud Socialist Tradition

Why isn't Eugene V. Debs a universally-known hero in our American classrooms?

Why doesn't every American student know that our government sentenced Debs to TEN YEARS in prison for delivering this bit of wisdom about war and peace and class struggle in Canton, Ohio in 1918, and that his sentence was upheld by a unanimous Supreme Court?

Here's the short speech being read by Mark Ruffalo to an audience thinking about the Iraq War in 2007:


And here's an excerpt in print of the section beginning at the 1'30" mark of the video:

"Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. In the Middle Ages when the feudal lords ... concluded to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth they declared war upon one another. But they themselves did not go to war any more than the modern feudal lords, the barons of Wall Street go to war. The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their masters; to believe that when their masters declared war upon one another, it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another and to cut one another’s throats for the profit and glory of the lords and barons who held them in contempt. And what is war in a nutshell? The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose—especially their lives. They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people. ... The working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish their corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace. Yours not to reason why; yours but to do and die. That is their motto and we object on the part of the awakening workers of this nation. If war is right let it be declared by the people."

#MittsMissingReturns (Part Six) -- Herman Cain Weighs In!

God, I miss the Clown Circus of last November with Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and the rest (i.e., the two boring Mormons). Well, here's Mr. 9-9-9 giving his emphatic opinion about #MittsMissingReturns while seated in front of the Koch Brothers' "Americans for Prosperity" banner.

“Let me say this as emphatically as I can: Who cares about Mitt Romney’s tax returns? Secondly, I love the fact that the guy is rich. You got people who are trying to make it seem like being rich is bad.” -- Herman Cain

But Herman, how do you know if he's really rich if you haven't seen his returns?

~~~~~~~~~
Catch up with earlier episodes in the #MittsMissingReturns saga by clicking below:

• #MittsMissingReturns [part one], July 3 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Two), July 6 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Three),  July 10
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Four) -- In a Nutshell, July 14 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Five) -- In Which Mitt Romney Gives a Typically Squirrelly Response, July 16

"The Romney Badger Loves to Fire People"

It's nice to end the day with a joke and a cute animal video.




I've got nothing to add, except to ask why the Romney Badger won't release its tax returns.

Two Americas

I'm rarely at home on weekdays for Presidential addresses and I'm even more rarely tuned to Fox News to watch those speeches, but I happened to be doing both today when President Obama gave a major speech in Osawatamie, Kansas, that will probably be referred to as his "Teddy Roosevelt Speech".

CNN and MSNBC showed the entire speech, but while Fox News showed the first fifteen or twenty minutes of the speech, they cut away to Michele Bachmann's rebuttal less than halfway in, conveniently leaving the speech just as he was getting into the nuts and bolts and dollars and cents of income inequality in the 21st Century USA. Were they afraid that their viewers might start agreeing with the Kansas audience that was responding so positively to the President's remarks?

While viewers of other cable networks received the unfiltered speech, the Fox viewers were hearing Rep. Bachmann calling the President an unpopular class warrior, followed by commercials, Fox attacks on Nancy Pelosi and Jon Corzine, and updates on some crimes of the week.

Here's part of what Fox viewers missed in the President's speech as their network left for more important news and commercials:

So far, most of the Republicans in Washington have refused, under any circumstances, to ask the wealthiest Americans to go the same tax rates they were paying when Bill Clinton was president.

Now, keep in mind, when President Clinton first proposed these tax increases, folks in Congress predicted they would kill jobs and lead to another recession. Instead, our economy created nearly 23 million jobs and we eliminated the deficit. Today, the wealthiest Americans are paying the lowest taxes in over half a century. This isn’t like in the early 50s, when the top tax rate was over 90%, or even the early 80s, when it was about 70%. Under President Clinton, the top rate was only about 39%. Today, thanks to loopholes and shelters, a quarter of all millionaires now pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Some billionaires have a tax rate as low as 1%. One percent.

This is the height of unfairness. It is wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker who earns $50,000 should pay a higher tax rate than somebody pulling in $50 million. It is wrong for Warren Buffett’s secretary to pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett. And he agrees with me. So do most Americans - Democrats, Independents, and Republicans. And I know that many of our wealthiest citizens would agree to contribute a little more if it meant reducing the deficit and strengthening the economy that made their success possible.

This isn’t about class warfare. This is about the nation’s welfare. It’s about making choices that benefit not just the people who’ve done fantastically well over the last few decades, but that benefits the middle class, and those fighting to get to the middle class, and the economy as a whole.

They can read the rest here.

Wedge Issue Update: "Liberal Hollywood Using Class Warfare to Brainwash Our Kids!"

In an election year in which the right does not have the high ground on any issue that really affect Americans, winning a majority of voters will require the GOP to peel off enough voters from President Obama and his party with a combination of wedge issues. Here's one that I didn't include in my original list, but it's an old chestnut in the right-wing arsenal, since the pre-cable conservatives railed against the unfair Liberal Hollywood portrayals Mr. Henry Potter and the 1% of Bedford Falls in "It's a Wonderful Life." Liberal Hollywood is at it again with the Muppets' nemesis, oilman Tex Richman. And Fox Business News (courtesy of Media Matters for America) is all over Liberal Hollywood's crime.



Speaking about (or should I say "screeching" in honor of the tone of this video?) brainwashing, someone needs to talk about the constant brainwashing in which we've been bathed since birth in America. We have every mainstream voice telling us about nothing but the wonders of capitalist consumerism supported by patriotic militarism. And this time of year we expect the non-stop cries of "buy..buy..buy" to reach a crescendo (with a subtext that if you don't buy..buy..buy, you obviously don't love..love..love your family). But if I start complaining about that, I'm into another wedge issue, The Liberal War On Christmas.

I still think that the current front-running issue in the GOP Wedge-Issue Race is "Dirty Filthy Hippies", but there's no reason to think that the race between Republican wedge issues will be any less volatile than the one between their stellar cast of candidates (which is being led at this moment by Newt Gingrich?).

The Soundtrack of #Occupy (from 1980)

Seeing tear-gas clouds in Oakland last night put the voice of Joe Strummer in my head.

"They put up a poster saying we earn more than you!
When we're working for the clampdown
We will teach our twisted speech
To the young believers
We will train our blue-eyed men
To be young believers"
--The Clash, "Clampdown"

Some, like Rick Perry and his ilk in the quote we offered yesterday, would have you believe that your liberal idealism is a youthful folly you will grow out of.

"But, you grow up and you calm down and
You're working for the clampdown
You start wearing the blue and brown and
You're working for the clampdown
So you got someone to boss around
It makes you feel big now
You drift until you brutalize
You made your first kill now"

It doesn't have to be that way. We can take our youthful idealism and adapt it to the world of the Vietnam War, or No Nukes demonstrations (Clampdown was from the era of Three Mile Island and is mentioned at the end of the song), or our criminal invasion of Iraq, or against the excesses of rapacious capitalism. Just as long as you're not working for the clampdown.

Thirty Years Ago Tomorrow

It's hard to believe that it's been thirty years already since we lost this beautiful soul and voice of reason.

THERE'S  ROOM AT THE TOP, THEY ARE TELLING YOU STILL
BUT FIRST YOU MUST LEARN HOW TO SMILE WHEN YOU KILL
IF YOU WANT TO BE LIKE THE FOLKS ON THE HILL


 A WORKING CLASS HERO IS SOMETHING TO BE

"Oh the Humanity!"

While not quite on the scale of the Nazi passenger aircraft that exploded in New Jersey and triggered the famous three words of our title, a quiet slow-motion financial catastrophe is beginning to affect the scum that floats at the top of New York's social pond. Anecdotal evidence about the current trials and tribulations of those with net worths from the mid-seven to low-ten figures is recounted in Christine Haughney's Fashion & Style article in The New York Times, "It's Not Easy Being Less Rich", where we find our quote of the day:

“A year ago, he would have only flown Gulfstreams. [...] Now it’s moving to the point where he’s flying Beech jets and Learjets.”

Give the poor guy another Republican tax cut! Stat!

The Class War Is Already in Full Swing (guess who's winning)

So the Bushies are going to balance the budget on the backs of the poor while keeping the rich and the war machine well fed. What a surprise. Click Here:The New York Times, 8 Feb 2005, Paul Krugman: Spearing the Beast. Paul Krugman continues to be the best writer on the right wing's attack on Social Security. He's absolutely correct. If they can bring down this cornerstone of the New Deal, then the rest will tumble easily.

But here's the question I haven't seen anybody ask about the dismantling of the evil liberal welfare state. What happens to the destitute elderly and disabled and uneducated and medically uninsured once the safety nets have been completely slashed? Are they supposed to pull themselves up by their nonexistent bootstraps, get their MBAs, and join the ownership class and the local country club? Or are they expected to migrate to Mexico or Canada or Guantanamo? Or are they simply expected to die quietly and cremate themselves so that a strong breeze can erase them from our welfare rolls, and our memory? (Or should they simply pray harder? Is it possible that some of the Bushies really believe that fiery Jeebus is going to Rapture up all the good Christians and slaughter the rest of us?)


Or will these human beings, these fellow Americans, these "others" who could be us with one small reversal of personal fortune, look for some way to rise up other than through the ballot box, if electoral solutions are not forthcoming? Doesn't anyone remember that FDR's New Deal was in many ways the reform of American capitalism that shut down a serious Communist and Socialist challenge in this country? Doesn't anyone remember that LBJ's Great Society was in many ways a response to real pressures from the disadvantaged and the left behind?

Just asking,
True Blue Liberal