America Keeps People Poor On Purpose:

[JEB]

America Keeps People Poor On Purpose: A Timeline of Choices We've Made to Increase Inequality
How four decades of lobbying and legislation gave corporations dominion over our economy—and eroded the American middle class.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/the-end-of-poverty/inequality-the-choices-we-ve-made?utm_source=YTW&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=20140822

Great graphics and timeline.

[daleanime]

1. K&R....

[Unknown Beatle]

2. Presidents have contributed to

this decline, most notably Reagan, Clinton, and McMonkey.

[JEB]

3. Looks to me like there are very few politicians

with out the stain of corporate influence on their hands. Things like labor/capital balance, and sharing of income are way out of whack and probably going to get worse.

[840high]

52. Fewer and fewer every year. We

need more Bernie's.

[whereisjustice]

4. Yes, it does. "Free Trade" and the "Free Market" and "Freedom" are just words pimped out by

cynical politicians in Washington to anesthetize us as they chop us up in bits and pieces for sale to Asia.

There is nothing noble about complying with this shit. It is just making things worse.

[ReRe]

5. K&R

Yessssssssssssss! I highly highly highly recommend everyone read this book.

[MoleyRusselsWart]

6. Excellent piece. And might I say

Nothing gets me more frustrated than when I hear the media and people talk about "what idiots" those in charge are for allowing this to happen. As if it's all a misstep.

The rainmakers know EXACTLY what they are doing. None of this is by accident. NONE of it.

It's no coincidence that all of these "failed" policies just happened to end up with the rich owning and controlling everything. They drew this shit up like a math equation a LONG TIME AGO.

It's like Iraq. The powers that be knew damn well what it meant to invade Iraq, including all of the consequences. It was no "miscalculation" based on "bad intel". They knew exactly what they were doing from day 1.

And if you think I'm wrong, ask yourself....how has the oligarchy done since the invasion?

You don't really think the rulers sit around "hoping" everything works out to their advantage do you?

[kardonb]

7. frustrated

I am getting VERY frustrated with you constant nay-sayers about our great country ! Quit dumping your negativity all over the place .
If this country and its presidents are so awful , I wonder why so many people risk life and limb to COME here ; it surely is not to find a
place worse than they left . DO SOMETHING to make things better , and our future as a great country even better .And I don't mean violence or rebellion .

[daredtowork]

9. lol?

When you run out of resources and discover how the social services infrastructure of "our great country" has been systematically dismantled, you will be singing a different tune, my friend.

But you are locked in your echo chamber. Unfortunately you actually have to become disabled and destitute to understand what I'm talking about. People who haven't had to fall back on "the system" are kept ignorant of it so politicians can use it as a political football and grandstand about "welfare queens", so they can get votes at the expense of denying help to people already in the gutter. The situation is inhumane. I only hope you will never be in a position to understand.

Ps. The corporations that are recruiting the H1-Bs to come here, depressing middle class wages and creating massive lay offs, aren't helping create "positivity" about "our country".

[JEB]

12. Honest assessment of the situation is actually

a much greater asset to our country than blind cheer leading.

[daredtowork]

14. Thank you

If only I had the gift of saying it in few words.

[Skittles]

40. have you noticed

anyone who dares to criticize what is going on is accused of "not doing anything" - it's like a standard refrain from the heads-in-the-sand folk

[daredtowork]

41. Try to do anything

and there will be an overwhelming wave of politicians and media spinning it negatively somehow until the troublemaker is ground into dust.

[jtuck004]

11. Then the last ten million families who were booted into the street in foreclosure musta really

fucked up your day.

[stillwaiting]

16. And I am getting VERY frustrated at the number of Americans who are apathetic or in denial. nt

[MoleyRusselsWart]

24. This

[littlemissmartypants]

42. Agreed. We need less whining and more doing. eom

[2pooped2pop]

17. our great country

probably hasn't been very great in a long long time. If ever. While we were growing up being told how great we were, how we were a democracy, how bad the other countries were for hurting their own people, we were actually becoming the worst thing the world has seen. We were becoming exactly what we were told to hate. Or maybe we always were, we just fell for it, even then.

I'm getting VERY frustrated too. Frustrated that the rich have taken everything and frustrated that we are all meant to just die and leave them to it. Frustrated that this country is not what our childhood taught us it was. Frustrated is one word. There are many others.

[jwirr]

19. At the age of 73 I can tell you that this being a great country depended entirely on who you were.

In the 50s things were pretty good for a lot of people but that did not include everyone. If you were black or any minority, or a small farmer, or disabled or elderly then you did not get to be a part of that great country. In the 60s this started to change and by the 80s things were looking better for most. BUT that is exactly what the rethugs are fighting right now and have been since raygun was elected.

So the best that can be said is that we were moving toward a great country until the rw decided that they wanted everything for themselves and started moving us backwards at a rapid pace.

[2pooped2pop]

20. yes, that sounds exactly right

You nailed it.

[jwirr]

21. It was easy to nail - I lived it.

[littlemissmartypants]

43. Research ALEC. eom

[MoleyRusselsWart]

23. I actually thought

Your post was a joke...I kept waiting for the punch line but it never came.

I appreciate what your saying, but burying your head in the sand about what's really going on is isn't going to solve any problems. Most Americans have no idea of what's really going on because the media and our leaders won't tell them. Places like this are where the truth is exposed. Its all of our job to take what's learned and spread it around, even if it "bums people out".

And most of the people on this site ARE doing what they can to make things better. Take a look around and you'll see that.

[Brigid]

26. Freeperville and Discussionist are down the hall to the right.

You seem to be lost.

[betsuni]

39. Everybody sing along! "America" from West Side Story.

[Unknown Beatle]

8. Welcome to DU, MoleyRusselsWart

I agree with your assessment.

[MoleyRusselsWart]

25. Thanks!

[Uncle Joe]

10. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, JEB.

[freshwest]

13. Yes is one of the best online magazines there is. Thanks for posting.

[littlemissmartypants]

44. I subscribe and share. Excellent teaching tool. nt

[lovemydog]

15. Republican voters & non-voters

have assented to it. Even though it has hurt most of them.

[Laelth]

18. k&r for the truth, however depressing it may be. n/t

-Laelth

[indepat]

22. Oh, the joys of living in a nation wherein major public policy is primarily shaped to satisfy the

wants, needs, and greed of large corporations and especially the plutocrat class so plutocracy can flourish. Tens of millions of Americans must thereby live in sub-human conditions with all quality-of-life components eroding as government willy-nilly curries the favor of and feeds the greed of the plutocrat class. Go USA.

[woo me with science]

27. Huge K&R

[JEB]

28. Man oh man, that timeline

really lays out the corporate take over of our country and by extension much of the world. Hello worldwide fascism.

[Stargleamer]

29. In picture form:

here


[link:|

[littlemissmartypants]

45. What a handsome man, made even more attractive by his politic. nt

[scarletwoman]

50. That is a wonderful pic! So right on! (nt)

[ellenrr]

30. too true. and my food stamps just went from $115 to $39/month! nt

[littlemissmartypants]

46. Thank the new farm bill for that. nt

[Lifelong Protester]

31. A sad K & R for the truth

[malaise]

32. And not only Americans - poverty has increased in

the entire hemisphere

[magical thyme]

33. he left out Nafta and Glass-Steagal.

Clinton gave with the left hand and took with the right.

[JEB]

35. Third way triangulation has done much damage.

Citizens United decision may well be the nail in the coffin. With Unions stripped of most power and complicit Dems and now even bigger flood of money, whats left to stop the corporate takeover?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

34. The comfort of the rich requires an ample supply of the poor. Voltaire

[cantbeserious]

36. The Oligarchs, Corporations And Banks Own And Control The Politicians That Own And Control Us

eom

[JEB]

38. They pretty well have it all sewed up.

They see the world as their plantation.

[bhikkhu]

37. Republicans believe that most people won't work, unless forced by deprivation

...pretty much sums up their domestic labor policies.

[littlemissmartypants]

47. Kicking. Thank you. nt

[riderinthestorm]

48. K&R and K&R and K&R..nt

[woo me with science]

49. kick

[99th_Monkey]

51. Thanks for this ~nt

[historylovr]

53. K & R

[woo me with science]

54. kick