Arianna appeared on Dylan Ratigan's MSNBC show Friday to discuss the dire economic landscape facing President Obama -- and, this November, endangered congressional Democrats -- and to explain some key points outlined in her new book, "Third World America."
"The conclusion that I reached after writing this book and traveling around the country is that there is an intersection between the political and the personal," she said. "I call it 'hope 2.0.' If 'hope' was, 'we're going to elect Barack Obama, we're going to elect Democrats and then we can sit back and they're going to fix everything,' 'hope 2.0' is the recognition that democracy is not a spectator sport. We need to be involved, we need to be vigilant, and we also need to take steps in our own communities which are independent of government."
Those steps include offering -- and accepting -- external support to help overcome the negative psychological impact of hardships like long-term unemployment. "We need to tap into our own resilience and our own personal strength," Arianna said, adding later that people from all walks of life need to work on "giving back" to society.
Other critical goals, she said, include "building up people's financial literacy" on everything from mortgages to credit card contracts, as companies too often take advantage of consumers making uneducated decisions.
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Organize from within, times were best when we had strong unions representing our families. Today everybody believes Unions are corrupt and are not willing to organize.
Consider the next time your workload is doubled and during your end of year review your boss says we are not able to give raises this year. Although, the CFO we fired, well we were able to give him a 5m dollar parting gift.
We now live in a society where 'doing the right thing' and adhering to strong personal ethics results in painfully diminishing returns, while those that lie, steal, and calculate ways and methods to rob other Americans sees a healthy, wealthy dividend. Is there a school they attend to master the art of deceit and white collar crime? I wonder.
A week ago I took my name off a 2 month waiting list for a bed at a local shelter. Why? Because there was a long list of families with children that needed that bed more than I. I couldn't live with myself knowing there was a kid out under a bridge somewhere while I occupied a bed they could be in. SO, that being said...if you see me out there on a street corner during winter...at least make eye contact with me...okay?
http://theincomepoop.wordpress.com
Current political history says it all.
Really, how did it become T R E N D Y to bash the Prez? Not even his true supporters can say something positive about him without including something negative…
Has anyone noticed that Bin and his group are not releasing the plethora of video messages? More specifically, tapes about our elections? Where have all the video messages gone?
Its not about Wall Street.
Its about repressive government.
The government has overreached in its false compassion to protect the common man.
Some government regulation is necessary, but the Obama Administration has gone too far and the people who create jobs are scared about what is next.
We need to back off the overraching opressiveness of this administration and let the free market get back to work fixing this nations economy.
GOVERNMENT IS OT THE ANSWER IN A CAPITALIST NATION.
Sestak/Franken I say...
I am sure that if we Americans were still sovereign people we would make different decisions but our representative democracy no longer represents the people. The corporations rule and we are their serfs. Does it have to be like that? No it doesn't, but it will remain so for as long as watch their TV's and think that our number one problems are Muslims, Liberals, Socialists, Communists, Gays,...you fill in the blank, anything but corporations and their owning classes.
Electing Obama was not a panacea, when you got a Republican party, that would rather do party first than country first.
He alerts Americans every single day, the cause of this ongoing bail out/looting crisis by the banksters.
May he remain on air until the banksters are put through bankruptcy re-organization and brought to justice.