Posts Tagged ‘America today’

The Time Has Come Today: Democrats, Liberals & Progressives – Let’s Get to Work!

Jan 29th, 11 / 1 Comment

Evans Liberal Politics
January 29, 2011

 

The Time Has Come Today
Democrats, Liberals & Progressives
Let’s Get to Work!

Evans Liberal Politics, January 29, 2011, by Paul Evans:

We worked hard to elect Barack Obama, but we can see before our eyes that the banks and insurance industry and corporate interests largely control congress, that they controlled the bailout legislation, control the Fed, and that the bailouts seem to have turned out (certainly in part) to be just be further giveaways to the rich.

Here is a concrete example for you – may be you’ll believe this: Goldman Sachs lost $53 billion in 2008. They changed their legal status from an “investment bank” into a “bank holding company” to be eligible for the bailout, received $10 billion in Federal (accounted for) bailouts, and then proceeded to set aside “roughtly $6.8 billion” for bonuses to their executives. Now, Goldman Sachs owns Burger King. They were cited 179 times for failure to pay their workers even the minimum wage.

Remember, too, that $19.2 billion of the AIG bailout was money they owed to Goldman.

Who’s Keeping Burger King Workers
Below the Poverty Line

That’s right – Goldman Sachs gave their executives an average of $210,000 in bonuses in 2008, ($5.6 billion at the time my source went out, money that, was given to them to “rescue” their failing banks), yet they refuse to pay their hourly Burger King workers even the shameful minimum wages they fought so hard to prevent and work hard to keep from being raised to a level one can live on in America. Burger King workers routinely work 70 to 90 hours a week and make an average of $14, 414 a year, but this is for 70 to 90 hours a week, and they do NOT pay them overtime. The Federal poverty line for a family of three is $17,600.

In Goldman Sachs 2009 bonuses to double 2008’s; $23 billion could send 460,000 to Harvard, buy insurance for 1.7 million families, The Raw Story, October 13, 2009, by John Byrne, it is revealed that Goldman Sachs’ bonuses for 2009 are $23 billion, more than twice what 2008′s were.

This is not the America I love. These are not my values, are they yours?

According to a survey cited by Michael Moore, which was a 2001 Fed survey, the top 1 percent owned 39.7 percent of the financial wealth, while the bottom 95 percent owned 32.5 percent. Did you know that (according to Paul Krugman) the highest paid hedge fund manager makes more than all 80,000 New York City school teachers make in three years? Did you know that the official unemployment rate for those making more than $200,000 a year is a very livable 3.2 percent, but for those of us making less than $20,000, the official unemployment rate (not counting the underemployed, those working part time who want to work full time, and those who have just plain given up) is 31 percent. Maybe it’s time to ask: Is America for the top 2 percent in wealth, or is it for the ordinary people comprising the lower 90 percent in income, the regular folks who make the money for the rich fat cats? People, if we want our country back, we’re going to have to take it. It’s up to us.

We saw the health care legislative process being carried forward so there was no representative advocating a single payer insurance option in the negotiations for our legislation to “fix” health care for the people. And the bill Obama put forth and was voted on never gave the public option a chance. As it is proceeded through Congress it largely turned into just another giveway to the health insurance industry and to big Pharma. We should however keep in mind that Obama basically just didn’t have the votes for a pure single payer option to pass in Congress, knew it, couldn’t afford not to have a health care bill pass, and so did what it takes – including making compromises he did not want to, to succeed in passing a decent health care bill. At least (bitterly) that was the official story. Obama really should have put a public option in the finbal version that got voted on. To have not done so was wrong.

Evans Politics is asking its viewers, did we work so hard, and have such faith in Obama and the Democrats, only to sit by and just “sort of hope things might get better now”? The only way things will really get better is if we “get crazy” and light up the phones in Washington, deluge them with emails, and KEEP working to make them write fair legislation and to get truly progressive candidates nominated. Without continuing to fight, and fight hard, everything we worked for and fought for is just an ephemeral dream.

I refuse to accept America the way it is today. These are not my values and they are not yours. No. People, take your country back.

Yes, Obama is “better.” But if you love our America, if you love humanity, if you love progressive ideas — IF you want a better future, let’s get to work! — ~ Paul

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America in Decline: Why Germans Think We’re Insane

Dec 28th, 10 / 1 Comment

Evans Liberal Politics
December 28, 2010

 

America in Decline:
Why Germans Think We’re Insane

America in Decline: Why Germans Think We’re Insane, AlterNet, December 26, 2010, by Democrats Ramshield, quoted verbatim:

A look at our empire in decline through the eyes of the European media.

As an American expat living in the European Union, I’ve started to see America from a different perspective.

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The European Union has a larger economy and more people than America does.  Though it spends less — right around 9 percent of GNP on medical, whereas we in the U.S. spend close to between 15 to 16 percent of GNP on medical — the EU pretty much insures 100 percent of its population.The U.S. has 59 million people medically uninsured; 132 million without dental insurance; 60 million without paid sick leave; 40 million on food stamps. Everybody in the European Union has cradle-to-grave access to universal medical and a dental plan by law. The law also requires paid sick leave; paid annual leave; paid maternity leave. When you realize all of that, it becomes easy to understand why many Europeans think America has gone insane.

Der Spiegel has run an interesting feature called “A Superpower in Decline,” which attempts to explain to a German audience such odd phenomena as the rise of the Tea Party, without the hedging or attempts at “balance” found in mainstream U.S. media. On the Tea Parties:

Full of Hatred: “The Tea Party, that group of white, older voters who claim that they want their country back, is angry. Fox News host  Glenn Beck, a recovering alcoholic who likens Obama to Adolf Hitler, is angry. Beck doesn’t quite know what he wants to be — maybe a politician, maybe president, maybe a preacher — and he doesn’t know what he wants to do, either, or least he hasn’t come up with any specific ideas or plans. But he is full of hatred.”The piece continues with the sobering assessment that America’s actual unemployment rate isn’t really 10 percent, but close to 20 percent when we factor in the number of people who have stopped looking for work.

Some social scientists think that making sure large-scale crime or fascism never takes root in Europe again requires a taxpayer investment in a strong social safety net. Can we learn from Europe? Isn’t it better to invest in a social safety net than in a large criminal justice system? (In America over 2 million people are incarcerated.)

Jobless Benefits That Never Run Out

Unlike here, in Germany jobless benefits never run out. Not only that — as part of their social safety net, all job seekers continue to be medically insured, as are their families.

In the German jobless benefit system, when “jobless benefit 1″ runs out, “jobless benefit 2,” also known as HartzIV, kicks in. That one never gets cut off. The jobless also have contributions made for their pensions. They receive other types of insurance coverage from the state. As you can imagine, the estimated 2 million unemployed Americans who almost had no benefits this Christmas seems a particular horror show to Europeans, made worse by the fact that the U.S. government does not provide any medical insurance to American unemployment recipients. Europeans routinely recoil at that in disbelief and disgust.

a homeless man sleeps on a park bench

In another piece the Spiegel magazine steps away from statistics and tells the story of Pam Brown, who personifies what is coming to be known as the Nouveau American poor. Pam Brown was a former executive assistant on Wall Street, and her shocking decline has become part of the American story:

American society is breaking apart. Millions of people have lost their jobs and fallen into poverty. Among them, for the first time, are many middle-class families. Meet Pam Brown from New York, whose life changed overnight. The crisis caught her unprepared. “It was horrible,” Pam Brown remembers. “Overnight I found myself on the wrong side of the fence. It never occurred to me that something like this could happen to me. I got very depressed.” Brown sits in a cheap diner on West 14th Street in Manhattan, stirring her $1.35 coffee. That’s all she orders — it’s too late for breakfast and too early for lunch. She also needs to save money. Until early 2009, Brown worked as an executive assistant on Wall Street, earning more than $80,000 a year, living in a six-bedroom house with her three sons. Today, she’s long-term unemployed and has to make do with a tiny one-bedroom in the Bronx.

It’s important to note that no country in the European Union uses food stamps in order to humiliate its disadvantaged citizens in the grocery checkout line. Even worse is the fact that even the humbling food stamp allotment may not provide enough food for America’s jobless families. So it is on a reoccurring basis that some of these families report eating out of garbage cans to the European media.

For Pam Brown, last winter was the worst. One day she ran out of food completely and had to go through trash cans. She fell into a deep depression … For many, like Brown, the downfall is a Kafkaesque odyssey, a humiliation hard to comprehend. Help is not in sight: their government and their society have abandoned them.

Pam Brown and her children were disturbingly, indeed incomprehensibly, allowed to fall straight to the bottom. The richest country in the world becomes morally bankrupt when someone like Pam Brown and her children have to pick through trash to eat, abandoned with a callous disregard by the American government. People like Brown have found themselves dispossessed due to the robber baron actions of the Wall Street elite.

Hunger in the Land of the Big Mac

A shocking headline from a Swiss newspaper reads (Berner Zeitung) “Hunger in the Land of the Big Mac.” Though the article is in German, the pictures are worth 1,000 words and need no translation. Given the fact that the Swiss virtually eliminated hunger, how do we as Americans think they will view these pictures, to which the American population has apparently been desensitized.

This appears to be a picture of two mothers collecting food boxes from the charity Feed the Children.

Perhaps the only way for us to remember what we really look like in America is to see ourselves through the eyes of others. While it is true that we can all be proud Americans, surely we don’t have to be proud of the broken American social safety net. Surely we can do better than that. Can a European-style social safety net rescue the American working and middle classes from GOP and Tea Party warfare?

Also See Top Ten Ways the Right Will Wreck the Recovery, Truthout, December 27, 2010, by Isaiah J. Poole.

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Music Video – Eminem: I Love the Way You Lie feat. Rihanna

Dec 11th, 10 / 0 Comments

Evans Liberal Politics
December 11, 2010

 

Eminem: I Love the Way You Lie feat. Rihanna

Evans Liberal Politics, December 11, 2010, Comment by Paul Evans: You think that domestic violence and also cheating aren’t huge problems in America today?? This video has had 231,415,000 views on YouTube, the most I have ever seen on any video. America today teaches the wrong values, that it’s all about how beautiful your partner is, or about status and material possessions. Or sometimes, it’s about addictions, and how that tears families apart. I’m here to say, if your relationship isn’t based on caring and trying to “have a good heart” and do the right things as you make your way through this life, then you are living the wrong values. Say a prayer for all those in need of caring and a decent life, won’t you?

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What’s in a Name? – Party Labels as Representative of the American Political Experience

Oct 6th, 10 / 0 Comments

Evans Liberal Politics
October 6, 2010

 

What’s in a Name? – Party Labels
as Representative of the American Political Experience


A lighthearted look at political party names and what is really representative of America today.

Evans Liberal Politics, October 6, 2010, by Jim Evans:

I think it’s time for a Party expert to weigh in on the whole new Party scene happening in America. On the one hand, I have worked in advertising, marketing and now as a political consultant for quite a few years. On the other side of things, having attended Ohio University — one of the premier party schools in America — I consider myself to have a better perspective than most on this situation. As I am also a Patriot, it therefore is my duty to share with America deeper insights into the Possibilities of Potential Third Parties.

American Politics, 2010 Edition:

First off, let’s examine the whole concept of The Tea Party.

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Unless you are a four year old girl with a plastic china set, the Tea Party label really shouldn’t excite you. Seriously — Tea? Isn’t anyone familiar with the phrase “Tea Totalers”? It’s a phrase used to indicate the exact opposite of a Party, in a different sense of the word. And, increasingly with every Christine O’Donnell press release I see, it also accurately describes what people like her would do to our country if we let them run it — Total it. As in a wreck that is too expensive to fix. But one thing for sure — these people are proving that no Tea Party is complete without some nutty fruitcakes.

The Coffee Party sounds attractive at first, but when I visualize the local Starbucks, and see bug-eyed, over-caffeinated people with no jobs, using wi-fi and chatting on Facebook about how they have no money, I think — of course you have no money! You don’t have a job and you are buying $5 coffee! And then it occurs to me — simply on the principle of more experience in deficit spending, plus the embracing of internet technology, The Coffee Party wins out over the Tea Party as being more qualified to run our government.

But is that really a good Party? Maybe if you graduated from Miami of Ohio. But for an Ohio U. guy — the kind who tells his Ohio State friends “I’m sorry about the beating Ohio gave you guys Saturday (of course, I’m talking about the mascots, not the football game” — the answer is No, that’s not a good party.

So let’s get serious. What we really need is The Reefer Party.

See if you can follow my logic, here.

The t-shirts would be cooler, because they would be tie-dye. There wouldn’t be any mad rantings about hating classes of people — the rally cry would be more like “I love you, dude!” And the economic recovery plan could be solely based on increased Dorito sales.

Plus, if we had some whack job who couldn’t pronounce an Iranian leader’s name, or thought they could see Russia from their doorstep, we would simply say, “How good is their stash?”

It might result in more teenage pregnancies. The candidates might lose track of their train of thought mid-sentence, and rely on a catch phrase to bail them out — like, I don’t know, maybe “you betcha!” Wait, that’s already in use by Tea Party types…. Oh, well.

The Reefer Party — they might make claims that are totally off the wall, and cave in completely under the pressure of sober interviews meant to judge intelligence, character and competency. That’s to be expected from stoners.

OMG — I think Sarah Palin has already invented this Party! Maybe I missed something. Maybe she really represents The THC Party.

That new Party would, however, face a stiff challenge from The Tequila Party.

Not surprisingly, this Party would have a solid Mexican immigration plan. A little salt on the hand, a twist of lime, and everyone does a shot. Whoever gets the worm gets citizenship.

That might work in the Southwest, but in the Heartland, I see a strong uprising from The Beer Party.

This Party would naturally be fond of Pork — preferably a nice grilled sausage with brown mustard. Conventions would be held in the parking lots of pro football games. And instead of loyalty oaths, only breathalyzers would be required.

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It all sounds good for the common man, but the rich amongst us will want something different.

They will want The Costume Party.

Everyone will wear masks. No one will be able to see the ‘real you’– only the image you want to promote to the public. If you don’t dress up right, you won’t be let into the festivities. And of course, it is ‘invitation only’.

Kind of like our rulers want Washington to be right now, if you think about it. But do we even need a new “Costume Party?” We already have the GOP, right?

I know– it seems like I’m not taking the problems of our country seriously, at all. It seems like I am abandoning any pretense of dealing with reality.

What I am really abandoning is the joke that is American politics in 2010.

Let’s face it– the Democratic and Republican parties seem like they are just two puppets on the same billionaires’ hands. Like Punch and Judy, only in this play, it’s the public that gets whacked.

It takes one million Americans making $50,000 a year to make one Bill Gates. One member of the Walton family. Hell, it takes one thousand Oprahs to make one of them.

We spend over $30,000 a year to put people in prison. 90% of them wouldn’t be in that situation if we gave them a job making that much. And the super rich in this country think that only they should be able to have health care– or to put it more bluntly, it seems they want the poor to just die.

But we keep voting for the same two Parties that got us here.

It really brings a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘Party Crashing’, doesn’t it?

Because that’s what all these Parties seem to want to do to our country, our lives and our futures. America has been made into a nation of, by and for the rich.

In reality, though, the most accurate description of how the American public deals with politics could only be expressed by yet another new group label. Most Americans really seem to have their heads in the sand in regards to what established parties are doing to us and our once-proud nation. Only one label can truly capture our apathy, and our willingness to be ruled, and devastated, by our rich overlords:

The Slumber Party.

Evans Liberal Politics would like to welcome Jim Evans on board our team as a new contributor. Jim has worked as a political consultant since 2006 and before that worked in advertising and marketing. He has a rock album out in the band Ten of Clubs called "Sleight of Hand" that is really good. He is currently writing a novel to be titled "Agent 42-7". Visit Jim’s media-marketing website called Evans-Creations.com. You are invited to visit Jim on Facebook. Email Jim, here.

If you are interested in posting material as an author on Evans Liberal Politics and are serious about liberalism and changing the status quo in America, please feel encouraged to email Paul Evans.

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What It’s Like to Be Down and Out in America

Aug 28th, 10 / 39 Comments

Evans Liberal Politics
August 28, 2010

 

What It’s Like
to Be Down and Out In America

 

Inherent Worth and Dignity?

 

Commentary and Editorial by Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans: In my opinion the “semi-rich” Chamber of Commerce businessmen are the worst in their arrogance about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. They really believe in this two-tier society where people are born equal, but then you have to be born into wealth or somehow distinguish yourself to be equal later on in life. They have a name for this idea. It is part and parcel of the whole "family values" framework, but, even more, it is part of the Doctrine of "American exceptionalism." Various expressions which permeate American society today come to mind: "Rugged Individualism." "Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps." "Root hog or die." And the whole debate about welfare and cutting Social Security benefits or Medicare and the mess about extending unemployment benefits. It’s all part of the whole right wing framing which has successfully captured the heart and mind of America, especially for conservatives.

Prigs like George Will especially reek of this. For these people, privilege and a blind belief in the goodness of capitalism have blinded them to the ideals I grew up with as a child, that we are all equal before God and also among men. These people truly feel that some of us are more equal than others.

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In the Unitarian-Universalist church I used to go to – I go to a United Church of Christ these days – we used to have a set of Principles we really try to live by. The First Principle is the "inherent worth and dignity of every person." That has always seemed to me to be my favorite idea and is one of the main things I keep in mind as I live my life.

But when you’re down and out for real in this world, it’s amazing how your friends don’t want to know you anymore. I’m not ashamed to say I’ve "been down and out", and that I know what it’s like to actually be hungry. I don’t think rich businessmen can possibly understand this. People who have money simply don’t know what the experience of not "having ANY money" in our society is like. Maybe, as comedian George Carlin said, the time (seriously) has come for the government to take open land like golf courses and build some low-income, subsidized housing there. I don’t have that problem, I have a place to live, thank God, but I personally know people who have lived in homeless shelters, and I know what it’s like to have absolutely zero dollars that I can put my hands on.

Damn, sometimes I don’t know where people’s compassion goes. You have friends, and they see that you have nothing, and that you are in need, but they may see that you don’t have any apparent way out of your situation. So somehow this justifies in their minds not helping you — even when they are "good friends," longstanding friends, and they have plenty of money, and could easily help. I don’t get it. Why do your friends melt away and disown you when you are down and out?

To me, in such a situation, compassion – Christian compassion or even common decency — should trump any logic, and I know that I would give a person I knew not well at all, enough money to get by for a while if I had it. I know because I have done that. With friends, relative strangers and complete strangers I know not at all. No questions asked. Am I missing something here? Does a penniless person have no inherent worth and dignity? Are they rubbish to be avoided and discarded? Are we even a Christian society or do we live by moral and ethical principles as a nation, if we can permit such a thing as homelessness in our backyard, or in our nation?

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I’m interviewing for jobs like crazy, and so are my two housemates. The American Dream can sometimes come down to a question of just finding some way to survive for many of us. And I don’t think well off people can understand that experience — at all. People who work minimum wage jobs come close to getting it. Wal*Mart workers. Burger King workers. But in all honesty — and having really "been there" — (down and out I mean), I don’t think that even most of my own friends really understand what it’s like. With a few exceptions. I don’t think you can “get it” until you’ve been there.

Do you understand what it’s like to go months with zero money after the tenth or fifteenth of the month — or not at all? No money for basic necessities like soap and food for your dog, not to mention yourself? Do you really? I don’t think even my liberal friends get this at all. Certainly the "root hog or die" mentality of American capitalists and businessmen (and right wingers) would kind of fall apart if they knew what it was like to not have money to buy any gas for your car. Maybe they’d "get it" then.

Maybe if they had to live hand to mouth for a few months, selling off their possessions to get just a little gas money and a little food to eat — or to buy some soap and laundry detergent and some food for your dog. Maybe then they’d "get it". Getting a few cents on the dollar for possessions you always enjoyed having but having to sell your best stuff just to exist. Selling prized possessions that you know you are unlikely to ever be able to afford to buy again. And sometimes not being able to sell anything because in this economy everyone who is poor is trying to sell off their stuff and no one is buying the stuff at stores.

I’m not bitter AT ALL and I have a good positive attitude about my life, and about America. For me it basically happened after I had about $3,500 worth of fraud and bogus overdraft fees on my PNC bank account. Plus my father, who is my only living close relative, had to go permanently into a nursing home in January. Medicare only pays for two months of physical therapy, and that therapy is the basis for ALL these health insurance policies paying for a nursing home stay. So be forewarned if you have elderly parents. So my Dad uses up his money and has to go on Medicaid to pay for his stay at the nursing home. Well the law in these United States is that the moment a person applies for Medicaid, all access to that person’s funds is completely cut off. Even for family members. So I soon found myself basically penniless, on disability and desperately looking for a job. With a history — but no current symptoms at all — of mental illness, my parents had protected me by keeping me at home and out of the whole job/employment situation. They had great intentions, but now my sister and mother are deceased and my father can’t help me at all and I am desperately scrambling to get a decent job so that I can just survive. I live in Dad’s home, which thankfully has no mortgage, but with all access to his funds cut off, I have to pay for all the upkeep here, the electricity, repairs on the old house, repairs to my car, internet, phone — you know the drill. Believe me, I am really motivated to find work.

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I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea here. I’m not trying to sound a negative tone at all with this story. I’m Very thankful for my life, all my many friends, and all the blessings I have enjoyed. I’ve lived a very good life, I’ve been blessed with a wonderful, caring and relatively well off family, most of my life, and my life is still great. I have nothing but great memories plus kindness and caring in my heart, and I’m a happy person. But I need a job! I set out to explain to people what it’s like to be down and out in America today, and that was my main goal in this article. But please don’t get the idea that I’m not grateful, happy or even content. I love people, and I love our wonderful country and all its many blessings. My life has been very good to me and I feel very lucky to have known many wonderful people, to have had such great parents, to have known many good times, to have been blessed with a great education, and I am a very loving happy person. But if the spirit moves you, please send this article to an employer who needs a skilled, educated and motivated worker, won’t you?

Don’t forget that unemployment is running at an official 31 percent for those making $20,000 a year or less. That doesn’t count the underemployed, those who want to work full time but are working part time, and those who have given up and quit looking. Thirty-one percent. Five job seekers for every job, and new jobs for the less skilled almost impossible to get unless you are young, and you have a job now. And try getting a job if you are disabled or have been out of the work force for a while or have a criminal conviction. It’s almost impossible right now. (I guess you heard that a lot of companies right now are not hiring you if you are unemployed. That’s one of their declared criteria — you have to have a job to get a job with them.) But it’s really amazing how your friends don’t want to have anything to do with you and some of them won’t return your calls, when they are aware you are going to ask them for help. It’s really true — "Nobody wants to know you when you’re down and out."

Please try to understand the dimensions of poverty and need in the world today. One billion people in the world today lack access even to readily available clean drinking water.

I think everyone under the age of 35 in America should have to serve in some kind of mandatory service that would teach them how to appreciate the experience of living with very little — I know Obama is trying to do that with his AmeriCorps. and other programs. But poverty is really hard for the rich, or anyone, to understand unless you’ve been there. Maybe if everyone had to "do" a year of service, living in extremely modest circumstances, no exceptions, then they’d understand, and maybe then a little progressive legislation could make its way through Congress. And God, wouldn’t it be great if even well intentioned legislation were actually progressive? You savvy, white man?

It would be easy for people to miss the main point that I am really trying to make with this article. I am not just pouring my heart out, oh poor sad me, telling my tale of woe. I wrote a lot of detail about what it’s like to be down and out in America, not for any sympathy, although I do have some hopes that someone might pass this on to just the right employer. No, I wanted people who are relatively well off to really get, deep down, what it’s like to be down and out. But why? Certainly not to make my friends feel bad, or for sympathy, or even primarily in hopes of getting a job.

It is because I wanted us to realize that ALL OF US have this "inherent worth and dignity," that everyone is a worthwhile person. Everyone. Every one. I perhaps hoped that we might approach those less fortunate than we are with a more caring, and also generous heart. Not just materially. Just don’t avoid really poor people. Treat them like they’re just as good as you, just as valuable, and just as good of a potential friend.

Are We a Compassionate People?


I believe that we must be a CARING society, and I think that crucial attribute has been falling away from the American culture, and that as a people we are too focused on material possessions and "the good life." We are supposed to be a Christian nation, but we avoid the poor, and we avoid really caring for them as a nation in the way we should. I believe we must be our brother’s keeper if we are to lead moral and ethical — or Christian — lives.

Before he ascended into heaven, Jesus asked Peter if he loved him. Peter replied, "Lord, you know I love you." And Jesus’ response was, "Feed my sheep." This was repeated a few times, and it is the last thing Jesus had to say to us…. You know what a caring life Jesus led, and that his whole life represented the essence of caring and compassion. I ask you, in your heart of hearts, do you really think Jesus is talking here only about our spiritual needs when he said, almost as a dare or a command to Peter, "feed my sheep?" You know, in your heart, that Jesus meant this both spiritually and materially. Jesus wasn’t a hypocrite. Are we as a nation going to be a truly caring society? Or are we going to concentrate on wealth and power as our focus? I feel that we need to concentrate a LOT more on being a caring society….as Jesus wished.

That’s the reason I wrote this article. I don’t make any money off of Evans Liberal Politics. The only reason I spend hours and hours working on this website is in hopes that, in some small way, I might influence even a few people to live more caring, compassionate lives. And if I were to die tomorrow, I’d be satisfied, and happy, because lately I’ve said and done everything I can to help people along. ~ Paul Evans

May God Bless You, each and every one of you.

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My wonderful friend, Fonda Lorenz, helped me tie together the various strands and get to the essence of what I tried to say with this article.

They Call Us the Working Class


A People’s Tax Cut for America



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What would Jesus Buy? Trailer/Movie clip

Jul 4th, 10 / 3 Comments

Evans Liberal Politics
July 4, 2010

 

What would Jesus Buy?

 

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Is It Time To Replace The American Dream?

Apr 12th, 10 / 2 Comments

Evans Liberal Politics
April 12, 2010

 

Is It Time To Replace The American Dream?

 

Is It Time To Replace The American Dream?, AlterNet, April 12, 2010, by Jeremy Rifkin (Tarcher/Penguin), quoted verbatim:

The following is an adapted excerpt from Jeremy Rifkin’s new book, ‘The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis‘ (Tarcher/Penguin; January 2010).

For two hundred years the American Dream has served as the bedrock foundation of the American way of life. The dream, reduced to its essence, is that in America, every person has the right and opportunity to pursue his or her own individual material self interest in the marketplace, and make something of their life, or at least sacrifice so the next generation might enjoy a better life. The role of the government, in turn, is to guarantee individual freedom, assure the proper functioning of the market, protect property rights, and look out for national security. In all other matters, the government is expected to step aside so that a nation of free men and woman can pursue their individual ambitions.


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Although American history is peppered with lamentations about the souring of the dream, the criticism never extends to the assumptions that underlie the dream, but only to political, economic and social forces that thwart its realization. To suggest that the dream itself is misguided, outdated, and even damaging to the American psyche, would be considered almost treasonous. Yet, I would like to suggest just that.

The American Dream was spawned in the afterglow of the Enlightenment more than two centuries ago, at the dawn of the modern market economy and nation-state era. Enlightenment philosophers painted a new picture of human nature more in line with the new market forces that were promising a qualitative uplift in the standard of living of human beings. For 1500 years, during the feudal and medieval periods, the Church’s dark view of human nature prevailed. Christian theologians exclaimed that babies are born depraved and in sin, and that personal salvation must await them in the next world with Christ. The Enlightenment philosophers views were a breath of fresh air, promising that market forces, if left unhindered by government, would guarantee every person the opportunity to improve his or her station in life. John Locke, Adam Smith, René Descartes, Marquis de Condorcet and other Enlightenment sages were of the belief that human beings were, by nature, materialistic, self-interested, and driven by the biological urge to be propertied, autonomous, independent and self-sufficient, and sovereign over their own domain.

Today, that dream is still fiercely championed by libertarian ideologues and tea party populists. Their increasingly shrill defense of the American Dream, however, seems almost panic stricken in tone, suggesting a desperate effort to hold on to a belief that may, in fact, be passing away.

How else do we account for the fact that the public discourse is becoming so ugly of late? The populist backlash against big government represents more than just a clash over legislative priorities. The opposition to a government stimulus to jumpstart an ailing economy, the reluctance to adopt universal health care, and the growing denial of human induced climate change speak to a deeper sense of apprehension and foreboding. Granted, there are legitimate concerns one might raise to each of these public policy issues. My sense however, is that there is something more profound taking place under the surface, a feeling, particularly among an older generation of Americans, that the American Dream is in jeopardy and, with it, our way of life.

After all, if the American Dream were really working, each person would be able to fend for him or herself in a self-regulating market and be without need of an economic stimulus package or universal healthcare. The reality, however, is that nearly one out of five Americans are either unemployed, underemployed, or have given up looking for work all together, and millions of families are facing foreclosures in a land where homeownership has been regarded as the epitome of the American Dream. Climate change is particularly upsetting; it implies that the invisible hand of the marketplace is both an enabler of global warming and incapable of addressing it without government intervention.

When we consider these big picture policy issues, what becomes clear, if we bother to read between the lines, is that our long held beliefs about human nature, and by extension, the institutions we have created to express those beliefs, played no small role in precipitating the very crisis that now faces the country. In a nation that has come to think of human nature as competitive, even predatory, self serving, acquisitive and utilitarian, is it any wonder that those very values have led to a “winner take all” syndrome in the marketplace in which the rich get richer while everyone else becomes marginalized, and the well-being of the larger community, including the biosphere, becomes eroded? The US ranks 27th among industrialized countries, in income disparity — the gap between the very rich and the very poor. Only Mexico, Turkey and Portugal, of the OECD nations, have greater disparity of income. Moreover, the US enjoys the dubious distinction of being one of the two leading contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions in the world. Could it be that the American Dream is becoming the American nightmare?

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Interestingly, a younger generation of Americans is growing up in a very different world than the one described by the Enlightenment thinkers. Their reality is being lived out on a digital commons and in social spaces on the World Wide Web. All across America, our nation’s teens are performing hundreds of hours of community service as part of their formal educational requirements. In school, they are learning that every activity they engage in — the food they eat, the car they drive, the clothes they wear — comes with a carbon footprint and affects the well-being of every other human being and fellow creature on Earth.

Today’s youth are globally connected. They are Skyping in real time with their cohorts and friends on the far corners of the Earth. They are sharing information, knowledge, and mutual aid in cyberspace chat rooms, apparently unaware of the so called “tragedy of the commons.” They have little regard for traditional property rights — especially copyrights, trademarks, and patents — believing information should run free. They are far more concerned with sharing access than protecting ownership. They think of themselves less as autonomous agents — an island to oneself — and more as actors in an ever shifting set of roles and relationships. Personal wealth, while still important, is not considered an endgame, but only a baseline consideration for enjoying a more immaterial existence, including more meaningful experiences in diverse communities.

Surveys show that the millennial generation in the United States is much more likely than older generations to feel empathy for others. They are far more concerned with the planetary environment and climate change and more likely to favor sustainable economic growth. They are also more likely to believe that government has a responsibility to take care of people who can’t care for themselves, and are more supportive of a bigger role of government in providing basic services. They are more supportive of globalization and immigration than older generations. They are also more racially diverse and the most tolerant of any generation in history in support of gender equality and the willingness to champion the rights of the disabled, gays, other minorities, as well as our fellow creatures. In short, they favor a world of inclusivity over exclusivity, and are more comfortable in distributed networks than in old fashioned centralized hierarchies that establish boundaries and restrictions separating people from one another.

The new sensibilities of the younger generation are beginning to usher in a different idea about human nature and the dream that accompanies it. Today’s youth find little value in the Enlightenment caricature of human nature as rational, calculating, detached, and utilitarian. They prefer to think of human nature as empathic, mindful, engaged, and driven by the intrinsic value and interconnectedness of life. Homo sapien is being eclipsed by homo empathicus, as they shift their horizon from national markets and nation-state borders to a global economy and a planetary community. Even their preferred indicators of economic progress are shifting, from the crude calculation of gross domestic product and per-capita income to more sensitive social indicators — like health and longevity, social equality, safe communities, clean environment, etc. — that measure the well-being of the broader community.

If we listen very closely, we can hear the whisper of a new dream in the making, one based on what youth around the world are beginning to call “quality of life”. In this new world, the American Dream seems almost provincial, even quaint, and entirely unsuited for a generation that is beginning to extend its empathic sensibility beyond national identities, to include the whole of humanity and the entirety of the planet as their extended community. If the American Dream served as the gold standard for the era of national markets and nation-state governments, the dream of “quality of life” becomes the standard for the emerging biosphere era.

In this new, more expansive human setting, libertarian cries and tea party bravado suddenly seem far less significant. The assumptions about human nature and the meaning of the human journey that are bound up with the conventional American Dream, which motivate much of the current political brouhaha, are more like a faint echo of the past than a clarion call for the future. The empathic civilization looms on the horizon.

See our Special Coverage, America: The Grim Truth, Infowars.com on Evans Liberal Politics, April 10, 2010, by Lance Freeman.

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