“What can I do?”

Robert Reich calls for political action, writing and calling your elected representatives.  I’d go further and say that Americans have to stop being afraid to get out in public to rally in support of their initiatives.  We need to throw the authorities’ labeling of protesters as “terrorists” that I recently noted back in their faces.  Where’s your courage, America?  There is strength in numbers.  The more people show their faces, the less they can be persecuted.  Recent history teaches that political action works.  We haven’t seen the action we expected from Obama, but as Reich points out, he’s only a politician.  He can only do what the people demand of him.

Via:  Robert Reich’s blog

What Can I Do?"

Someone recently approached me at the cheese counter of a local supermarket, asking "what can I do?" At first I thought the person was seeking advice about a choice of cheese. But I soon realized the question was larger than that. It was: what can I do about the way things are going in Washington?

People who voted for Barack Obama tend to fall into one of two camps: Trusters, who believe he's a good man with the right values and he's doing everything he can; and cynics, who have become disillusioned with his bailouts of Wall Street, flimsy proposals for taming the Street, willingness to give away 85 percent of cap-and-trade pollution permits, seeming reversals on eavesdropping and torture, and squishiness on a public option for health care.

In my view, both positions are wrong. A new president -- even one as talented and well-motivated as Obama -- can't get a thing done in Washington unless the public is actively behind him. As FDR said in the reelection campaign of 1936 when a lady insisted that if she were to vote for him he must commit to a long list of objectives, "Maam, I want to do those things, but you must make me."

We must make Obama do the right things. Email, write, and phone the White House. Do the same with your members of Congress. Round up others to do so. Also: Find friends and family members in red states who agree with you, and get them fired up to do the same. For example, if you happen to have a good friend or family member in Montana, you might ask him or her to write Max Baucus and tell him they want a public option included in any healthcare bill.

Let me just say, as a long-time independent, that this red state-blue state thing is a red herring. 

There is only one party in America, the Money Party, and it needs to be knocked down a peg, in my humble opinion.  Here’s a comment I left on Yves’ blog on her article about the potentially snapping American middle class:

Via: Naked Capitalism

I'd like to see the phone lines of Congress flooded with calls to RAISE MARGINAL TAX RATES ON RICH FOLKS (say, with incomes over $250K a year) with the rates steepening as income climbs into the obscenosphere so that incomes over $1 million would be taxed at 75% or so--and get rid of the "hedge fund exemption."

Obama has been too timid to pursue this, poor man. This would be the clearest signal "the people" could send to "the ruling class" that they've got to learn to share. And then maybe pay multiples in American corporations might come down, as the idea that sharing is *good* spread.

Don't like it? Emigrate. See if you can get your money out of the country.

Who can get their rep to introduce a steeply graduated progressive income tax bill on the floor of the House? Sell it as shared sacrifice. The problem here is that the libertarians and Republicans don't like to raise taxes on anyone, even though at our most successful times in history, marginal tax rates have been much higher, reflecting a much tighter social cohesion. We are stuck with our government and need to try to make it work--and even use it to instill a values change.

My position has always been that it's okay to raise taxes on people who make more than I do. Screw a VAT! That's just more regressive taxation! The rich in the this country are supremely well set-up, and would be wise to give back to their ailing government and countrymen.

And then on the other end, start livable workfare for the growing ranks of the unemployed to avoid radicalization and upheaval.

Hope springs eternal.

Happy 4th of July!