Readers' Responses and Comments 2.16.11

* Wisconsin Fights Back
  postings on the United Association for Labor Education
  (Don Taylor and Ellen Dannin)
* Re: A 'Dictator' Governor Sets Out to Cut Wages, Slash
  Benefits and Destroy Public Unions (Jenni Runte)
* Re: Governor Calls for End of Collective Bargaining,
  Alerts Guard (Laurel MacDowell)
* Why I'm Right About Raising Taxes on the Very Rich
  (Marvin Mandell and Selma Goldberg)
* Re: A Modest Proposal For Curbing Homicides: Socialism
  (Bill Barclay and Gordon Fitch)
* Re: "It Takes a Village, Not a Tiger" (Furaha Youngblood)
* Re: Hypocrisy is Exposed by the Wind of Change (Sterling
  Vinson)
* Re: The Real Threat of Glenn Beck's Fantasies (David
  Worley, Tula Tsalis, Cyriil Robinson)
* Re: Historians Against War Respond to Obama's State of the
  Union (Stanley)
* Re: Announcements and Readers' Comments -- 2.9.11 (Roger
  Skutt)
* Re: Ronald Reagan, Enabler of Atrocities (Allen Bortnick)


==========

* Wisconsin Fights Back

from postings on the United Association for Labor Education
(UALE) listserve

Update from Madison, Wisconsin - Feb. 15, 2011

* The Wisconsin AFL-CIO has estimated today's crowd at
15,000. Wisconsin State Journal said "over 10,000."
haven't heard the official tally yet.

* Many high school students have walked out around the
state.

* Larger crowds are expected tomorrow. School districts are
warning parents of teacher sickouts.

* Joint Finance Committee hearing on the bill is expected to
continue into the night - word has it that the sergeant-at-
arms estimates the waiting list for testimony to be ten
hours long, even though each speaker is limited to two
minutes.

* However, the Senate President claims they have the votes
to pass the bill.

* Here's a short video that shows the size of the crowd:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrzMD2skznk

* Excellent coverage here:
http://www.channel3000.com/localvideo/index.html?v=33671

* Flickr page from the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, photos will
continue to be added:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wisaflcio/sets/72157625935781575/with/5449264038/

In solidarity,

Don Taylor

===

For those interested in learning more about the opponents,
I recommend bookmarking a couple websites that provide
information on front groups and their supporters and
funding.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=SourceWatch

http://www.publiceye.org/index.php

Ellen Dannin

===

* Re: A 'Dictator' Governor Sets Out to Cut Wages, Slash
Benefits and Destroy Public Unions

Right. And they un-elected a perfectly good senator, too.

Jenni Runte

===

* Re: Governor Calls for End of Collective Bargaining,
Alerts Guard

This is classism of the worst kind, the deprivation of civil
rights and human rights and probably illegal. Are you
descending into a Fascist state down there?

Laurel MacDowell

==========

* Why I'm Right About Raising Taxes on the Very Rich: Robert
Reich

Robert Reich is absolutely correct that the tax on the top
bracket in the 40s and 50s was 91%. It not only helped pay
off the huge deficit after the Depression and WW2; it also
paid for the GI Bill and financed the VA and FHA loans. In
short, it built the middle class. (I, for one, would never
have been able to afford college, had it not been for the GI
Bill; as a veteran of WW2 -- 88th Infantry Division in
Italy-- I received complete tuition plus a salary.)

But it wasn't just Reagan who slashed the tax on the top
bracket. Two of the most important planks in JFK's election
campaign platform were the so-called missile gap between the
US and the USSR and the high tax on the top bracket. The
missile gap soon proved to be a lie, and, soon after JFK's
assassination, Congress lowered the tax rate (in response to
his initiative) from 91 to 77 percent. Later Reagan and
friends cut that in half.

There are three things we can do to reduce the deficit and
solve the problems of Social Security and Medicare: First,
bring back the 91 percent tax on the highest bracket.
Second, remove the cap on income taxed by Social Security --
the cap is now set at $106,000; remove it so that the very
rich pay SS tax on all their income, as they do now for
Medicare. Third, replace the Health Care law with a single
payer plan, something Obama should have fought for from the
beginning, as Dr. Marcia Angell and others have said.

Marvin Mandell
West Roxbury, MA

===

I thank Dr. Reich for his column on taxes and agree. Yet I
would go farther and roll back taxes to where they were in
1951 (I am 81 years old). I would then reduce military
spending to 10% of its present budget, being careful to find
all the hidden pockets, all of them!!

With the gained money we could eliminate homelessness,
poverty, and help all those in need. We could improve roads,
bridges and all in the category of infrastructure. We could
find better vehicles for educating all our children. Oh,
there is so much we could do to make this country everything
it was meant to be. Thank you Robert Reich. Keep on
writing. I love your thoughts.

Selma Goldberg
Crofton, MD

==========

* Re: A Modest Proposal For Curbing Homicides: Socialism

See The Sprit Level (R. Wilkinson & K. Pickett) for a
comparison of homicide rates among "rich" (primarily OECD)
countries. The correlation between higher inequality and
higher homicide rates holds both for these countries as well
as across states in the U.S.

Bill Barclay

===

Can someone please tell Horgan that socialism is the
ownership and control of the means of production by the
workers, not a capitalist state with a bigger Welfare
budget?

Gordon Fitch

==========

* Re: "It Takes a Village, Not a Tiger"

This very serious and well-written article needs to be sent
to every single member of Congress, and to all media
outlets, nationally and internationally. Perhaps if a
spotlight is shone on this situation, American politicians
and policy makers can be shamed into correcting this
outrage.

Having said that, I do have a small point to make that may
be classified as "nit-picking." Why is "Latino"
capitalized, but not "black"? Why doesn't the writer use
"African-American" to establish a sense of equality between
the two groups. Had the article used only poor black people
as an example of the inequity of services available in this
country, I would not have ended my response after the first
paragraph, above. But to juxtapose two groups, designating
one with a capitalized description, and not the other, is to
perpetuate (in my judgment) the inequalities outlined in the
article, itself.

Yours for awareness,

Furaha Youngblood

==========

* Re: Hypocrisy is Exposed by the Wind of Change

This guy has it about right. I felt so sad on Friday that I
could not rejoice as unreservedly as my friends were - I
kept saying, "Don't count your chickens...," but no one
wanted to hear that.

Sterling Vinson

==========

* Re: The Real Threat of Glenn Beck's Fantasies

With all respect to Professor Piven, the threat to democracy
arises not because there are egomaniacal fools peddling
paranoid fantasies as social analysis nor even because there
are citizens frightened and ignorant who will believe this
trash. The fools we have always with us. It arises when
there are powerful elite institutions (viz. Fox) that will
give the fools a mainstream platform on which to rant w/o
fear of contradiction and vested interests willing to use
them to advance their own more practical politics. Thus was
Hitler brought to power in Germany by a cynical bourgeoisie
manipulating middle class citizens crushed by war and
depression and looking for a savior (and a scapegoat).

David Worley

===

Until my 16 year old granddaughter mentioned it, i had no
idea that Glenn Beck was targeting teenagers with a barrage
of emails. She received six so far and promised to send me
the next one before also deleting it. She mentioned this in
passing, saying that she had no idea who this person, Glenn
Beck, was, and why he was sending her these emails.

Tula Tsalis

===

I think that unfortunately your analysis is correct.
Fantasies can only be combated by the truth. Perhaps truth
squads can be formed that will immediately respond to these
falsehoods. Anyone can use the web. Response must be
immediate to the lie.

Cyriil Robinson,
professor emeritus,Southern Illinois University,
Carbondale,IL

==========

* Re: Historians Against War Respond to Obama's State of the
Union

National New Deal Preservation Association
The New Deal is still a good deal!

http://newdeallegacy.org/

Stanley

==========

* Re: Announcements and Readers' Comments -- 2.9.11

Can I reply to two respondents?

First, Charles in Berkeley, questioning the political
feasibility of a Financial Speculation Tax, asks "Tell me
where I'm wrong here[?]". He should know that NO good and
necessary legislation will or can be enacted until we rise
up like the Egyptians and hit the streets by the millions
for weeks. (However, IF we do, then we might be able to get
massive new taxes levied on income and wealth, which would
be preferable to the FST because they would be based on
ability to pay, and could raise over a trillion dollars a
year, not just to reduce the deficit but to solve our
country's problems and build a better world, end poverty,
etc.

Secondly, Mel Rothenberg dreads that public sector workers
"will be reduced to Wal-Mart clerks, with no job security,
no benefits, no pensions, and minimum wages." He had better
look at it from the other side, and ask how we can provide
ALL workers with job security (full employment), benefits,
pensions, and good wages--otherwise his complaint will not
appeal to the struggling masses. HINT: It will require
hundreds of billions of dollars a year in new government
spending.

Roger Skutt

PS Why your oddball new email address, "portside@portside"?
It makes it seem like you don't want to hear from your
readers!

==========

* Re: Ronald Reagan, Enabler of Atrocities

You may want to do a follow-up on how he bankrupted
california as its governor and tried to do the same in
washington by how he raised the debt. Republicans avoid
these truths and claim the stage as economic do-gooders.
They spend more but hide it better. Look at bush, who took a
5 trillion plus and left with a 9 trillion minus. A 14
trillion swing, and they scream at the 4 trillion expended
by obama to save our and the world's economy from collapse.

To plagiarize and paraphrase shakespeare, "the evil men do
is too oft interred with their bones and only the good is
kept alive in order to praise and honor their name. It's a
shame!"

Allen Bortnick

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