----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl Jarvis" <carjar82@gmail.com>
To: "Blind Democracy Discussion List" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2014 7:49 AM
Subject: Re: The Useful Idiots of the Corporate Elite | Thom Hartmann - News
& info from the #1 progressive radio show
I repeat. Ronald Reagan was a superficial image, reflecting the face
projected on him by the Ruling Classes Media. Ronald Reagan was an actor.
Get it? An Actor! Not an especially good actor on the screen, but well
groomed and practiced in the role of President. Ronald Reagan played
President of the United States of America. He had no original ideas, no
personal philosophy...other than self-serving, no deep feelings at all.
Ronald Reagan was an actor. And he was a vain man, and he was a vindictive
man.
And to think that he has been compared to FDR? We should blush with shame.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
To: "'Blind Democracy Discussion List'" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2014 6:25 AM
Subject: RE: The Useful Idiots of the Corporate Elite | Thom Hartmann - News
& info from the #1 progressive radio show
Well, there are two reasons why I find him so abominable. One is his
political and social view of the world. One can either agree or disagree.
But the other is his self interest and how, I think, that was more important
to how he behaved politically, than his views.
Miriame
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org] On Behalf Of ted chittenden
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2014 11:28 PM
To: Blind Democracy Discussion List
Subject: RE: The Useful Idiots of the Corporate Elite | Thom Hartmann - News
& info from the #1 progressive radio show
Both of my parents voted for Reagan as governor in the 1960s. And, in 1984,
the first Presidential election in which I voted, I voted for him, too. It
has only been in hindsight that both my mom and I realized what a bad
president he was (though my mom blames him maybe not as much as me). My
mom's two wealthy older brothers (though they're not part of the 1%), who
earned that wealth via stints at Lockheed and other parts of the defense
industry, still revere Mr. Reagan. Given their successes, one can see why.
--
Ted Chittenden
Every story has at least two sides if not more.
---- Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
I've mentioned that I've been reading this book about Reagan. He was
horrible back in the 50's. He was saying terrible things in the 60's. One
wonders about the sanity of the Californians who voted for him to be
Governor. Not only was he saying terrible things, but he lied and
manipulated, and he consistently teamed up with the FBI.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2014 9:18 PM
To: Blind Democracy Discussion List
Subject: Re: The Useful Idiots of the Corporate Elite | Thom Hartmann - News
& info from the #1 progressive radio show
And in fact, poverty, as we poor folk know, is caused by greedy wealthy
people, sitting on their butts in swank offices on Wall Street.
You know, if we changed the name to Skid Road, and called their elite gated
communities, "Ghettos", it would better reflect the charge that lazy bums
and ghetto dwellers are the root of our economical woes.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: "ted chittenden" <tchittenden@cox.net>
To: "blind-democracy" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2014 6:05 PM
Subject: The Useful Idiots of the Corporate Elite | Thom Hartmann - News &
info from the #1 progressive radio show
Hi to all.
People tend to believe what they want to believe regardless of the truth.
The point hits home with today's blog post from Thom Hartmann.
--
Ted Chittenden
Every story has at least two sides if not more.
----
http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2014/03/useful-idiots-corporate-elite
The Useful Idiots of the Corporate Elite
The Useful Idiots of the Corporate Elite
Submitted by Thom Hartmann A... on 18. March 2014 - 11:43 Live Blog Thom's
Blog
There are a whole lot of useful idiots in America. Yesterday, a caller
called into my radio show, and echoed Congressman Paul Ryan's recent
comments, blaming the black community for poverty in America. He threw out
a Fox So-Called News phony statistic, arguing that "73 percent of
African-American women in this country ages 17-35 have children without a
man in the house, and the majority of this group of people live in the
cities."
First of all, that is completely false. According to the most recent
government statistics, 72 percent of black babies are born to unmarried
mothers today. But that is completely different from saying that "73 percent
of African-American women in this country have children without a man in the
house." It's a perfect demonstration of the old saying, often attributed to
Mark Twain, that, "Figures don't lie, but liars can figure."
In fact, the birth rate for unmarried black women in America has been
falling for almost 40 years. And most of the evidence points to changes in
unmarried birth rates among both black and white women in America that
started in the 1970s, coinciding with the legalization of abortion and the
beginning of widespread use of oral contraceptives, and largely unaffected
over the years by changes in welfare programs.
So, why is it that Conservatives like yesterday's caller, Fox So-Called
News' useful idiots, and Congressman Paul Ryan are obsessed with the notion
that blacks and the black community are responsible for poverty in America?
Like so much that's wrong with America today, it all started with Reagan.
Reagan is famous for his speeches and one-liners about "welfare queens," but
as author Ian Haney Lopez pointed out in an interview on Moyers and Company,
it all began with his earliest welfare stump speech in 1980. Reagan would
speak to (white) Americans, and say something along the lines of, "I
understand how frustrating it is for you when you're standing in line at a
grocery store waiting to buy hamburger, and there's some young fellow ahead
you waiting to by a T-Bone with food stamps."
But, as Lopez points out, the first time Reagan gave that stump speech,
"young fellow" was replaced with "young buck," a racially-coded term for a
young black man. Basically, Reagan was telling white Americans that they
were being taken advantage of by blacks on food stamps, and that it was made
possible by the government taking their money through taxes and then giving
it to undeserving black people.
So, in response to the outrage that he drummed up, Reagan suggested his
infamous tax cuts, dropping the top rate that billionaires pay from 74% down
to 28%. After all, he told middle-class voters - who got a very small income
tax cut - why should you pay taxes to a government that's just turning
around and giving that money to undeserving black people who are using it to
eat fancy steak dinners?
This is very similar to the recent outrage over at Fox about people on food
stamps buying crab and lobster, something that's possible but so rare that
it has no effect on the overall tax we all pay for food stamps. Lopez goes
on to say that, for the past 50 years, Republicans have been telling white
Americans that the biggest threat in their lives are minorities, and that
minorities have taken over government and are eating up all the money.
Just last week, Congressman Paul Ryan went on Bill Bennett's Morning in
America program, and said that, "We have got this tailspin of culture, in
our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of
men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of
work, and so there is a real culture problem here that has to be dealt
with." In other words, Ryan is saying that lazy black men are responsible
for poverty in America.
For some 50 years now, Republicans have been using race-baiting tactics and
dog-whistle politics like this to convince Americans that the black
community is behind poverty in America, but that's just not the case. After
all, you can see many of the same trends in the largely white Appalachia
region of the U.S. as you do in minority-heavy inner cities. In Appalachia,
white Americans are struggling with poverty, and having children
out-of-wedlock, just like their black inner-city counterparts.
And according to the Pew Research Center's Social and Demographic Trends
project, in 2012, the median net worth of a white household was $91,405,
while the median net worth of a black household was $6,446. So a black child
starts out at a very different place than a white child, both economically
and socially. But Conservatives still argue that blacks are behind poverty
in America. The social and cultural problems that we see in black
communities across America, and in white communities in Appalachia, are
responses to poverty, not the causes of it.
It's time for Americans, and lawmakers in Washington, to wake up, and start
talking about the real causes of poverty in America, which include massive
inequality produced by our tax code, joblessness produced by our trade
policies, and ongoing discrimination by a largely white economic and
political power structure. Only then will every American have an equal shot
at the American Dream, regardless of their race.
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