Rep. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is the only Independent in the U.S. House.
I just read this and I think it is worth spreading it around. If you are a conservative and you are reading this, explain yourself in numbers and not in percentages as it desensitizes the masses. Then explain why capitalism (and global capitalism), at work for a hundred years (starting from the boom of the industrialization process) is further behind than it was at the half way point (50 years ago). Where is the progress? Where is the increase in the standard of living, or access to medicine? Where has it gotten us? If you like this article, use it as inspiration and pass it along. A better world IS possible; make it happen.

The link is currently busted.

Then explain why capitalism (and global capitalism), at work for a hundred years (starting from the boom of the industrialization process) is further behind than it was at the half way point (50 years ago).

Compared to?

My answer to you is a simple one, and just so there's no confusion, it is opinion: in the USA, the rise of Big Government and the demons of high taxation, overegulation and an out-of-control corrupt court system have put a huge dent in the incentive of individuals to explore, create and invent. Why should they, when some government turd is just going to step in steal over half the fruits of their labor?

Where is the progress? Where is the increase in the standard of living, or access to medicine?

Compared to what? Compared to whom? The *cough* Soviet Union? China? France?

What great contributions--if any--have come from socialist countries? Are the poor in those countries better off?

Since when to liberals believe anything Republicans say? Sanders is probably a RINO: Republican in Name Only.

Well, I don't know what to say except I work hard, as do my co-workers. I also work for a large corporation in health care, and the agency as a whole works hard. Before college I worked in the shops of Detroit, and we all worked hard there too. I don't pay that much in taxes considering how much more expensive it would be if I had to pay for public school. My taxes in California are about the same as they was in Michigan, yet people here get (near) free college, and I had to pay about $35,000 for my undergraduate degree, so I see the payoffs of the programs your side complains about. Most people know that economies of scale produce cheaper prices, yet right wingers always seem to think that if we break it down and let several small places compete (each with their own fixed overhead costs), things get cheaper. Isn't it funny that conservatives are suppose to be the econ experts, yet they go directly against the principles of the Keysian (ms) economics that they proclaim as truth? The fact is, we do work hard, and the richer are getting richer, and working less, while the GM workers are now working at Wal-Mart for a tenth of the wages, and no insurance, and that is only their first job since most need two or three to make as much as they did ten years ago with one job. I make less today than I did before college.

Take a "/" out of the address in the begining.

BuzzFlash Guest Commentary

September 4, 2003 CONTRIBUTOR ARCHIVES
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The Collapse of the Middle Class

A BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Rep. Bernie Sanders

The corporate media doesn't talk about it much, but the United States is rapidly on its way to becoming three separate nations.

First, there are a small number of incredibly wealthy people who own and control more and more of our country. Second, there is a shrinking middle class in which ordinary people are, in most instances, working longer hours for lower wages and benefits. Third, an increasing number of Americans are living in abject poverty -- going hungry and sleeping out on the streets.

There has always been a wealthy elite in this country, and there has always been a gap between the rich and the poor. But the disparities in wealth and income that currently exist in this country have not been seen in over a hundred years. Today, the richest 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 95 percent, and the CEOs of large corporations earn more than 500 times what their average employees make. The nation's 13,000 wealthiest families, 1/100th of one percent of the population, receive almost as much income as the poorest 20 million families in America.

While the rich get richer and receive huge tax breaks from the White House, the middle class is struggling to keep its head above water. The unemployment rate rose to a nine-year high of 6.4 percent in June, 2003. There are now 9.4 million unemployed, up more than 3 million since just before Bush became President. Since March, 2001, we have lost over 2.7 million jobs in the private sector, including two million decent-paying manufacturing jobs -- ten percent of our manufacturing sector. Frighteningly, the hemorrhaging of decent paying jobs is now moving into the white-collar sector. Forrester Research Inc. predicts that at least 3.3 million information technology jobs will be lost to low-wage countries by 2015 with the expansion of digitization, the internet and high-speed data networks.

But understanding the pain and anxiety of the middle class requires going beyond the unemployment numbers. There are tens of millions of fully employed Americans who today earn, in inflation adjusted-dollars, less money than they received 30 years ago. In 1973, private-sector workers in the United States were paid on average $9.08 an hour. Today, in real wages, they are paid $8.33 per hour -- more than 8 percent lower. Manufacturing jobs that once paid a living wage are now being done in China, Mexico and other low-wage countries as corporate America ships its plants abroad.

With Wal-Mart replacing General Motors as our largest employer, many workers in the service economy not only earn low wages but also receive minimal benefits. Further, as the cost of health insurance and prescription drugs soar, more and more employers are forcing workers to assume a greater percentage of their health care costs. It is not uncommon now that increases in health care costs surpass the wage increases that workers receive -- leaving them even further behind. With the support of the Bush Administration many companies are also reducing the pensions they promised to their older workers -- threatening the retirement security of millions of Americans.

One of the manifestations of the collapse of the middle class is the increased number of hours that Americans are now forced to work in order to pay the bills. Today, the average American employee works, by far, the longest hours of any worker in the industrialized world. And the situation is getting worse. According to statistics from the International Labor Organization the average American last year worked 1,978 hours, up from 1,942 hours in 1990 -- an increase of almost a week of work. We are now putting more hours into our work than at any time since the 1920s. Sixty-five years after the formal establishment of the 40-hour work week under the Fair Labor Standards Act, almost 40 percent of Americans now work more than 50 hours a week.

And if the middle class is having it tough, what about the 33 million people in our society who are living in poverty, up 1.3 million in the past two years? What about the 11 million trying to make it on a pathetic minimum wage of $5.15 an hour? What about the 42 million who lack any health insurance? What about the 3.5 million people who will experience homelessness in this year, 1.3 million of them children? What about the elderly who can't afford the outrageously high cost of the prescription drugs they need? What about the veterans who are on VA waiting lists for their health care?

This country needs to radically rethink our national priorities. The middle class is the backbone of America and it cannot be allowed to disintegrate. We need to revitalize American democracy, and create a political climate where government makes decisions which reflect the needs of all the people, and not just wealthy campaign contributors. We need to see the middle class expand, not collapse.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY

* * *

Rep. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is the only Independent in the U.S. House.

I assure you that there are many, you just won't here them in capitalist countries. 1. Switzerland is not poor, but they are socialist (or was until the EU). 2. Socialism economies do very well when the US does not place embargoes on them and force them to cut all social programs. Before we committed state sponsored terrorism on Nicaragua (charged and convicted by international courts) they had public schools, hospitals, and their standard of living was increasing at a faster pace then any other time in their history...then we bombed them into the 14th century. Cuba has withstood out economic war for decades, and yet it has hurt them significantly, they have been able to take it. Think what it would be like if we weren’t aggressors on them. All Cuba did wrong was kick out the US Mafia from their resorts to clean it up. We attacked (bay of pigs) and they went to the USSR for protection. Even without the USSR, they still have a stable economy. It is easy to say socialist countries are poor when we attack through military and/or economic means whenever one is established. If we left them alone, they could be great (the way the Swiss were). Socialism values the arts, environment, education, family, and all the other intellectual things that capitalism destroys. They have educated populations (Cuba has better literacy rates that we do) and great theorists that have done more for areas like medical research (research the AIDS virus and compare the social medicine countries like France with our own) in the last ten years than we have done in the last 20. We supposedly have the best medical technology in the world, yet our population, as a whole, ranks in the lower forties when you compare our health to that of other countries (mainly third world ones). Your statement is so misguided I can't respond to it all. My suggestion is to pick up some books and read a little bit. With more education, even you can be great.

Think about this. Republicans often say that educated people (especially college ones) are leftists. I tend to agree, as I, myself, teach college. Nevertheless, think about that, educated (smarter) people tend to lean toward socialism, while uneducated people (dumber) people tend to lean toward capitalism. Read it again and just think about it. Oh, that is why republicans don't get it...they CAN'T think, and when they learn to, they are no longer republicans.

“The State is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.”

--Frederic Bastiat

>>>>> I’m embarrassed that you have to resort to blaming the US for the failures of socialism in other lands, but as it is said, “When there’s no enemy, make one up.” By supporting clown Castro, Cubans were “rewarded” with poverty, economic chaos and the fear that comes with living in a police state. There are still many nations that supposedly trade with Cuba, yet the internal destruction wrought by communism prevents them from doing anything with the scant resources left. One day Castro will keel over and capitalism will return to Cuba like wildfire, much to the chagrin of hopeful American kollij professors (who for all their rhetoric couldn’t be paid to live in Cuban squalor as much as they ‘admire’ it).

Think what it would be like if we weren’t aggressors on them. All Cuba did wrong was kick out the US Mafia from their resorts to clean it up. We attacked (bay of pigs) and they went to the USSR for protection.

>>>> Well, ha ha, they backed the wrong horse now, didn’t they? The US was ready to give aid to Castro, and while it’s true that there’s no such thing as government money without strings attached, the egotistical Castro chose poorly.
Even without the USSR, they still have a stable economy. It is easy to say socialist countries are poor when we attack through military and/or economic means whenever one is established. If we left them alone, they could be great (the way the Swiss were).

>>>>> I doubt your last statement, since there are plenty of socialist countries that are presently allies with the USA but where we have little or no influence. While not poor, neither are these “independent” nations Great, and their citizens, every one of them, are answerable to an Almighty State which can revoke their rights at any time. Speaking as an American, that’s nothing for me to admire, not even in exchange for a “guaranteed” loaf of bread.

>>>>>> How does your fallacious reasoning about passive-aggressive threats explain the collapse of the Soviet Empire? When they weren’t trying to take over the world, surely Russia had (and still has) vast natural resources at its disposal (more than we have) yet had to buy wheat from the United States to prevent widespread starvation.

>>>>>> All the great rants against the USA leave out the 100 million killed, directly or indirectly, by communism.

Socialism values the arts, environment, education, family, and all the other intellectual things that capitalism destroys.

>>>>> Oh RUBBISH. But hey, if I could somehow be made immune from the consequences of supporting disproved ideologies while getting paid for it, I too would probably be a toe-tag liberal. Or Air America talking head. Or kollij professor.

They have educated populations (Cuba has better literacy rates that we do) and great theorists that have done more for areas like medical research (research the AIDS virus and compare the social medicine countries like France with our own) in the last ten years than we have done in the last 20.

>>>>> I don’t know if you know this, but Cuba is slightly smaller than the US and has a homogenous population, so I would expect disparities in the literacy rates. I’m willing to bet there’s not a national library in Cuba comparable even to the contents of my town’s neighborhood library. What good is being able to read if no one can afford books?

>>>>> I don’t see what the merit of a few doctors or scientists in various countries that happen to be socialist has to do with the overall success of the free market healthcare system, which is over-priced and inefficient only when trying to emulate socialist heath care.

We supposedly have the best medical technology in the world, yet our population, as a whole, ranks in the lower forties when you compare our health to that of other countries (mainly third world ones).

>>>>> Somehow I doubt the mortality rate in Idaho is anywhere close to that of Zimbabwe’s.
Your statement is so misguided I can't respond to it all. My suggestion is to pick up some books and read a little bit. With more education, even you can be great.

>>>> Look, Professor, I am already great, and not just because I’ve been freed from the liberal Matrix for many years now.

>>>> The “evidence” of the “failure” of capitalism is that Americans have the highest standard of living in the world. No other nation has come close to bringing as many people up out of poverty, creating wealth and providing universal opportunity than the USA. I have yet to meet anyone who believes the System is perfect, but have met many who would agree that free market capitalism is the best shot we’ve got.

>>>> Storm clouds start to gather when do-gooders like Sanders want to heal the world with other people’s money (the man doesn’t even have the balls to call himself what he is: a socialist). Fortunately, Americans are too practical to become full-time socialists. We despise following rules, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many opportunists trying to make up new ones.

>>>> You’re rather cocky for someone whose salary (and merit-proof union tenure) is mayhaps dependent on the taxes of evil capitalists (who should revolt already against State-funded marxist bullplop infecting the minds of the young) but like I said, if I could make a quick buck speaking for the Socialist Workers Party, I’d consider it. God knows THEY do.



Think about this. Republicans often say that educated people (especially college ones) are leftists.

>>>>> No, “we” say that the professors are leftists. College-aged kids are going to naturally be somewhat leftist, emerging as they are from the womb of the internal communistic life of their parents’ families. However, once they have their first jobs and begin competing in the real world they learn, unlike toe-tag socialists, that “There is no free lunch” and “free” just means someone else is paying for it.

I tend to agree, as I, myself, teach college.

>>>>> What a shocker.

Nevertheless, think about that, educated (smarter) people tend to lean toward socialism, while uneducated people (dumber) people tend to lean toward capitalism.

>>>>> There’s such a thing as being educated beyond one's intelligence. Cough. Cough.

run from risk.first clue.
sogilists exist because they got no place in real world.
they covet losers.
sogilistical types always say--"well, they're ONLY disopportunized, you know"..rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghghgh
sogs milk gumnint for all they can get, and more, at the worker, risktaker expense
if i were a sogi id rush to the nearest loonibin.

"Think about this. Republicans often say that educated people (especially college ones) are leftists. I tend to agree, as I, myself, teach college. Nevertheless, think about that, educated (smarter) people tend to lean toward socialism, while uneducated people (dumber) people tend to lean toward capitalism. Read it again and just think about it. Oh, that is why republicans don't get it...they CAN'T think, and when they learn to, they are no longer republicans."

I don't think this is true. There are a lot of uneducated people who also tend toward socialism, or at least wishing they had better social services.

Things change with age, and a lot of progressive students end up drifting to the right. I've seen this happen over and over. A friend of mine said "that's how white people are created." What they meant was that the very same people who were pretty liberal in college became the conservative assholes they disliked. (Likewise, I've noticed that POCs, myself included, become more progressive.)

Ideology seems to divide more strongly with class. Middle aged working class people are more likely to embrace progressive economic positions than the affluent or wealthy. The affluent tend to become conservatives, or at best, socially liberal conservatives, or economically conservative liberals.

The working class are often socially conservative but economically progressive. The socially liberal working class probably feel suppressed by the church(es), as well as the authoritary of the state and school.

There's this running accusation that lefties and socialists are college educated bourgeoisie. In my experience, this is only true at colleges. :-) In the local anarchist movement, I'd guesstimate that around half the people are poor or working class, and around half are nonwhite.

"progressive"

I love how leftists, who yearn for a return to the stoneage, use the word progressive.

Point taken....