The United States is different. In nearly every other high-income country, people have both become richer over the last three decades and been able to enjoy substantially longer lifespans.
But not in the United States. Even as average incomes have risen, much of the economic gains have gone to the affluent — and life expectancy has risen only three years since 1990. There is no other developed country that has suffered such a stark slowdown in lifespans.
...Nothing illuminates the problems with an employer-based health care system quite like massive unemployment in the middle of a highly contagious and potentially deadly disease outbreak. For one thing, uninsured people are less likely to seek medical care, making this coronavirus that much more difficult to contain. Also, people with chronic or immune-compromising medical conditions are particularly susceptible to this new contagion — which means the people most in need of employer-sponsored health benefits are the same ones who can least afford to return to work at the moment.
“The pandemic has amplified all the vulnerabilities in our health care system,” says Drew Altman, president of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, including “the uninsured, racial disparities, the crisis of unmanaged chronic conditions and the general lack of national planning.”
So there's just a short list of articles that I think are important to us, to Americans, to the entire nation, along with this one video from Professor Reich.
We have fixing to do, America. Let's get out, vote, vote blue and get to the hard work of more justice and equality.
It will make us all, it will make the nation, stronger.
"Since the start of the pandemic, collective U.S. billionaire wealth has surged by more than $584 billion, while $6.5 trillion in household wealth has disappeared. That's according to an Institute for Policy Studies and Americans for Tax Fairness analysis published on Friday which stated that the U.S. billionaire class saw its wealth climb 20% between March 18 and June 17 with 29 new billionaires added to the total. Using Forbes data, the analysis found that the total net worth of the 643 U.S. billionaires climbed from $2.9 trillion to $3.5 trillion. During the same period, 45.5 million Americans filed for unemployment."
A friend posted this yesterday on Facebook. It was apparently written by one Paul Field.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but you need to know how silly you look if you post some variation of, "Welcome to Socialism..."
You are not seeing Socialism. What you are seeing is one of the wealthiest, geographically advantaged, productive capitalist societies in the world flounder and fail at its most basic test. Taking care of its people.
This crisis is not about the virus.
This crisis is about the massive failure of our, "Booming economy," to survive even modest challenges. It is about the market dissonance of shortages in stores, even as farmers/producers destroy unused crops and products. This crisis is about huge corporations needing an emergency bailout within days of the longest Bull Market in our history ending and despite the ability to borrow with zero percent interest rates.
This crisis is about corporatized healthcare systems being unable and ill equipped to provide basic healthcare, at the same time they post record profits. It is about crisis response depending on antiquated systems nobody remembers how to operate.
But most of all, this crisis is a direct result of the politicization of every aspect of our society for the benefit of a privileged few. The vilification of education, science, media, natural rights, rural lifestyles, urban lifestyles, charity, compassion, and virtually everything else for brief political gain has gutted our society.
What you are seeing is a quarter century of technological brilliance being reduced to a narcissistic popularity contest. You're seeing the folly of basing the health and welfare of an entire society on personal greed. You're seeing all the necessary tools, for us to shrug off this crisis, go unused while people argue over who should get the credit and profit. Even worse, you're seeing vital help withheld because recipients might not, "deserve it..."
You're seeing a lot of things nobody thought they'd ever see, but you're not seeing Socialism...
"Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves."-- Horace Mann
Ruling class plutocracy comprised of business political and military elites- check
Kleptocrats who maximize their financial gains on the backs of the every day workers- check
Elimination of accountability and oversight- check. (White House ethics officer quit, Inspectors General being fired, Intel heads fired, Attorneys General fired, refusal to comply with subpoenas from Congress, refusal to recognize authority of the legislative branch)
Nepotism- check.
Cronyism- check (see Elaine Chou and Betsy DeVos)
Policies designed to benefit the wealthiest- check
State run news- check
Attacks on the free press and journalists - check
Weaponize justice through Department of Justice- check
Enemies list- check
Attacks on free and fair elections - check
Dismantle checks and balances- check
Eliminate all internal opposition within the cabinet, agencies, their staff, National Security Council, Generals etc- check.
This is where we are, folks This all happened in the past three short years, right under our noses with this President and his administration.
So yes, first of all, this is going to be an open letter and it's to several entities so thanks for your patience and I'll do my best to be brief but first, an introduction.
Davis Hammet is a young man living in Kansas, Topeka, to be exact, who moved here--from Florida, I believe--because he felt like it was important and there was work to do. So move he did.
He was and is a political science student (not unlike yours truly) so he knows a bit of what should and should not and can and cannot happen in government.
So he came here and began his work.
His work is educating now-fellow Kansans on their state government at all levels, trying to get more "average people" involved and by so doing, getting to more justice, fairness and some equality in the state.
Noble goals.
With that brief introduction, the open letters.
Mr. Hammet,
Thank you, first, for coming to Kansas.
I don't know how you picked this state or how you came here but thank you and thank goodness you did. Your work, already, in the presumably short time you've been here has been pretty monumental. With your research and time spent at the State Capitol in Topeka and writing and videos you have gotten a great deal of information out to Kansas and Kansans they wouldn't otherwise have and in a very quick, informative, palatable and apparently complete format.
I thank you and I don't even live in Kansas.
What you're doing is extremely important---and helpful. You're making big changes and all for the people.
So now to KCUR, KCPT, Steve Kraske, The Kansas City Star and all the Kansans out there.
You media sources need to have Mr. Hammet on your programs AND BADLY. All one need do is see his brief, concise, very informative YouTube videos (see some below) on his organization, LOUD LIGHT, and you can tell he is a serious young man doing some terrific work and he's extremely informed. This man is headed places.
So please, please have him on your programs, Interview him, write about him, let him speak. He is a voice of the people. Whether Right Wing or Left, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian or Independent, it's difficult to be against someone who is merely reporting good, hard, timely information on the state government and who wants justice for his fellow citizens.
So again, Mr. Hammet, thank you. Thank you very deeply and sincerely. Thank you for your work, your energy and the information you give us. Thank you for your intentions. Thank you for coming to Kansas and the Midwest.
Missouri badly needs someone very like you in Jefferson City.
Heck, every state in the nation does.
And Kansas, you are very, very fortunate. Congratulations on your "acquisition." You are very fortunate indeed. You need to know and follow this young man.
Links:
Just some of his YouTube videos, reporting on the Kansas Statehouse.
Time and again both in Missouri and across the nation, Republicans have been shown to be working to undo things their constituents already voted on. It's happening right now, right here in Missouri.
We Missourians all voted to have more openness in our government and to know what's going on in it. Those pesky Republicans want nothing to do with it so they're working to undo our vote.
There is, fortunately, just one little problem with their trying to undo the voters' will, at least this time.
But it's not just here in Missouri. Republicans in other states, too, have, time and again, gone against their own constituents, gone against the will of the people, the popular vote, people be damned.
We know they want to do the will of their already-wealthy sponsors/donors--owners?--and corporations that give them big campaign money but go against our own stated will? Go against the people?
I am, in fact, in favor of what some people claim to be a new thought of eliminating the possibility of being a billionaire, I have to say. Strongly in favor.
For anyone who knows me, this will come as no surprise.
If you're worth 999 million dollars---isn't that enough?
What could you possibly want that isn't attainable for you at that level of wealth?
Jeff Bezos of Amazon, et. al, is worth an estimated $130.7 billion dollars.
Not only that, but he had to be recently publicly shamed into giving his employees a raise up to a whopping $15 per hour. And even then, he took some away from their benefits plan. That is some chutzpah.
Seriously.
That is insane.
And immoral. Just obscene.
There are people, not just in your own nation but across the planet that are hungry, indeed, starving, literally, homeless and a lot more--but you need, somehow, a billion dollars? And/or more?
Really?
Besides the poor of the nation and world, we should all keep in mind, as has been said elsewhere, many times, that when the US was collecting 90% and 70% taxes of the uber-wealthy, we were a far stronger nation, we built a national highway system and went to the moon, among all else.
This leaves out, of course, all the things Republicans do and have been doing, in Congress, across the states, across the nation, to their respective states, to their constituents and so, to the nation so yes, it's a long but partial list.
To what other conclusion can one come about AARP, ostensibly named the "American Association for Retired People" than that they are useless, ineffectual?
Sure, you can get discounts to buy things if you want, if you join as a member but when it comes down to representing, really representing those "retired people", do they do anything?
When one political party in this nation not only comes out for taking funds from even just Social Security, let alone Medicare and then Medicaid, too, all so already-wealthy people can get still more of the nation's wealth, does the AARP do anything? Do they speak up? Do they attack even the IDEA of depleting the Social Security fund, let alone the political party that wants to do this?
Oh, hell no.
No, they don't.
Not only do they not attack the idea or the person proposing it or the idea, AARP does----nothing.
And it's not that this has only happened once that a person in that political party has tried attacking, depleting the Social Security fund, as just one example, it keeps happening, again and again, over the years.
AARP?
Silent. Deafeningly silent. Not a word.
If you're a member and get their magazine in the mail, what are the articles about? Some examples:
--Commit Yourself to an Exercise Routine
--Get Financial Advice Without Going Broke
--Test Your Knowledge of Voting Facts
--Find the Best Health Care Where You Live
And this one. I love this next one:
--Why a Vacation Might Make You Feel Better
Like we need an article for that.
All no doubt fine articles but let me say this again---ONE POLITICAL PARTY IS REPEATEDLY, OVER THE YEARS, WORKING, FIGHTING TO DEPLETE THE SOCIAL SECURITY FUND.
And if you're an AARP member, you wouldn't know it.
It's almost as though they don't want to upset or alienate any people in that political party--let's go ahead and say it---Republicans, either members or, God forbid, members of Congress.
Sure, don't upset any Republican or Republicans, even though they vote and have voted, time and again, to drain the Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid funds for other purposes.
And the latest use or attempted use of Social Security funds?
Well, those pesky Republicans voted for TAX CUTS FOR THE ALREADY-WEALTHY AND CORPORATIONS earlier this year. It's blowing up the deficit so THEY WANT TO TAKE MONEY FROM SOCIAL SECURITY and what they call "entitlements" to pay for those now deficits. Don't believe it? Check out the very recent headline:
You would think that, since they're supposed to be for retired people--it is in their name, after all--that each and every time a politician, any politician, from any party, even mentioned, once, aloud, draining the Social Security fund or Medicare or Medicaid, that that same organization would be screaming bloody murder to its members to, for heaven sake, contact their representative and express their disbelief and strong support for these programs.
But AARP?
Not a word. Never. Not a peep.
But if you want a tote bag with your new membership and 5% off your next purchase of some tchotchke or a roadside atlas or advice on why you might enjoy a vacation, well, then, AARP is just the group for you.
That these Republicans today are outraged, OUTRAGED! at the treatment of this, their party's nominee for the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court, this Brett Kavanaugh, in these hearings when they didn't even allow---remember that--didn't even ALLOW hearings for the previous President's pick for the court is the epitome of chutzpah, irony and hypocrisy, all.
I thought Trump gaining the White House would be the worst that could and would happen.
The wealthiest supporter of the GOP in Ohio said Thursday that he is no longer a member of the Republican Party.
"I just decided I'm no longer a Republican," L Brands CEO Leslie Wexner said during a panel discussion at a leadership summit, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
Wexner, who said he's been a Republican since college, added...he "won't support this nonsense in the Republican Party" anymore.
Note, too, these two articles both came out just this week, in the last two days.
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