Adolf Hitler: “The best way to take control over people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a
time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way, the people
will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes
cannot be reversed.”
Dear people: America has been “headed in the wrong direction” since 1980. The first CON MAN, Ronald Reagan, made YOU feel good while his rich friends stole the American Dream. But, Ronnie was so handsome, had such a nice smile….so you elected him twice and then his vice president too! He said. all “the right things,” “things you wanted to hear”!!! – while he TRIPLED the national debt, broke a major strike, ended balanced media broadcasts, and……….
THE basis for that 1947-1973 mass middle class prosperity was SHARED NATIONAL WEALTH. Then came the 1980s and “Greed is Good!” – and Bush II tax cuts for the rich, his immoral Iraq war, his 2008 recession – and Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for the rich that are about 25% of the national debt.
SO – CON MAN Trump sold some of YOU on lie #35,xxx: “It’s Joe Biden’s fault.”
Below is a SMALL part of the MOUNTAIN o f statistical proof: America began heading in the wrong direction. NOT. in 2021, but in 1981……
1] “Evil Geniuses” [Kurt Andersen]: “During the 20th century, America managed to make its economic and social systems both more and more fair and more and more prosperous. A huge, secure and contented middle class emerged. Incomes rose in sync. But then the New Deal gave way to the Raw Deal. Beginning in the early 1970s, by means of a long war conceived of and executed by a confederacy of big business CEOs, the superrich, and right wing zealots, the rules and norms that made the American middle class possible were undermined and dismantled. The clock was turned back on a century of economic progress, making greed good, workers powerless, and the market all powerful while weaponizing nostalgia, lifting up an oligarchy that served only its own interests..”
*** Billionaire investor Warren Buffett: “There’s class warfare, all right, but its my class, the rich class, thats making
war, and we’re winning.”
2]. “Is the economy to serve the people who make it up, or is their labor for the sake of lining the pockets of the rich and powerful? [Juliet Schor]; “..the U.S. Catholic Bishops..wrote in their 1986 pastoral letter on the economy, “the economy should serve people; people should not serve the economy.” [“Economic Apartheid In America”; C.Collins, F.Yeskel]
***. “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy, that is the search of a
superior moral justification for selfishness.” [John Kenneth Galbraith]
3]. “Economic Apartheid In America” [2005; C. Collins & F. Yeskel]:
A] “The larger economic trends of the past three decades…falling wages…wealth inequality…widening gap between highest- and lowest-paid workers…losing ground at work…precarious and stressed middle class…the rising tide lifts only yachts.”
B] graphs on pages 41-42: 1947-1979: “We Grew Together”…the bottom 80% quintiles ALL grew 100%-116%, the top 99% [Census Bureau data]; 1979-2003 “We Grew Apart”…the bottom 20% LOST 2%; the second 205 gained 8%; the third 20% gained 15%; the fourth 20% gained 26%; the top 20% gained 51% – & – the top 5% gained 75%.
C] “The Power Shift since the 1970s..Who sets the agenda for economic policies?”…”On the rise: big campaign contributors…corporate lobbyists…corporations…big-asset owners…CEOs…Wall Street”. “In decline: popular political movements… voters…labor unions…wage-earners…employees…main street”
“Why this happened…a power shift led to rule changes”…..”Rule changes since the 1970s: anti-union climate…global treaties benefit corporations…big tax cuts for the wealthy…corporate welfare expands…minimum wage not raised…Federal Reserve “whip inflation” policy helps investors, hurts wage growth…”privatization” [dismantling government] helps investors, hurts consumers and workers”
D]. “The attack on worker’s rights [i.e. unions]..evidence is clear..unions raised the standard of living for most low- and moderate-income people, whether they joined unions are not…Most industrialized countries..would not tolerate the employer practices that occur every day in the United States.”
E]. “The race to the bottom…U.S. workers cannot and should not compete against workers in countries like China [low wages, no unions]..nor..with countries of high rates of child labor…Free trade agreements as..currently written create a climate in the United States where employers are..emboldened to threaten to move plants overseas to extract wage concessions or discourage unionization efforts..”
F]. “In the last two decades, the U.S. tax system has become a two-tier tax system, investigative journalists ..Bartlett T..Steele argue..there is one system for the wealthy, what they call “the Privileged Person’s Tax Law,” and another one for everyone else..”
*** “The point is you cant be too greedy.” [Donald J. Trump, “The Art of the Deal”]
4]. “The Betrayal of the American Dream” [Donald Bartlett & James Steele; 2012; two Pulitzer Prizes]
A] “..[this]..is the story of how a small number of people in power have deliberately put in place policies that have enriched themselves while cutting the ground out from underneath America’s greatest asset – its middle class..the wealthy and the powerful..have become this country’s ruling class.”
B] “..between 1999 and 2008,,foreign affiliates of U.S, parent corporations increased their employment abroad by 2.4 million jobs,,slashed their employment in the United States by 1.9 million.”
C]. “..the ruling class is defined by its ability to move money beyond the reach of government supervision.”
D]. “The U.S. health care system is based on the misguided notion..the private market is the best way to provide care and coverage to Americans.” [see their 2004 “Critical Condition: How Health Care in America Became Big Business – and Bad Medicine’}
E] ‘..for tens of millions of middle-class Americans, as well as for the working poor who hope to achieve that status, then American dream is over.”
F]. “Running a country like a business means everyone is expendable.”
G]. “Congress writes the rules..and Wall Street..decides what rules it will permit.”
*** “..one certainty..there is no way to access infinite wealth without rigging the system. No one becomes a billionaire honestly.” [Sarah Chayes: “On Corruption in America”]
5] “When did we go astray?..There’s no easy answer to such a question, but clearly the election of President Ronald Reagan represented a turning point..” [“The Price of Inequality”; Joseph Stiglitz; 2012; Nobel Prize winner}
A]. “The underlying thesis..we are paying a high price for our inequality – an economic system that is less stable and less efficient, with less growth, and a democracy..put in peril..”
B]. “For years there was a deal between the top and the rest of our society…we will provide you with jobs and prosperity, and you will let us walk away with the bonuses. You all get a share..we get a bigger share..now that tacit agreement..always fragile, has come apart.”
C] “American inequality didn’t just happen. It was created..Much of the inequality that exists today is a result of government policy, both what the government does and..does not do.”
***. “What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” [Matthew 16:26]
6] “Who Stole the American Dream?” [Hedrick Smith; 2012; Pulitzer Prize winner]
A] “Over the past 3 decades, we have become Two Americas..no longer one large family with shared prosperity and shared political and economic power..’
B]. “Today, the greatest challenge and most corrosive fault line in our society is the gross inequality of income and wealth…What separates the Two Americas..is a wealth chasm..from 2002 to 2007, America’s sup-rich, the top 1% [3 million people], reaped two-thirds of the nation’s entire economic gains..In 2010, the top 1% captured 93% of the nation’s gains.”
C] “..in America since the late 1970s..soaring wealth of the super-rich has brought the unraveling of the American Dream for the middle class..”
D] “From 1998 through 2010, business interests and trade groups spent $28.6 billion lobbying compared with $492 million for labor..no countervailing power matches the political clout of business. Our democracy has become starkly unequal.”
E] “since the 1970s, business leaders have largely abandoned..share-the-wealth ethic…the pay of a typical male worker was lower in 2010 than in 1978, adjusted for inflation.”
*** “What most people don’t seem to realize is that there is just as much money to be made out of the wreckage of a civilization as from the upbuilding on one.” [Margaret Mitchell – “Gone With the Wind”]
Dear People – the above is merely the BEGINNING of a mountain of STATISTICAL PROOF that the great 1947-1973 American middle class mass prosperity was. STOLEN. from. YOU by the rich – we have been “headed in the wrong direction” since 1980. – NOT since 2021 !!!!!! o
With Justice For All 