References (1)
-
Response: вконтакте социальная сетьвконтакте
"Give me your tired, your poor
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore
Send these, the homeless, tempest-toss'd to me
I lift my lamp beside the Golden Door."
------------------------
----------------------
-----------------------
--------------------------------------
-------------------------------------- ------------------------ ----------------------------- WEBSITE PICKS:
If you want to e-mail me "comments" use my Yahoo back up e-mail address russdondero@yahoo.com Facts not fiction on universal gun background checks
"Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere"
Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963
Martin Luther King, Jr.
The GOP - Not One of US.
Wall Street, our new criminal class...
Business in the USA is sitting on $2 trillion dollars refusing to invest their own funds in expanding and hiring workers.
When one adds to this the reserves that banks, equity firms and hedge funds have - the picture is clear - "capitalism in the USA is on strike."
The engine of our economy - the spirit of entrepreneurship is not in evidence today. So much for business being dynamic and risk taking.
They hire K- Street lobbyists and their ilk at the state level because they are averse to risk taking - pleading for tax breaks, tax credits and endless loopholes.
The "business of business" in America today is not about job creation, it's about wealth hoarding and redistribution from the middle class to the top 1%.
So for those who claim government doesn't create jobs, my response is that business doesn't either until given "corporate welfare" by government. The fact is that the private and public sector are highly integrated, something the anti-tax, anti-government Tea Party types don't understand.
Job creation requires public/private partnerships but the benefits of such collaboration should go to the 99% not just the 1%.
RAD'S
A Middle East View
Rami G. Khouri
RealClearPolitics:
Realclearpolitics
Jim Hightower:
Jimhightower.com
Robert Reich:
Robert Reich
Thomas Friedman:
Friedman Column
Nicholas Kristof:
Kristof Column
Oregon's Motto:
She flies with her own wings!
Hard Times in Oregon:
Hardtimes
The Oregon story - the rich get richer, the poor and middle class lose ground. Check this front page Oregonian article out.
Oregon wage gap widens
Homelessness in Oregon - a call to action
Chuck Currie The crisis of homelessness
Oregon's coming 34th out of 41 states in the Obama "Race to the Top" illustrates the failure of leadership from Governor Kitzhaber and his predecessors as they have built an educational bridge to nowhere called high stakes testing.
Instead of being in a race to the top we seem to be dumpster diving to the bottom despite doing education reform since 1991. Insanity is termed doing the same thing over and over again. When can we put a fork in this stupidity?
To confuse matters more the Oregonian's editorial board has pontificated that this was a lost opportunity to get federal funding for innovation. How firing principals and teachers equals innovation is a mystery to me.
The way to reform schools is to reduce class sizes, to encourage teacher collaboration and to support their continued education. High stakes testing and performance based assessment of teachers are NOT the answer!
If you want students to succeed you first have to resolve the issues they confront before they come to school. Children who face poverty, hunger, homelessness, health care issues and family instability require wrap around services for them and their families, 24/7.
Every child needs a safe home of their own and parents who know how to be good parents.
There is only one way to address this impending crisis. Schools must have a stable source of funding. Until that happens - we will limp from crisis to crisis.
Why does the richest nation in the world have the moral blight of homeless people?
Invisible People
http://www.npr.org
Homelessness
Connecting the dots between homelessness & hunger in Oregon and Washington County:
Homelessness:
• The faces of the homeless are families with children, single men and women, vets, and many who are impaired. It is estimated that in Washington County up to 56% of homelessness occurs to families.
Hunger:
• Hunger is highest among single mother households (10%) and poor families (15%) as well as renters, unemployed workers and minority households.
In Washington County, Oregon's "economic engine," the divide between the affluent and the working poor continues. We have a 19,000 unit gap in affordable low income rental housing. County political and business leaders are indifferent to this crisis...
----------------------------
------------------------------
------------------------
-----------------------------
-----------------------------
---------------------------
"I'm not a teacher: only a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead – ahead of myself as well as you."
- George Bernard Shaw
BLOGS:
From the Left Wing:
Paul Krugman
Paul Krugman - The New York Times
Democracy Now
democracynow.orgThe Daily Kos
dailykos.com
Blue Oregon
blueoregon.com
americanobserver
"Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government when it deserves it."
- Mark Twain
A RAD rhetorical question - Were Madison & Marx "Marxists"?
FYI:
Squareapace has closed the "comments" section on my blog as a way around this contact me via my Yahoo e-mail address posted on the left sidebar...
Reader Comments (5)
It's overwhelming now because there are so many candidates, and of course Trump is sucking all the air out of the room. I think it's a sign of good health to have so many qualified candidates. The energy is in the GOP right now, not in the Democratic Party.
Trump pokes a finger in the eye of political correctness, which is a wonderful thing, because political correctness is a pernicious evil that needs to be obliterated. There's one point for Donald Trump right there.
Trump is smart and he's starting to get substantive on the issues, foreign policy being one of them, and he's got a lot of good ideas on that. Of course Trump is so flawed that there is no point even starting a list, but I think the American people are starting to feel like we've been so poorly served for so long by the political class that we're willing to take a risk. We don't owe the political establishment anything, they owe us. But all they care about are themselves and doing the bidding of their corporate masters. We the people don't count and haven't counted for a long time.
I like Rand Paul but it doesn't look like it's going to be his year. Ben Carson is kinder and gentler than Donald Trump, I could easily support him.
The Democratic Party seems to have kissed off the heartland as well. It's almost completely urbanized. Where are the blue dog Democrats?
Large swaths of the country are turning read - state legislatures, governorships, and the majority in the U.S. Senate and House. The Democratic Party is almost nonviable as an electoral party in extremely red states like the one I live in, and I suppose that's true in other deep red states as well.
The Democratic Party has become a place where an un-evolved Jimmy Carter or even Bill Clinton wouldn't have a place a the table. Jim Webb was lucky he got the time of day he did in the presidential race, and that's all he got. The Democratic Party has become secularized, urbanized, and elitist.
The Democratic Party has become increasingly ideologically rigid and disciplined. There is no tolerance for dissent within the Party. They seem to be intent of pruning themselves. The Republican Party stands for nothing, but it has become the Other Party, for everyone who does not like what the Democratic Party has become. The old things that used to define what Democrats stood for and what Republicans stood for don't really mean much anymore. Both are driven by big banks and global corporatist interests, for instance.
Despite what seems to be their smaller numbers and shrinking electoral influence, it seems like the Democratic party/political left still seems to have lot of power. People in the red states really resent that it seems more and more like we are ruled by the interests of the clusters of blue at the coasts and in the big cities. This is not fair or right.
The American people don't have any good choices anymore. That is why it's a good year for the outsiders.
I agree with much that you say here. Both parties are captives of corporate powers that be - oligarchs who represent different sectors of the US economy. Dems are favored by hi-tech based industry while the Reps are favored by petro based corporations. The defense sector tilts to whomever is in power...
Working class whites in the southern states, the mountain states are increasingly red voters as you say who feel ignored by the Dems. But working people in the urban midwest, east and west coasts are inclined to vote Dem... It's also a racial divide - not just Black and white but Asians, Latinos who also vote D...
Trump is an empty ideological vessel into which people put their own hopes and fears. In the general election if he gets the nomination Hillary will crush him on the gender vote alone. The reality is that there are more votes in the Blue states and the Red states. And the once Solid south is much more racially and economically diverse...
Our choices are the lessor of two evils. I will have no problem voting for Hillary over The Donald if that's the choice...