Robert Reich: The moral crises of our age has nothing to do with gay marriage or abortion...

[Playinghardball]

[polichick]

1. k&r

[get the red out]

2. That's true

So much suffering because of this. He is absolutely right.

[rhett o rick]

33. The single most important issue facing us is the reestablishment of our democracy.

Without democracy, every other issue will be lost.

The conservatives of both parties want to play down the importance of radical change, but we are losing ground at a rapid rate.

H. Clinton will not provide the radical change guidance we need to survive. She will survive as will her family as will the America Aristocracy.

[get the red out]

34. I did not think that a few months ago

But I am becoming convinced.

[rhett o rick]

36. It's a hard pill to swallow and I pity those living in denial that think we can continue

with the status quo.

[hifiguy]

3. As usual, the good professor is 100% correct.

kickety rec,

[Triana]

4. I've been saying that for years. Grousing about abortion, gays, contraception....

...are meant to punish women and LGBT people while distracting from the actual, bigger moral issues we face.

[sabrina 1]

46. They use women and minorities for political purposes. If we had a true democracy, those issues

would have a far better chance of being resolved. Trying to get equality for anyone in a Corporate State is a whole lot more difficult, see how long it is taking, than in an actual Democracy.

Besides, they want to keep those issues alive so they can be used every election season, so have little incentive to do what should have been done decades ago. They give a few crumbs here and there, but only to try to keep up the appearance that the people actually have a say in anything.

In a country where everyone has a shot at a decent job with decent pay, a good education and good health care, there is a far greater chance of people getting along with each.

So long as everyone is struggling themselves, it is easier to blame someone else.

[WillyT]

5. HUGE K & R !!! - THANK YOU !!!

[jwirr]

6. He is so correct.

[Jack Rabbit]

7. K/R

[Demeter]

8. That's not a moral crisis--it's a plan!

An amoral plan, but definitely planned in advance...a conspiracy, even.

A moral crisis would be something like....letting ebola into the country.

[rhett o rick]

38. Oh Oh, you said the "C" word.

CONSPIRACY. It is none other than a conspiracy. It's not personal but the capitalistic attitude is to gain wealth at any cost. So the 1%, who suffer from class-sociopathy work together to get wealth from the easiest sources. Often it's stealing from the lower classes.

The 1% doesn't particularly wish that we die, they just don't care if we do.

[blkmusclmachine]

9. The 1% respectfully disagree, and their bought-out Media empire will tell us, 24/7.

[MannyGoldstein]

10. If he wasn't named Robert Reich, and he posted that on DU?

It would not go well for him.

[BrotherIvan]

13. He's been thrown under the bus plenty of times

Sometimes he gets pulled out for blue link specials, then unter Bus mit ihm.

[MannyGoldstein]

14. Sure. But I don't recall him being accused of being

blinded by white male privilege, or of hating on minorities, the way some are attacked here when they say that the 1% power-#%^*ing the 99% is our biggest problem. The things people infer about others... it's just disturbing.

[BrotherIvan]

16. I was told this just today

And I ain't white. But there is one line that must never be crossed or...Unter Bus!

[MannyGoldstein]

20. Oh yeah? Top this:

"I have no doubt he (Manny) is sincere in his opposition to the 1%, and in his support for "progressive values" ... I have no problem with that. (Though I suspect that his concern is born of feeling, personally, betrayed by a system for which he was comfortable with until he wasn't as richly rewarded as he desired/"deserved to be&quot .

However, my grievance with him (and most "progressive" on this site) is their claiming the whole of the Democratic Party for themselves, defining it by their narrow set of interests, while, at best, ignoring/minimizing, and in the worst - but, most frequent case - attempting to re-define the interests of the Democratic Party's most consistent membership, e.g., PoC, in a way that is antithetical to how we have defined them. I am specifically referring to his/their penchant for telling PoC that the racism that we face, pales in comparison/is less relevant than, classism.

That is not our experience; it is dismissive and offensive ... it serves to make his/their issue OUR issue; while leaving OUR issue, OUR issue."

[BrotherIvan]

22. I surely can't top that

I don't stick my neck out very often. (I have more than I intended too.) I am honestly surprised to hear on DU that economic issues are not important or are somehow less important than social issues. I believe that poverty and economic inequality are social issues, effecting the most vulnerable in this country. I think that people working themselves to death and barely scraping by are disenfranchised. I think that gutting education effects poor neighborhoods in particular and is the biggest impediment to class mobility. I think that people being forced out of their homes or being put into indentured servitude for college is bad for the whole of society. And war, and the militarization of the police, and spying on everyone, and torture and on and on an on. I think these things are important and that Democrats should fight for them. I'm puzzled that those who do are labeled anything but a Democrat.

[sendero]

29. As I have said here before....

... the right to get married to a same sex partner or the right to an abortion are moot if you are living under a bridge.

It doesn't look like the 1% will have enough until most of us are living in a cardboard box.

[antigop]

39. +10000 nt

[hifiguy]

40. In the real world economics are and should be Issues

1, 1A, 1B, 1C and 1D.

Economic power brings with it a substantial mitigation of other inequality-based issues and gives those affected by those inequalities the power to bring about change. it is the bedrock inequality. Failure to meet it head on will result in nothing systemic getting accomplished or changed.

[BrotherIvan]

43. Well sometimes not being able to have an abortion can make a woman homeless

Both of those rights are civil rights and are very important. That is why TPTB and the moneyed classes chose them as issues. A) They weren't making money on them and B) it directly effects less powerful people in our society. They always build on old hatreds because that's easier. The abortion debate was decided until St. Ronnie brought the fundnuts to the table and that was the price. They want us all so tired out from fighting, we don't even notice the money: the banks, the corporations, and the MIC.

But the fact that everyone is getting poorer is also making them less and less powerful. If you are constantly in terror of losing your job or health insurance (still tied to your employment) so your kids will starve or your spouse will die, you will do anything, accept anything. If you're working three jobs you don't have time to protest. And you don't have money to outspend billionaires, so your government is no longer representative. I just don't understand how that is not a social issue.

[rhett o rick]

35. That thinking is very narrow minded and very short sided. All of our civil rights and human rights

that we've fought so hard for will go right down the toilet if you don't have a constitutionally controlled democratic republic. And we currently do not have such. The oligarchs haven't totally tightened down the screws but they are working on it. They still let some of us vote and that's good enough for those living in the comfort of denial. But they control the voting machines and the candidates running.

While climate change will kill millions and change governments, we must first concentrate on reviving our "By the People, for the People" government. Because if we let the American Aristocracy control us we will lose everything including any chance of mitigating climate change.

Don't support the American Aristocracy, don't vote for any more Clintons.

[snot]

45. Inciting racial strife among Dems over whether we're paying enough attn to racial strife –

could work to help keep the 99% divided against themselves.

[sabrina 1]

47. That's exactly why they do it. They USE these issues, cynically, to try to control the 'left' with.

They have others to control the right with. And THEY care about none of them. Eg, if a 1%er wants an abortion, they get it. None of these issues really affect the top 1%, they do what they want. And at that level, money is what matters, you can be an Arab eg, and experience none of the bigotry that is promoted among the 'little people'. See the Saudi Royals eg.

They live in a different world but they use issues that they know will distract good people from what they are doing and it works. So why wouldn't they?

[Dustlawyer]

11. +1!!! So true! Where are the so called "Moral Leaders?" I can't tell because they are soooo quiet

on this issue!

Huckabee?
Pat Roberts?
All bible thumping Congressmen and Senators?
Sara Palin?

[barbtries]

12. i have to say

i agree with him. this will not end well.

[Doctor_J]

15. But the federal budget deficit is down, so

[KJG52]

17. Correct, but late to the party...

Where was this Robert Reich when Clinton was dismantling the social safety net and signing NAFTA, while inflating the "Hi-TECH Bubble," by deregulating the banks... Where was this champion of globalization and the "knowledge economy," then...? The result of Clinton's and other "New Democrats," policies is coming home to roost on all those who participated in "moving the Democratic Party to support the 'middle class,'" "those who work hard and play by the rules." Democratic Party code for college educated white people.

[redruddyred]

18. I believe he was complaining vigorously

and then resigning in disgust. slash had resigned in disgust.

good question tho.

[closeupready]

24. Uh, try again. As Clinton's Secretary of LABOR, he helped SELL NAFTA.

And to add insult to injury, he helped sell it to a reluctant Congress!

He has never, ever renounced what he did on that piece of shit legislation. So he watches now as the middle class is gradually being dismantled by legislative measures he helped implement, and complains about those same developments without holding himself to account. So typical.

And it's most sad to me because he does SOUND like a liberal, and he seems likeable, but ... he did what he did.

[bklyncowgirl]

28. Has Reich ever said how he views that issue now--after seeing what has happened in the real world?

[closeupready]

32. I've looked, and as far as I know, he remains silent.

At least in his writings. He continues to claim, essentially, that in the absence of government regulation, the greedy won't remain greedy and government will create for displaced workers social programs to help replace them in other jobs.

[sendero]

30. At least Reich has seen his ..

..... error. There's no evidence that Bill Clinton has.

[hifiguy]

41. Ol' Bill has been very well compensated

for his services rendered to TPTB.

[redruddyred]

50. that was him?

eff that then.

to his credit, tho, he did resign.

[whereisjustice]

19. Exactly. The wedge issues that keep us fighting on the fringe while Wall Street and Congress fuck us

over every goddamn day.

One the other hand if more people get married and have kids and can understand just how hard it is to raise a family today, then maybe they will be more engaged and support liberals on the issues that are so critical to working families.

The Democratic Party refuses to challenge CEOs, refuses to stand up and support unions beyond rhetoric, refuses to challenge the rich in this country who are literally robbing us to death, refuses to support millions of workers who have lost jobs due to NAFTA and other trade agreements, and at the end of the day, both political parties are killing the middle class, one is using a knife, the other is using a shotgun.

Ironically Hillary Clinton openly opposed gay marriage, while sucking down millions in corporate contributions. Now she's the Democratic Party's golden Goldwater/Goldman girl.

[Half-Century Man]

21. One thing That I find amazing.

The people who so regularly shit their pants about the Bilderbergers and the Illuminati don't blink an eye when confronted by Corporatism.

I guess mysterious foreigners who might be trying to take over are more scary than non-human, artificially created, hive minded, politician buying, above the law, sociopathic, alive only to eat, blindly aggressive, megalomaniacial entities who actually are taking control from us.

[Sherman A1]

23. Precisely

[madokie]

25. How people vote

based on God, Guns, Gays and Abortion is beyond me. Do they not understand the importance of a functioning democracy or not? Those four issues get more votes for the wrong party than any an all other issues out there.

[hifiguy]

42. Read Joe Bageant's "Deer Hunting With Jesus" and

Thomas Frank's "What's the Matter With Kansas." Best exegeses on the self-destructive political mindset of the lower economic classes that I have encountered. Thirty years of Repuke, religulous and media brainwashing has a lot to do with it.

[Enthusiast]

26. It's also destroying the earth's critical biosphere for their profit and amusement.

[Raster]

27. OH HELL YES!

[raccoon]

31. K&R. nt

[Android3.14]

37. That's exactly so

It may even be the generational crisis of our time.

[byoung6]

44. I read everybody's posts

But I have to say that without economic justice, without workers rights, in this society there is no hope for the other rights. There is no hope for civil rights at all if workers are not empowered. That is one of the lessons of the labor movement. Without a strong labor movement the civil rights movement could not made the progress that it did in the late 40's, the 50's and the 60's. Without a strong labor movement women would not have made the strides they have. And you see that with a a terribly weak labor movement that our rights are being threatened.
The democratic party only saw success and power because they latched onto the labor movement and civil rights, not the other way around. And if the current democratic elite think that giving lip-service to labor and workers rights they are going to find out its a loser. And if "democrats" are so tied to party and not they're class they are voting against they're own interest. Remember the lessons of history, in the 30's there was a real threat of revolution, by the far right, fascists, religious zealots. And the far left, labor, communists, socialists. It was FDR who candidly told the monied class that they had to make serious changes and pay 96% tax on income over $25k or the country was in real danger of revolution. I think we are moving there again.

[Baitball Blogger]

48. Crooked lawyers, corrupt city government, unethical community leaders...

The only thing that trickles down is corruption.

[adirondacker]

49. +1000! nt

[cantbeserious]

51. Spot On - Well Said

eom

[B Calm]

52. They have been messing with the market for over a month, with an election

just around the corner.