DENNIS KUCINICH will be our guest on
BASHAM AND CORNELL PROGRESSIVE TALK on September 17!
Keith Olbermann gave another of his riveting "Special Comments" on the unconscious person in the White House. George Bush has shamed our nation. He has written a book revising history for his "legacy." Instead of helping the families of the troops who died for his disastrous war, he is bragging about pocketing speaking fees of $50,000 after he leaves office. He is the cause of their deaths, yet he goes to Iraq on our labor day for a photo op. There is a brilliant post at my friend Alicia's blog called "Suicidal Insanity."
Last Left B4 Hooterville As hard as it is to love our enemies, I believe we must pray deeply for George Bush. We must pray to see him guided by the right ideas and principles, instead of fear. Every thing he has done, has been fear-based and disastrous. It's as if he has no moral compass, no conscience and no feelings for others or what they go through. He is playing with toy soldiers.
But there is a spiritual power that is much bigger than Bush or any of us, believe me I know firsthand. When we actually put into practice true prayer (which has nothing to do with the anthropomorphic fear and punishment fundamentalist god of the religious right) THINGS ACTUALLY CHANGE.
This is a universe of laws of harmony. We ourselves must stop our defeatism. Refuse to allow any thought of Bush starting war with Iran into your consciousness. We ourselves cannot be fearful. Bush cannot have that much power. We will not allow him to start war with Iran. I for one, am seeing him as waking up. If he has even a glimmer of the true "Christ" within, he will know he has been ruled by fear. Love casts out fear.
We have to stop saying "Bush is going to attack Iran" as if it's a done deal. We can say, "We will not tolerate this any longer" but let's get active. We need to get out on the streets.
We need to hold our thoughts higher about the man. It is metaphysics and I guarantee it works. As hard as it is to change our vision of him, we have to. Our vision of him will create a different outcome.
ON THIS LABOR DAY ...
On this Labor Day in the United States, a national holiday established more than a century ago to honor the American worker, Americans typically spend the day away from work, enjoying picnics in the park or spending the last holiday of the summer outdoors.
We must not forget that U.S. workers had to literally fight for their rights to a decent wage and improved working conditions and many risked their lives trying to organize.
In 1894, some 34 railway union members were killed when President Grover Cleveland ordered federal troops to break up a railroad strike outside Chicago, Illinois. Cleveland, who was up for re-election that year, needed to appease angry workers nationwide, so he signed into law a national holiday called Labor Day in honor of the worker.
Violence against U.S. workers continued in the 20th century. In 1902, 14 coal miners
were killed by a mine company's private police force. In 1911, about 150 people, mostly women and children, died in a fire working in a New York City sweatshop, Massachusetts police beat women and children in a textile strike.
Americans labor in many different ways. On this Labor Day, the number of people without health insurance continues to rise, up to 15.8% last year. 47 million Americans lacked health insurance in 2006, an increase of 8 million since Bush took office.
Median annual earnings for full-time, year-round workers dropped from last year, the third year in a row. Household income is down $956 since 2000. It rose slightly last year because more household members are working, and for longer hours. But they are getting paid less for their work.
Wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation’s gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960’s.
The trend to re-classify full-time workers as “independent contractors” continues to rise. Although the same work is done by the same people, contracting it out allows employers to avoid the minimum wage increase and terminate benefits that accrue only to “employees.” Reclassification also lets them avoid payroll taxes, a dodge that creates an invisible subsidy to corporate America in the range of $3 billion.
Since 2000, premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance for families have skyrocketed. The average monthly worker contribution for family coverage in 2000 was $135. It has increased to $298 or by 84%.
In the first quarter of the year, wages and salaries represented 41 percent of gross domestic product, down from almost 50 percent in the first quarter of 2001 and a record 53.6 percent in the first quarter of 1970, according to the Commerce Department.
The corporate policies of George W Bush has allowed more manufacturing companies to move overseas in the last six years, giving the country a trade deficit of more than $700 billion annually. And the jobs lost in manufacturing have been disproportionately union jobs.
While the unionization rate in manufacturing was more than 40 percent in the sixties, in 2006 it was just 11.6 percent, less than the 12 percent average for all workers, although still somewhat higher than the 7.4 percent average for the private sector as a whole.
Government policies have also supported anti-union practices in other ways. A main purpose of trade agreements like NAFTA was to make it as easy as possible to relocate factories overseas.
A 30 percent over-valued dollar effectively imposes a 30 percent tariff on goods exported from the United States, while providing a subsidy of 30 percent on goods imported into the United States.
We have a growing crisis in America today, and it is our own countries purposeful neglect of the homeless, the hungry, and the working poor. It was recently reported that there are nearly one million people that are homeless in the United States today.
Even worse, over 40% of the homeless are families. Reuters reported that more Americans went homeless and hungry in 2006 than the year before and that children made up almost one quarter of those in emergency shelters.
Nearly one million families lost their homes last year. This year, it will likely be 2 million. There were 25,000 layoffs in the mortgage industry in the first three weeks of August. Building supply and furniture manufacturers have been cutting back. With home construction 25 percent below last year and falling, hundreds of thousands of building trades workers could lose their jobs.
As economic conditions worsen, right-wing corporate interests are always ready to sow division and fear. It’s the immigrants’ fault. Consumers aren’t spending enough. Consumers aren’t saving enough. It’s the government’s fault for wasting your tax dollars on health care for kids.
In the Great Depression of the 1930s, the American people rejected those arguments. They rejected racism, and under the slogan “Black and white, unite and fight," They organized unions that raised wages and improved working conditions.
On this another Labor Day, Americans have labored with the fact that their sons and daughters, neighbors and friends are strapped in an endless war for profit, with no end in sight.
The U.S economy is quickly falling into a severe recession, that could very well end up in a Modern Day Depression if something isn't done. Millions of Americans lose their jobs each month, millions more are underemployed.
There is much laboring going on in America, on this Labor Day. The homeless labor for a better way, our nation labors over those stuck in a needless war, each American labors over the future of the economy and those in the workplace labor with fear over the future of their employment.
That is America, On This Labor Day!
We live in the richest country in the world. There's plenty to spare and for no man, woman, or child to be in want. And in addition to this our country was founded on what should have been a great , true principle -- the freedom, equality, and rights of each individual. Huh! And what has come of this start? There are corporations worth billions of dollars--and hundreds of thousands of people who don't get to eat.
Carson McCullers
