Robert Reich: "What kind of country are we living in?"

[kpete]

The Moral Question
Posted: 9/30/11 09:16 AM ET

What kind of country are we living in?

More than one in three families with young children is now living in poverty (37 percent, to be exact) according to a recent analysis of Census data by Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies. That's the highest percent on record. The Agriculture Department says nearly one in four young children (23.6) lives in a family that had difficulty affording sufficient food at some point last year.

We're in the worst economy since the Great Depression -- with lower-income families and kids are bearing the worst of it -- and what are Republicans doing? Cutting programs Americans desperately need to get through it.

..............
When Republicans recently charged the president with promoting "class warfare," he answered it was "just math." But it's more than math. It's a matter of morality.

Republicans have posed the deepest moral question of any society: whether we're all in it together. Their answer is we're not.

more:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/repbulicans-stop-gap-budget-cuts-_b_988640.html

[mmonk]

1. It's been obvious from the start they were not in.

[david_vincent]

6. Exactly

American right wingers have NEVER agreed to the fundamental idea that society is a good thing. This is one of the most profound failings in the American nation. There has never been agreement to a social contract because the right has never signed on to the notion that society is either good or necessary. The American right believes in a tribal warfare vision, in which society itself is foolish and unsupportable nonsense.

[mmonk]

7. Yep and it has come to a boiling point of dysfunction.

[MisterP]

14. a really good book on the rise of Reaganism and libertarianism is James Arnt Aune's

"Selling the Free Market" on the various figures (often tied to the Powell-Doctrine think tanks, PR flacks, and corporate sockpuppets Sheldon Rampton covers)

[asjr]

2. That is a question all of us have been

asking. The Republicans opened the window wider last election and morality flew out of it. I still think it will take millions of us going to Capitol Hill and staying there until our elected officials realize we can't take anymore song and dance skits coming out of Congress. It is up to us and I don't feel we can wait around for the next election which has been bought and paid for by corporations, media, and mobsters. The voting machines are already being fixed.

[xchrom]

3. Recommend

[QC]

4. K&R

[dkf]

5. The immorality is in not having a strategy to recreate manufacturing as a viable industry.

We will never be able to employ enough people without it, especially our less educated.

The way to reduce poverty is to foster decent paying jobs. Anything less provides no safety or security for anyone.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

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[area51]

9. Q: "What kind of country are we living in?"

A: Pretty much the Trek mirror universe, where most of the tax money is going to the military.

[Enthusiast]

10. Mr. Reich, you don't know the half of it.

The fascists want to remove these useless eaters from "their" nation. Death is a perfectly acceptable option.

[Enthusiast]

11. Kicked and recommended! nt

[WinkyDink]

12. The adjective "cruel" comes to mind.

[moondust]

13. FUBAR

The cumulative result of thirty years of glorification of greed and demonization of government.

[phiddle]

15. Answer: A very rich and powerful 3rd World Nation

Our corrupt voting, dysfunctional institutions, lousy health care, infrastructure, distribution of wealth and wealth-driven politics all mark us as a 3rd world nation.(And it was NOT so as recently as 30 years ago.)