Look at these comments in the conservative Wall Street Journal regarding the end of unemployment benefits.
I would say they are running 95% in the "anger at Republicans for blocking unemployment" direction. Amazingly, this is essentially a Republican "pro-business" newspaper.
1.5 million Americans just this week will be out of benefits. 6.5 million over the next few months. I have never seen such ire and calls for people to get out on the streets in protest in my lifetime. Can the Republican obstruction of unemployment in this environment be a game-changer?
I have never seen any large-scale protest before. I wonder if Americans have it in them to protest like they do in Europe?
I have been advocating the revival of the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration. There are millions of Americans who are ready and willing to go to work. And we have plenty of work for them to do.
The Republicans complain that any work we have people do will be nothing more than make work; but then they claim that the unemployed are just lazy and need drug testing. Well, why don't we revive the old CCC and WPA and find out? If people are as lazy as the Republicans say, no one will show up for work. But something tells me that won't happen.
Besides putting Americans to work on the Gulf Coast doing clean up, we could be building all types of energy grids for the 21st century. We have bridges and dams that either need to be built or repaired (no more bridges should fall down like in Minneapolis).
What we have is not make work, but neglected work.
Why won't the Democrats and the White House get out in front on this issue and put people to work?
We are in this boat because Americans have been convinced, by and large, that their enslavement by debt is just and fair. Wages have not kept up with the cost of living.
Look at the Pareto distribution of wealth in the U.S. By 2007 (latest figures available), the top 20% of individuals owned 93% of financial wealth in the U.S.
In a "normal" Pareto distribution, the top 20% of individuals would have around 80% of all of the wealth. This is a function of fractal mathematics. The Pareto Principle is also known as the "Law of Scarcity."
The thing is: our wealth distribution is far out of whack with an expected Pareto allocation of resources.
The richest people may feel that any works program will be "redistributive," but as you can see, the mathematics clearly indicate that the wealthiest in this country have far more than what the math indicates they should. What it means is that not enough has been paid to the middle and lower classes (the bottom 80% of the Pareto distribution) in wages and benefits.
Isn't it interesting that they are arguing that there is not enough money for unemployment, Social Security, Medicare or living wages, when there sure seems to be more than enough for themselves (just based on the math)?
And as if that wasn't enough, a lack of a national health care system isn't the only thing that separates the U.S. from the rest of the world, we are also the only country that does not guarantee vacation time.
The question is: do Americans have it within themselves the will to demand to rights that Franklin Delano Roosevelt said we should have?
The Second Bill of Rights