This week brought more depressing economic news, with the "underemployment" rate rising to 16.7 percent, and the White House considering a stimulus lite package of tax breaks. We need to keep pushing Washington to finally put bold and robust job creation front and center. But, in the meantime, we can't just sit on the sidelines. To coincide with the release of my new book, Third World America, I'm going to be traveling around the country for the next few months, speaking about the practical steps we can all take to help each other through the hard times and strengthen our communities. And we are crowdsourcing part of the tour. Click here to find out where I'm going to be speaking and how you can get your group, school, organization, or town on the schedule. Together, we can take action to rebuild the middle class and restore the American Dream.
Follow Arianna Huffington on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ariannahuff
Obama has done nothing to help African Americans - 50% or less graduate high school leaving us with a subculture that will have to be supported for years to come.
Good Luck Ariana - are you giving away books to the poor?
Found Right is Wrong, and it has been very interesting to read. In fact, can't help but to see that they are STILL trying to scare us into voting for them.
Thing is, their scare of what they plan on doing once in is actually scarier.
Good luck on your tour.
Indianapolis will just have to miss out, I reckon.
d=))
Venetian Adventurer
The Life and Times of Marco Polo
by Henry H. Hart, F.R.G.S.
Stanford University Press
1942
Can Beck sell his books I see no reason why a privately run website should have any restriction. Which means...the publisher rules. No one can go into Random House on WHOM publishes under their mantel. Writers who are not independently have to find a sympathetic publishiher.
I've seen several of Beck's books for sale.
At goodwill, he's sitting right next to Limbaugh and Palin.
It's really like seeing the three stooges, and I kept waiting for a poke in the eye, slap, and nyuk nyuk nyuk from them...
AND, gosh. Senior citizens like me get 30% off on Wednesdays.
Still...I passed on the books, figuring them to be as empty of good answers as their own lives reflect.
Please also include changing the GDP to GNH (Gross National Happiness) as a possible solution.
Thank you.
And I like your name.
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The tax breaks being considered are not for wealthy individuals, which would actually return to pre-Bush level after December.
Here:
White House considers pre-midterm package of business tax breaks to spur hiring
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/02/AR2010090204235.html
As one of those 200 million working class Americans, I only want two things from the elites: "nose out" and "hands off".
So I am going to ask what part of government programs for the common good you object to.
Fishing quotas that (attempt) to keep us from fishing the fishing stocks into extinction?
How about the EPA and the Clean Water Act that attempts to assure that you don't wind up drinking industral chemicals and your up stream neighbor's piss?
The Clean Air Act that means that you can lean against a tree without comeing away covered in soot and moonscapes due to acid rail like that of Copper Hill are a thing of the past?
You don't want to support the new cancer treatments and drug research supported by the National Institute of Health?
You are against NASA's work on planetary defense because a meteor is not a problem that you want to think about, and you are against NASA's work on global warming for the same reason?
You want to give up your social security benifits or have the funds that you contributed invested in a Vanguard Fund instead? (So that Vanguard can kill more jobs by investing them in the slave state of China?
Yeah, It is us against the elites, the GOP elites.
If the so-called federal government had been performing the functions you listed, basically regulatory responsibilities, we would not have had a mortgage and banking meltdown, a Gulf oil blowout, or any number of other catastrophes. Government is SUPPOSED to perform those functions in the interest of the general welfare, but it has failed because it has focused on elitist social engineering instead of prosaic good governance.
Social Security and Medicare are beyond bankrupt. It is as inevitable as tomorrow's sunrise that sometime in the next 30 years, and perhaps in the next 10 years, that system will collapse and face massive restructuring. If you think otherwise, I can only surmise that you don't know the structure and content of the debt bundle held by the erstwhile federal government.
As for new cancer treatments from HIH, they do NOTHING to advance the cause, that is all done at universities and in private labs. And it's irrelevant in any case. I don't want advanced cancer treatments, I want to live a good productive life, enjoy some of this and some of that, and then check out with grace and diginity, leaving my kids' inheritance (and your kids' inheritance) intact. I have no desire to squander a (my) lifetime of labor and sacrifice for a few more months or a couple more years of "survivorship".
Regards,
Chuck
Your question is a fair one, and deserves an answer. To provide one, I would have to direct you to ~528 books, or write one and cite the others. No simple answers would be helpful in the least; so many things are systemically non-viable in the US at this point.
What I do suggest is that we envision what kind of world we want to live in, in specific detail, but objectively--for the good of all--and hold that vision in mind continally and perpetually. Declare what is acceptable and what is not with regard to political leadership. Stand on principle and know that there is alot of support out there. Alot of good is being done; it's under-reported. Look for positive paradigms of healthy change on the internet and hook up with like-minded ppl.
These are not 'economic trends.' These are not concepts we need to revisit in light of 'new' or 'current' realities. These are bedrock principles and should not be compromised, most certainly not to protect the profits of huge corporate conglomerates.
Demand (as in insist) that representation by effective. As it is now, we're effectively being "taxed without representation," once again.
Human rights and universal natural rights are being trampled as well by BigBiz and the gov't con-artist showmen. Of course we deserve homes, jobs, security and education. But we aren't going to get it from gov't as it has been re-framing itself for decades to favor the few. Read my other posts on this article; the one above and others.
It isn't like we don't have homes that could potentially be lived in ...
Looks like trickle-down has been permanently plugged so any measures taken to ease the plight of us bottom-feeders will merely make our plight more palatable. Until we wrest economic power from the economic royalists and their aiders and abettors in Congress, we're merely perpetuating our palatable poverty.