Tavis Smiley & Cornel West: ‘The Rich & The Rest Of Us’

Source:Amazon- Tavis Smilley's and Cornel West's book.

Source:The FreeState 

“Record unemployment and rampant corporate avarice, empty houses but homeless families, dwindling opportunities in an increasingly paralyzed nation—these are the realities of 21st-century America, land of the free and home of the new middle class poor. Award-winning broadcaster Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West, one of the nation’s leading democratic intellectuals, co-hosts of Public Radio’s Smiley & West , now take on the “P” word—poverty.The Rich and the Rest of Us is the next step in the journey that began with “The Poverty Tour: A Call to Conscience.” Smiley and West’s 18-city bus tour gave voice to the plight of impoverished Americans of all races, colors, and creeds. With 150 million Americans persistently poor or near poor, the highest numbers in over five decades, Smiley and West argue that now is the time to confront the underlying conditions of systemic poverty in America before it’s too late.By placing the eradication of poverty in the context of the nation’s greatest moments of social transformation— such as the abolition of slavery, woman’s suffrage, and the labor and civil rights movements—ending poverty is sure to emerge as America’s 21st -century civil rights struggle.As the middle class disappears and the safety net is shredded, Smiley and West, building on the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., ask us to confront our fear and complacency with 12 poverty changing ideas. They challenge us to re-examine our assumptions about poverty in America—what it really is and how to eliminate it now.”

From Amazon 

“The latest census data shows nearly one in two Americans, or 150 million people, have fallen into poverty — or could be classified as low income. We’re joined by Dr. Cornel West and Tavis Smiley, who continue their efforts to spark a national dialogue on the poverty crisis with the new book, “The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto.” Smiley, an award-winning TV and radio broadcaster, says President Obama has failed to properly tackle poverty. “There seems to be a bipartisan consensus in Washington that the poor just don’t matter. President Obama is a part of that,” Smiley says. “I take nothing away from his push on healthcare, but jobs for every American should have been priority number one.” West, a professor of religion and African American studies at Princeton University, says that after the historic U.S. struggles against monarchy, slavery and institutionalized racism, “the issue today is oligarchy. Poverty is the new slavery, oligarchs are the new kings — the new heads of this structure of domination.”

Source:Democracy Now- author Tavis Smiley talking about his book.

From Democracy Now 

Tavis Smiley who personally I like, but generally don’t agree with, but who’s someone who I respect, hosted a panel discussion that C-SPAN (thank God for C-Span) broadcasted on MLK Day on Monday. If you guessed Tavis Smiley was there, you would be correct, but it had Professor Cornel West, New-Left activist Michael Moore, financial adviser Suzie Orman and a young woman. Who’s name I can’t remember and I didn’t recognize it. 

But I thought what won the panel discussion even though it wasn’t a debate, but hit the nail on the head (if you want to use that expression) and made very good job of making points and a case in how to win the War on Poverty, by actually moving people out of poverty, that you generally don’t hear from today’s so-called Progressives (Socialists, in actuality) Who generally use their time to bash capitalism, or call for more public assistance. 

A lot of this discussion was basically about how we can move away from capitalism and explaining how President Bush basically screwed the American economy. And that President Obama wasn’t left-wing enough to fix it because he wasn’t in favor of their big government programs. And calling for more Welfare etc, when it comes to poverty. Socialists tend to be more about giving people in poverty more Welfare.More Welfare insurance at taxpayers expense of course. And are more interested in sustaining people in poverty. 

The young woman at this C-SPAN discussion was talking about actually moving people out of poverty. Which is completely different, so they can be self-sufficient and get off of public assistance. And she’s the only person that made this discussion worth watching. The War on Poverty a war that President Johnson declared in 1965 47 years ago if you were born that year are middle age now. And today you might not even remember LBJ as President.

The solutions to finally win this war, are pretty simple, but harder to put into practice: 

First of all you need a good economy that has strong job growth. We are finally starting to see that now. But to help adults who currently live in poverty whether they are working or on Welfare or Unemployment Insurance, is through education and job training. Get them back into school, so they can get themselves the skills they need to get a good job and get off of public assistance. That takes money, but would pay for itself in the long run, because we would be creating new taxpayers.

Long-term what we need to be doing to avoid kids living in poverty as adults. Or end up in the corrections system, is to make sure they stay in school. And get a good education, while their parents are going back to school. And to do this we need to reform our public education system.

We need better educators and competition inside the public education system, so low-income parents can send their kids to good schools as well. That’s called public school choice and we have to do something about our high dropout rate. Encourage kids to stay in school, not drop out and have kids and end up on public assistance. Or get involved in organized crime and in the corrections system. We proved in the 1990s with the Clinton Administration, with Welfare to Work. 

We can do this, move people out of poverty and into the middle class by empowering them to get the skills that they need to get a good job and not live on public assistance to the point that we got our poverty rate down to 13%, a record low for the United States is an approach that we need to get back to.

Dan Mitchell: 'Big Government Is Not Stimulus: Why John M. Keynes Was Wrong'

Source:CF&P- President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democrat, New York) is one of the targets of Dan Mitchell's piece here.

"The CF&P Foundation has released a condensed version of our successful mini-documentary explaining why so-called stimulus schemes do not work. Based on a theory known as Keynesianism, politicians are resuscitating the notion that more government spending can stimulate an economy. This mini-documentary produced by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation examines both theory and evidence and finds that allowing politicians to spend more money is not a recipe for better economic performance." 

From the Center For Freedom & Prosperity 

If you are literally arguing that government spending can't do anything to boost and stimulate the economy, then you are admitting that President Ronald Reagan's Economic Recovery plan of 1981, which included steep, across the board tax cuts and huge increases in government spending, mostly relating to the military, with every dollar for these programs being borrowed didn't work. 

You are also admitting that President George W. Bush's economic stimulus plans of 2001 and 2003, which again included steep, across the board tax cuts and large additional increases in government spending, didn't work either. I'm not sure if Dan Mitchell has even thought about it, even though he's a professional economist.

Bad Lip Reading: Rick Perry For President

Source:Bad Lip Reading- Governor Rick Perry (Republican, Texas) does not approve of this message.

Source:The Daily Post 

“Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry shares a few poignant thoughts via some very Bad Lip Reading. Original video here:Rick Perry For President." 

From Bad Lip Reading

When you’re trying to appeal to the farthest fringe flank in your party, the most ignorant of the ignorant, people who believe Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Abraham Lincoln, or homosexuals were behind the 9/11 attacks, Barack Obama is an African Muslim who wasn’t born in the United States, the ignorant of the ignorant, to get their votes, because you want to win a Republican caucus to win the Republican nomination for president, you know your presidential campaign is in sad shape.

This is the state of Governor Rick Perry’s presidential campaign: “I can’t win this thing by appealing to the best in you, which is what Jack Kennedy and Ron Reagan did. So I’m going to appeal to worst in you the most ignorant people in the country. To get their support for president.”

When you have to go to the Far-Right for their support this early on and it backfires winning 10% in the Iowa Caucus only toppling Michele Bachmann as far as candidates who ran hard in Iowa, you know, if you understand politics, you know your presidential campaign is basically over. Win South Carolina or move back Texas and actually do your job as Governor there for good. Thats Rick Perry for President 2012, he’s preying he can have someone’s support, who’s actually eligible to vote.

What gets me is that Rick Perry is one of the leading fundraisers in the Republican Party right now. He has the money to go far as far as campaigning. He could probably make it to Super Tuesday in February financially without winning one state. But who are these people who are supporting him and still supporting him. Talk about a bad investment or business decision: it would be like thousand shares in Enron back in 2001-02, the day it filed for bankruptcy and then trying to get your money back. Or investing a million dollars in a store that sells snow mobiles in South Florida: who needs a snow mobile on the beach?

Rick Perry is a guy who gets mouth tied in a debate when asked which three Federal agency’s he would eliminate, which is supposed to be the centerpiece of his fiscal plan. Which would be like someone singing the national anthem, a professional singer use to performing in front of big crowds, performing at a football game, can’t remember the first three lyrics of the national anthem. Or a taxi driver not knowing the speed limit. Or running in the State of Florida on eliminating Social Security and Medicare. Or coming out for the destruction of Israel in New York.

When you think of the term “not ready for prime time”, it fits in with Rick Perry for president. Like fries fit in with cheeseburgers. He’s clearly unprepared and had no idea what he was getting into. Like the media actually paying attention to what you say, asking tough questions, running negative advertising. I believe he was expecting that he’s Rick Perry he’s going to unite the Tea Party with the Religious-Right. And have a cakewalk to the Republican nomination for president and it just didn’t work out for him that way. 

University Behind Bars: 'When You Learn, You Don't Return'

Source:University Behind Bars- talking about education in prison.

"Listen to the voices of students from a sociology course, "Sociological Imagination", as they explore the greater sociological, historical, and personal implications and antecedents of incarceration. Through the University Behind Bars, prisoners in medium security custody of a Washington State Prison are offered free education and an opportunity for greater insight and understanding of themselves and society. Please visit:SEDU for more information. 

In Development: A feature length documentary exploring the effects of liberal arts education on transformative experience in prison and its impact on the inmates sense of agency in community issues." 

From University Behind Bars

Education alone won't prevent inmates, especially violent inmates from ever committing another felony, especially a violent felony and returning back to prison and now serving an either longer sentence than they had before and becoming a even more of a drain on the free society. But without a real education that includes high school, but college or vocational, as well as real work experience in the legitimate field that they've been trained to work in, these men will definitely return to prison. 

If the only thing that prison inmates learn in prison is how to survive in prison and become better criminals and pick up additional criminal skills in prison, then that's what they're going to return to on the outside, if they're released from prison. And most people in prison today will be released from prison. And most of those folks today will return to prison in the future, especially if all they learned in prison was how to become better criminals.

Liberty In Our Time: George Reisman- 'Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism is Totalitarian'

Source:Liberty In Our Time- George Reisman giving a lecture in 2010 about Nazism.

"Lecture presented by George Reisman at the Ludwig von Mises Institute event "The Economics of Fascism," held at Mises Institute, Auburn, Alabama; 7-8 October 2005. The senior and adjunct faculty of the Institute discuss the history, theory, and contemporary meaning of the fascist temptation, and what the Austrian economists are doing to combat it." 

From Liberty In Our Time 

"Nazism (/ˈnɑːtsiɪzəm, ˈnæt-/ NA(H)T-see-iz-əm),[1] the common name in English for National Socialism (German: Nationalsozialismus, German: [natsi̯oˈnaːlzotsi̯aˌlɪsmʊs] (audio speaker iconlisten)), is the ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP; or National Socialist German Workers' Party in English) in Nazi Germany. During Hitler's rise to power in 1930s Europe, it was frequently referred to as Hitlerism. The later related term "neo-Nazism" is applied to other far-right groups with similar ideas which formed after the collapse of the Nazi regime.

Nazism is a form of fascism,[2][3][4][5] with disdain for liberal democracy and the parliamentary system. It incorporates fervent antisemitism, anti-communism, scientific racism, and the use of eugenics into its creed. Its extreme nationalism originated in pan-Germanism and the ethno-nationalist neopagan Völkisch movement which had been a prominent aspect of German nationalism since the late 19th century, and it was strongly influenced by the Freikorps paramilitary groups that emerged after Germany's defeat in World War I, from which came the party's underlying "cult of violence".[6] Nazism subscribed to pseudo-scientific theories of a racial hierarchy[7] and social Darwinism, identifying the Germans as a part of what the Nazis regarded as an Aryan or Nordic master race.[8] It aimed to overcome social divisions and create a homogeneous German society based on racial purity which represented a people's community (Volksgemeinschaft). The Nazis aimed to unite all Germans living in historically German territory, as well as gain additional lands for German expansion under the doctrine of Lebensraum and exclude those whom they deemed either Community Aliens or "inferior" races.

The term "National Socialism" arose out of attempts to create a nationalist redefinition of socialism, as an alternative to both Marxist international socialism and free-market capitalism. Nazism rejected the Marxist concepts of class conflict and universal equality, opposed cosmopolitan internationalism, and sought to convince all parts of the new German society to subordinate their personal interests to the "common good", accepting political interests as the main priority of economic organisation,[9] which tended to match the general outlook of collectivism or communitarianism rather than economic socialism. The Nazi Party's precursor, the pan-German nationalist and antisemitic German Workers' Party (DAP), was founded on 5 January 1919. By the early 1920s, the party was renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party to attract workers away from left-wing parties such as the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Communists (KPD), and Adolf Hitler assumed control of the organisation. The National Socialist Program, or "25 Points", was adopted in 1920 and called for a united Greater Germany that would deny citizenship to Jews or those of Jewish descent, while also supporting land reform and the nationalisation of some industries. In Mein Kampf, literally "My Struggle", published in 1925–1926, Hitler outlined the antisemitism and anti-communism at the heart of his political philosophy as well as his disdain for representative democracy and his belief in Germany's right to territorial expansion." 

From Wikipedia 

"Socialism is a political, social, and economic philosophy encompassing a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership[1][2][3][4] of the means of production,[5][6][7][8] as opposed to private ownership.[4][9][10] It includes the political theories and movements associated with such systems.[11] Social ownership can be public, collective, or cooperative.[12] While no single definition encapsulates the many types of socialism,[13] social ownership is the one common element.[1][9][10] Socialisms vary based on the role of markets and planning in resource allocation, on the structure of management in organizations, and from below or from above approaches, with some socialists favouring a party, state, or technocratic-driven approach. Socialists disagree on whether government, particularly existing government, is the correct vehicle for change.[14][15]

Socialist systems are divided into non-market and market forms.[16] Non-market socialism substitutes factor markets and often money with integrated economic planning and engineering or technical criteria based on calculation performed in-kind, thereby producing a different economic mechanism that functions according to different economic laws and dynamics than those of capitalism.[17][18][19][20] A non-market socialist system seeks to eliminate the perceived inefficiencies, irrationalities, and unpredictability, and crises that socialists traditionally associate with capital accumulation and the profit system in capitalism.[21][22][23][24] The socialist calculation debate, originated by the economic calculation problem,[25][26] concerns the feasibility and methods of resource allocation for a planned socialist system.[27][28][29] By contrast, market socialism retains the use of monetary prices, factor markets and in some cases the profit motive, with respect to the operation of socially owned enterprises and the allocation of capital goods between them. Profits generated by these firms would be controlled directly by the workforce of each firm or accrue to society at large in the form of a social dividend.[30][31][32] Anarchism and libertarian socialism oppose the use of the state as a means to establish socialism, favouring decentralisation above all, whether to establish non-market socialism or market socialism." 

From Wikipedia 

This is an interesting debate to about what is Nazism and is it left-wing or right-wing. True, Nazis are very populist when it comes to economic policy and the German National Socialist Party in the 1930s (or Nazi Party) believed in national ownership of the national economy. But we're obviously not talking about Social Democrats here or even Communists. 

Nazis are right-wing Fascist-Nationalists, who believe they're the superior people and culture (meaning ethnic Germans) and that everyone in Germany whose not an ethnic-German, is anti-German and therefor not deserving of the same national and constitutional rights as ethnic German citizens of Germany. 

If you want to say that Nazis are right-wing Socialists (which obviously sounds like an Oxymoron, similar to Libertarian-Socialist) fine, because of the beliefs in state-ownership of the economy, wage and price controls and the whole Communist playbook when it comes to economic policy. But the Nazis were' very different from Communists when it came to race and ethnic relations, as well as culture, and even different from American Nationalists, because American Nationalists tend to argue that what they're doing is in the name of God and tend to claim to be very religious. Whereas Nazis are not just secular, but also believe in state Atheism, where private religion wouldn't be allowed. 

Jason Wright: 'Tribute to Ronald Reagan (2006)'

Source:Jason Wright- President Ronald W. Reagan (Republican, California) 40th President of the United States (1981-89)

“I created this more than ten years ago for a special dinner in Washington called the Ronald Reagan Award Gala. Seems his messages are just as important today as they were decades ago.”

From Jason Wright 

Happy New Year everyone! I hope anyone reading this post is now at least somewhat sober and prepared to have a great 2012.

I wrote a piece last year for Ronald Reagan’s 100th Birthday laying out why even though I’m a Liberal Democrat, what I like and respect about President Reagan and I’ll probably be doing the same thing for his 101st birthday this year. And since we are just a little more than a month away from his birthday and with the Iowa Republican Caucus tomorrow, why not kick off 2012 for The FreeState with a look at Ron Reagan and the state of the current Republican Party.

We are about 24 hours away from the 2012 Iowa Republican Caucus which will decide who’ll have the momentum going into the New Hampshire primary. And the Republican Party still has no presidential candidate that resembles Ronald Reagan as a Reagan Conservative, a Classical Conservative. Who truly believed that big government was the problem with America and the way to get America going again was to get big government off the backs of the American people. And let free people live their lives.

All the GOP presidential candidates, of course except for Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman, believe in some form of big government. Some new intrusion into the lives of the American people in how we can live our own lives and a new intrusion in how states can govern themselves. Even if they are within the U.S. Constitution. And got this idea that free people should be free to live their own lives. But as long as they are living them the way these Christian fundamentalists want them to live.

There isn’t a Constitutional Conservative, again except maybe Ron Paul and John Huntsman. I find that unbelievable that a political party that calls themselves the Republican Party, wouldn’t have a Constitutional Conservative, all these candidates except for again Paul and Huntsman.

Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman and I will just say it, Paul and Huntsman are running for President in the wrong party. And I guess have missed the memo, or something and haven’t figured that out all of these candidates except for Paul and Huntsman, want to change the U.S. Constitution to limit our individual liberty.

What happened to the Barry Goldwater/Ron Reagan Republican Party, Goldwater and Reagan are obviously dead. But their ideas are not, what happened to their supporters who voted for them. And the political activists that brought about the Reagan Revolution of 1980. Winning 44 States, 56% of the popular vote in the presidential election. Senate Republicans winning back the Senate for the first time since 1952.

These people again except for the Huntsman and Paul Supporters and few Members of Congress like Representative Paul, Senator Paul, Senator Lee, Senator Johnson, you don’t hear from Classical Conservatives in the Republican Party anymore.

The GOP is now dominated by Protestant fundamentalist, Big Government Republicans, that want to limit our individual liberty, not protect it. Barry Goldwater and Ron Reagan would not recognize the Republican Party today and I believe may even of left it.

You could get the sense of how Senator Goldwater felt about the current Republican Party in the late 80s and 90s after he had already left Congress. And neither one of them could win the Republican nomination for president in either 2008 or 2012. If they were able to run for it. 

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