State of the Union of the Divided States of America where gridlock is the method by which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, that premise being the only goal of Capitalism.’
My view of the divided states of America:
Gridlock is a strategy of both parties not to get things done-except the most important work that continues with or without gov-the rich getting richer poor getting poorer, there is NO crises in that area of economics, and never will be. But then gov. is not supposed to be run like a business, for profit! LOL LOL now that is too silly. Really!
You and the First lady have two highly intelligent daughters, Mr. President. I hope that opportunities for women grow by the time they move into adulthood. Women comprise 53% of our nation’s population, but a glaring example of the residue of our institutionalized sexism is The Senate. Of 100 Senators in the world’s most powerful Legislative body – just 20 are women. The math does itself, Sir. 53% of our people are female – while just 20% of the Senate reflects that number.
HI, this is Roseanne Barr, the de facto president of the American People, and on behalf of Americans whom no one but myself speaks for, apparently, I was the only candidate who raised no money and spent no money, other than my own, to get onto the ballot in three states – three critical states, California, Colorado and Florida. I finished fifth in the race of 57! I got over 80k votes in 3 states-at a flat cost of $1 per vote! That was a flattering thing for me, but in the larger sphere, it was a real victory for the American people, still living dangerously free, daring to risk their fortunes and their lives to, as I named it: #occupytheballot.
We still have a free country, but our freedoms are at great risk, here and now. Do the American people really believe in democracy, or have they lost all faith in it due to the way it seems to work under what feels more and more like a crypto-fascist, wildcat capitalist accident-waiting-to-happen!?!
The sick and selfish brand of Capitalism being pushed from the Right is basically the Law of the jungle in a suit and tie. The Golden Rule has indeed been twisted to mean: “The man with the gold RULES!” Thanks to the ridiculous Citizens United ruling, it’s time to take the word bribery out of the lexicon; the money is on the table and big favors are required in return for the huge campaign contributions it takes to run for office. Our legislature is therefore, for sale, its members the Prostitute Class.
Before anyone starts to think I’m going to use my time here to just spout slogans, opinions or partisan propaganda, I’d like to go straight to some numbers – numbers which speak loud and clear, numbers no one can argue with – numbers, by the way, which come from sources no less establishment than The Federal Reserve, The US Census Bureau, and The Internal Revenue Service.
Let’s let the numbers talk:
The Average American family’s savings acct. balance = $3,800.
The percentage of families with NO savings. = 25%
Average American family’s household debt = $117,000.
Average American household annual income = $43,000
These last two statistics translate into a grim scenario. The average American breadwinners will need to work for three years to bring themselves “UP to” a ‘free & clear’ version of BROKE!
Let’s get back to the numbers: The percentage of American adults with an emergency fund to fall back on = 38%
76% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
These hard and unsettling facts ALL come under the heading of Economics. It’s not the president’s OR the Government’s job to tell people how much to spend or save or anything else connected with their personal finances…BUT, it IS their job to tell corporate citizens that unless they pay their workers a living wage, those workers have no choice but to turn to Gov’t. programs that aid the poor.
WalMart, for example, is often held up as a great American success story and a shining example of capitalism at its finest. WalMart, whose shelves are lined with goods made by Chinese workers for near-slave wages, COSTS American taxpayers because so many of their employees need food stamps, and other forms of Public Assistance. By using these business practices The Walton family, alone, has amassed as much wealth as the bottom 40% of Americans!
We know the President gets it; he has called the widening gap in income disparity “the defining challenge of our time,” He said this in a speech at an event hosted by the Center for American Progress, a pro-Obama think tank. He said, “It drives everything I do in this office.”
Okay, Mr. Obama. Where are we driving? I know where I would drive us, because I look for solutions, and I would not let obstructionists stop me, obstructionists who pretend to be about responsibility but really just serve their greedy billionaire patrons. We MUST raise the minimum wage! The absurd claims that doing so will hurt employers and the economy are just that – absurd. Pay hard-working people more money and they will spend that money and boost the economy.
The Walmart example is a prime one but it’s not the only one. Since 1979 — the year President Obama graduated from high school -the size of the American economy has doubled, but the top 10% of people have half the nation’s income. Can you say redistribution of wealth, upwards, boys and girls?
Obama said the average CEO now makes 273 times the income of the average worker! Stagnant incomes for the middle class hurt the ability of Americans to move to better jobs, President Obama said. He also said It also breaks down social cohesion as more Americans come to think that the system is rigged against them. Well, why WOULDN’T THEY THINK THAT? They aren’t stupid-the facts are in and the facts are this system is not broken at all, it’s fixed. The fix is in.
As tough as things have gotten for working people, especially the working poor, who are also being told things will be getting even tougher, and to tighten their belts and accept cuts in Government programs that aid their families, as their tax money goes bail out FAT CAT WALL STREET BOSSES! They are told to tighten their belts by men like Christie! Time to take the word ridiculous hypocracy out of the lexicon too. Its also time to extend protection in the work place to all glbtq citizens of this country. The pres can take steps to help pass enda.
Speaking of solutions: I know ONE costly Government program that should have been cut years ago: The bogus War on Drugs! Conservatives, particularly, push to cut Unemployment benefit extensions, food stamps and other programs that millions of citizens rely on, Republicans particularly, never tire of complaining about the cost of Gov’t. health care, but you don’t hear any complaining about the 51 billion dollars a year, EVERY year, for decade after decade, on a ridiculous failure that has made us the world’s biggest jailer.
Land of the free? Really? We lock up more of our people than any country on Earth, and far too many of those incarcerated at huge expense to the taxpayer are in prison for non-violent drug offenses! In fact, most for POT! As I said in my campaign for common sense Presidency, Legalization is the fastest way to take back our government from fat cat ‘independent contractors of the pentagon’ who profit every time a teen goes to jail for pot and is used to work for corporations at 28cents per hour! 85% of all house paint sold in US was manufactured by prison labor in the USA! Pot =big bucks for fat cat prison owning war machine profiteers, who are coincidentally the same ppl we owe the deficit to! LOL! What a joke, citizens!
We’ve spent over a trillion dollars after 40 years of this ill-advised policy – a fraction of which would have replenished full Social Security benefits for just that – FORTY YEARS! “War on Drugs?” Let’s take a look at Colorado – and then move into the 21st Century! Let’s scrap the War on Drugs and reap the benefits in tax revenues and savings on costs related to law enforcement and imprisonment. Privatizing prisons is a dangerous trend that creates profit-driven incentive to locking up even more Americans; let’s give that a hard look.
While we’re talking about the costs of imprisonment, Let’s close Guantanamo! This January marks 12 years of indefinite lockup without trials or even charges at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo, and five years since President Barack Obama signed the executive order to shut it down. Congress granted the president’s request to make it easier to transfer prisoners out of Guantanamo; Guantanamo is a travesty that sends the world the wrong message about what America is supposed to stand for. Keep your promise, Mr.President, silence those who call u a liar, an enabler of Empire: SHUT IT DOWN!
Let’s keep talking about solutions: Where can we find money we could use instead of taking it from essential programs that strengthen that social cohesion the President spoke of? More than half a century ago, REPUBLICAN President Dwight Eisenhower, in his farewell address, looked us in the eye and gave us a grave warning about the Military Industrial Complex.
Since that time, the military budget has ballooned steadily, and today, we spend more than all the nations on earth, combined, on Military concerns. We’re raising a generation of young people who’ve never known a time when America wasn’t waging wars in two distant nations, while occupying more than a thousand military bases that dot the globe. Who pays the bills? The taxpayer! Let’s pull back the sprawling PrisonMilitaryMediaDrugLordIndustrialComplesofindependentcontracts4Empire, stop sweetheart deals to weapons merchants and let’s convert jobs in that industry to jobs in clean energy alternatives and jobs related to replacing our crumbling infrastructure, water harvesting, purifying and technological theaters of peace wherein we figure out how to get the food to the hungry. I congratulate Utah my home state in moving to provide Medicaid for all citizens of the state-that is what should happen, instead of give aways to the insurance corporations, but we are told to ‘be thankful’ since that is better than nothing.
A scandal-weary nation was shocked and disgusted by disclosures of warrantless wiretapping and countless abuses by the NSA. Surely the National SECURITY Agency should be able to keep us secure without invading average Americans’ privacy. By denying or downplaying those abuses it doesn’t seem like you’re squaring with us, Mr. President. Common sense forces us to ask: would a whistle-blower like Edward Snowdon risk his freedom, livelihood and maybe even life and limb IF he didn’t have real abuses to expose? Why are you making it so tough for whistleblowers? It’s now thirty years since George Orwell’s chillingly prophetic 1984– Let’s not add to American’s growing list of concerns the thought that their own Government is spying on them without probable cause.
Getting back to bread-and-butter issues and heading toward my summation, I’d like to continue to speak for many Americans growing increasingly wary and disheartened as they view their future and their childrens’ futures. We’re watching our alleged representatives in Government say we can’t extend unemployment benefits, that we need to cut Gov’t. programs that benefit the neediest Americans, that we need to cut spending, to institute austerity and become a less kinder and gentler America – and yet we watched both parties, under a Republican President, hand over the biggest Welfare check in history to investment bankers who had run their businesses into the ground! Republicans voted to give welfare to Wall Street-then claimed that was not ‘socialism’ –‘we are only against the government helping poor mothers/fathers and their kids, not those considered ‘too big to fail.’
WE should educate ourselves and our fellow citizens as to the actions of The Federal Reserve by holding our money and banking system, itself, up to the light of intense scrutiny, AND we MUST reinstate the Glass Steagal Act and rein in the reckless, genocidal practices of greedy Wall St. investment bankers.
I say that the State of The Union is troubling, its citizens divided,prevented from doing little but regurgitating The Blather of the political system of Gridlock, directed by white male radio hosts stoked daily to take it out on their neighbors who look a little bit different, but aren’t really different at all, instead of Wall St. Mr. President, tear down that wall! We must all ask are the American people too big to fail? We’re going to find out, Mr. President AND my fellow-sister Americans. We’re going to find out soon if banks will allow us to have access to our own savings, bank accounts, and collateral. In conclusion, I say, G-d Help the United state of America. Thank u.