February/March
The
Moment Has Come for Media Reform
Rober W. McChesney
Low
Power FM Radio Coming to the Rogue Valley
Suzi Aufderheide
Reframing
Is Social Change
George Lakoff
Giving
From The Heart
Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D.
Social
Security is The Least of Our Problems
Interview with Paul Krugman by Amy Goodman
Confessions
of an Economic Hit Man
Interview with John Perkins by Amy Goodman
Meeting
in Caracas in Defense of Humanity
Jane Franklin
Hyping
Terror For Fun, Profit … And Power
Thom Hartmann
First
They Came For The Terrorists …
Thom Hartmann
The
Legacy of Pure Motivation
Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche
Cosmic
Calendar
Salina Rain
Deborah
Mokma, Editor
This issue is dedicated to the loving memory of Jerry Weiss, 1913 – 2005
My parents instilled the basic concepts of social justice in me from the time I was born. It was their belief that the greater good should always come first, and that no one was better than anyone else, or more deserving than anyone else.
As a homeless youngster fending for himself on the streets of New York City during the Great Depression my father learned first hand what was really important in life. In 1927, at age 14, Dad began working in the garment district, where 12-hour days and 6 1/2-day work weeks was the norm. By age 16 he sometimes earned as much as $5 a week, which was just enough to buy food and pay his part for the room that he shared with five other men. At this time he learned about the union movement, and he began to be an active organizer. He participated in many demonstrations, occasionally getting beat up by police who were paid off by garment factory bosses, and sometimes he spent the night in jail. Thanks to brave individuals like my father, who repeatedly demonstrated in the streets and carried out strikes and other work slow downs, the shift from unregulated work places to the implementation of 8 hour work days, paid overtime, workmen’s compensation and Social Security came to pass. It is hard for those of us in later generations to conceive of the fact that in the early part of the 20th Century workers in the United States had no rights, and if you couldn’t work you and your family would go hungry. Or worse.
Because of the poverty and deprivation my parents experienced as youngsters, they never took the future for granted. And neither should we.
As Robert Reich so aptly explained recently on Marketplace, a daily business news program on public radio, “Why should you care if the federal budget deficit rises next year for the fourth year in a row, as the White House now admits it’s likely to? Why worry if, as the Congressional Budget Office has just projected, the deficit will grow by $2 trillion over the next decade if the president succeeds in making his tax cuts permanent, as he aims to do? Why be bothered that most economic forecasters predict that the cost of privatizing Social Security will be an additional $2 trillion over the next 10 years? And none of this includes the mounting costs of the war against terror. What does it all matter? These are just huge numbers, and most peoples’ eyes glaze over when they hear them. Your eyes are probably glazing over right now. It matters because the deficit has huge effects on you and me. Think of it as a Visa card with the debt we owe the rest of the world totaling a quarter of the whole national economy. As our government slides deeper and deeper into debt, and as personal savings continue to drop and our trade imbalance widens, we’re relying more and more on foreigners to lend us money to keep us going. There’s no such thing as a free debt. Inevitably, you and I end up paying more—more for the goods and services we buy, more on the interest we owe for mortgages and car loans and anything else we’ve bought on credit. And the entire economy slows because the higher interest rates choke off growth. Those looming federal deficits are big numbers, all right. But your eyes shouldn’t glaze over when you hear them. They have real consequences. They’re going to make most of us poorer. And why, exactly, are we heading down this path? So that wealthy Americans, who got the bulk of the tax cuts, will continue to get them.”
Without the social safety net of Social Security, older people will go hungry. Or worse. Without a fiscally responsible approach to our federal economy, many more people will go hungry. Or worse.
Please join those of us who are raising our voices in protest against the Bush administration’s plan to privatize Social Security, against their plan to continue giving tax breaks to the very wealthiest 1% of US citizens. It took the efforts of many dedicated people to win the rights we take for granted today. Together, we can make a difference in creating a positive outcome for tomorrow.
