In Plain Language - What the Hell Happened.

Look, folks - it's really simple what happened here. And everything else is bullshit.

For the last 30 years, ever since Reagan came into office and busted the unions, wages have stayed the same or even declined, while prices have risen. This has resulted in every year as a whole workers have made less and less, but it's been so incremental, like the 'boiling frog', that we haven't noticed it, except to think that perhaps we weren't workng hard enough or were spending too much.

The 'investment class' on the other hand (those who don't get wages for working, but make money from investments and stock options - the 'top 1%' who makes money from money and not work), has had its income RISE over 400%.

BUT - since we are no longer a producing society (with most manufacturing jobs outsourced overseas - thanks, Chamber of Commerce!), but a consumer society, the ONLY way our economy stays afloat is for people to BUY things. Remember when Bush said "Go shopping!" after 9/11? This is the reason for the great credit push - they know we aren't paid enough in wages to buy a lot of stuff. So how to get Americans to keep the economy going without raising wages? Make them go into debt! So we get this unlimited credit (and all the costs included in that - the hidden fees, the late charges, the ability to change terms without notice). But that's STILL not enough.

So - enter the real estate/housing bubble, where homeowners are encouraged to buy what they need from the imaginary 'equity' in their homes. Since it doesn't really exist, it's more debt which will be handed down to our children and their children. And since we are NOT paid fair wages (wages that increase somewhat close to what the cost-of-living increase is) because the unions have been demolished, that's the only way we can stay afloat.

But, now even that is exhausted. We have come to the end of the line. The investment class has stolen every penny that we have. There's nothing left to steal from us, the working people. We finally had to stop spending, and that is when everything went down in flames.

Now, the top 10% whines that they pay 40% of all taxes, which they deem unfair. But what they don't say is that they control 90% of the wealth of the country! So, is it fair to pay 40% of the taxes on 90% of the wealth? Is it fair that we pay 30% for taxes on payroll (from WORK), but only 15% on investment income (money made from money)? And when the majority of the wealth of the country is held by investors, THEY DO NOT SPEND IT. It does NOT go back into the economy, it does not create jobs. It goes OFFSHORE to make more money for itself, and is not taxed.

When working people make more money, on the other hand, it DOES go back into the economy in the form of purchasing, which creates a market for things, which creates jobs to serve that market. Investment income does not help the economy. Working people buy things. Working people save money. Non-working people or people teetering on the edge of poverty do not spend, and they do not save.

Don't believe the hype, people. We are being stolen from, and until we see it for what it is, these suited thugs will continue to do so.

Sorry for the rant, but - when I hear this Republican piffle about Big Government and Tax Cuts, I just can't help but holler. If the investment class would pay its fair share, we woldn't be in the mess we're in. We've done it their way for 30 years, and we have become serfs. Guess what? The Trickle Down Theory just means we're being p***ed on.

Debt Serfdom

I just read a very informative article by Charles Hugh Smith of Of Two Minds. So many of us like to imagine that we are middle-class (myself included) but when it comes down to meeting the definition of 'middle class', most of us fall short (again, myself included.) He says:

Imagining A Middle Class Does Not Create One   (October 12, 2010)


Surveys show that Americans wildly underestimate the concentration of wealth in America. This disconnect between perception and reality shows the power of propaganda

Americans have been trained to believe that membership in the "middle class" is their birthright if they "work hard" in the status quo.

What income defines "middle class" is a function of locale and prevailing wages/costs ($100,000 in Manhattan or San Francisco isn't much because costs are so high), but in terms of purchasing power we can probably agree that middle class membership includes:

1. reliable private transport
2. a home with meaningful equity
3. healthcare insurance/coverage
4. a retirement fund of some sort
5. a college education/higher education or training

How many people "own" all of the above minimum standards has been drastically reduced by various factors.

Another measure of "middle class" is even simpler: a middle class household owns some wealth. It could be a retirement fund, a free-and-clear home, a business, income property or gold/cash/investments.
By that measure, the middle class comprises at best 20% of the populace.

Check out his charts to see how the numbers really add up.

The basic truth is that working folk have been gradually underpaid for thirty years, and now the chickens have come home to roost. Corporations have built their wealth on the backs of their employees by using money that should have gone to their workers for profits for themselves. And the end result is that there are no consumers left who can afford to consume - in a consumer (not a producer or manufacturing) society. The demise and disrespect of unions has kept the playing field vastly unequal, which is against the classic definition of a 'free market' (mythical though it may be.) In this classic definition, there is supposed to be a balance of powers to make it work, between the company, the employee/worker, and the consumer - much like the 'separation of powers' in the American system of government, designed to keep any one component from dominating the others.

This is not the case today, and the myth of the 'trickle-down' theory, which has been given a 30-year shot, has proven devastatingly wrong. Read Smith's article to see how things have really panned out due to 30 years of conservative economic theory.

What Would I Give To Hear A President Say These Words...

My friend Batocchio of Vagabond Scholar is celebrating his 5-year blogiversary, and in stopping by to add my congrats, I read one of his fine posts, "We Cheat the Other Guy and Pass the Savings To You". In it, he links to one of the greatest speeches I have ever heard, one that breaks my heart every time I hear or read it. It is by the President who got us out of the Great Depression, and gave America a middle class that lasted for a large part of the 20th century - perhaps the greatest and most prosperous middle class we have ever known, or ever will know. In 1936, at Madison Square Garden, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave this speech to an America which was still struggling to climb out of the Depression, but was beginning to make progress. I quote a part of it below - the text of the speech in its entirety is here, as well as the audio of Roosevelt speaking it.

Tonight I call the roll - the roll of honor of those who stood with us in 1932 and still stand with us today.

Written on it are the names of millions who never had a chance‹men at starvation wages, women in sweatshops, children at looms.

Written on it are the names of those who despaired, young men and young women for whom opportunity had become a will-o'-the-wisp.

Written on it are the names of farmers whose acres yielded only bitterness, business men whose books were portents of disaster, home owners who were faced with eviction, frugal citizens whose savings were insecure.

Written there in large letters are the names of countless other Americans of all parties and all faiths, Americans who had eyes to see and hearts to understand, whose consciences were burdened because too many of their fellows were burdened, who looked on these things four years ago and said, "This can be changed. We will change it."

We still lead that army in 1936. They stood with us then because in 1932 they believed. They stand with us today because in 1936 they know. And with them stand millions of new recruits who have come to know.

Their hopes have become our record.

We have not come this far without a struggle and I assure you we cannot go further without a struggle.

For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent.

For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace‹business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me - and I welcome their hatred.

I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.

What would I give to hear those words come from a President today?

My Father, 'Mac' McCracken

(reposted from last year)

To look at his artwork, go here:

I lost my Dad, Willard Eastman McCracken, Jr., on Saturday, August 15. He was diagnosed with esophageal cancer at the end of 2005, the same kind of cancer that took Ann Richards and Molly Ivins, and generally progresses like wildfire - once it's big enough to be noticed, you usually have between 3-6 months to live. However, miraculously, he was treated successfully enough to have several years of remission - years in which my kids and husband and I were able to spend precious time with him, and time that I could share the most important ideals of my life - my progressive activism - with him, and he was able to see my book published and read my dedication to him. I'm so very grateful for that extra time that many people never get. My father was my inspiration and my biggest cheerleader, and he valued the qualities in me that I value in myself (and that not everyone else appreciates!) His expectations for me were not for money, status, or fame, but to follow my dreams and be true to them and to myself, and I'm so glad I was able to make him proud of me.

What follows is what I have written for his memorial - if you're interested, click on 'read the rest' (and, yes - that is who you think it is in the second photo!)

-----------------------------------------------------

Willard Eastman “Mac” McCracken, Jr.

Willard Eastman “Mac” McCracken, Jr. was a true Renaissance man in an age of compartmentalization and specialization. A painter, inventor, philosopher, humanitarian, writer, humorist, curator, actor, mathematician, raconteur and educator, he entered this world with an enthusiasm for art, for learning, for teaching and for people that stayed with him his entire life and inspired everyone who came across his path.

Born on October 24, 1929 in Stafford, Connecticut to Willard, Sr. and Florence McCracken, he grew up in the small town of Charlton, Massachusetts, in an area where freedom-loving Scots-Irish McCrackens had lived for a century and a half. His great-grandfather George Washington McCracken's wife Mary Edgerly Thornton was the great-great-granddaughter of William Thornton, brother of Matthew Thornton, the last signer of the Declaration of Independence. His father owned a garage in Charlton and was a town selectman, while his mother owned a motel, and the rugged New England determination and independent spirit of his forebears played no small part in the formation of Mac’s indomitable personality.

Mac graduated from high school at sixteen, and was admitted to the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, where he earned his B.S. in Art and Education. He received his M.A. in Art and Education from Columbia University, Teachers College, after which he joined the Army, where he was a radio operator in Alaska - the one place in the United States that could conceivably be colder than Massachusetts. While stationed in Alaska, Mac submitted an entry in a competition to design a monument to honor the patron of Eielson AFB, and his entry was selected as the winning design, along with that of a USAF lieutenant, to be used for the monument.

After teaching at SUNY Buffalo, he moved with his family to Tampa, FL and the University of South Florida, where he helped transition the department of Fine Arts from the umbrella of the College of Liberal Arts to its own college and develop the first charter and organization of the college. He was an associate professor of Arts and Education, and became the assistant dean of the College of Fine Arts. Later on he was an associate with the critically-acclaimed Graphicstudio, and helped organize Graphicstudio archives at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. He participated in Robert Rauschenberg’s Overseas Culture Interchange, traveling to Russia with Rauschenberg, and worked extensively with him over the years. He was an authority on Cézanne, and dove deep into the meaning of the artist’s work and what he was trying to accomplish. Mac’s own paintings were filled with vibrancy and strength, surprise, passion and often humor. A McCracken painting was one that stayed in your mind’s eye and resonated in your soul long after you walked away from it. But his true mission and passion was art education – finding a way to bring an understanding and appreciation of the transformative qualities of art to all people, and helping them find the art in their own lives.

Mac’s art and scholarship, prodigious as it was, was merely part of an expression of who he was as a human being. He was a man who loved people, and people loved him. He was comfortable in all walks of life, and found something in common with every person he met. He had a big, open heart and a rich, deep vein of humor that delighted and charmed those around him. He loved children and understood them in a way that drew kids of all ages to him like a magnet. He dressed up in ridiculous costumes, sang silly self-penned songs, and generally set everyone to laughing – himself as much as anyone else. He was a joyous and loving father to his own children, a beloved Baha to his grandchildren, and any child he encountered became his own – he always had room in his heart for a child. In later life, with his white beard and rotund waistline, he delighted in playing Santa Claus, and he had the jovial personality to go along with the appearance.

One of his great inspirations and influences was Albert Einstein, and, like his hero Einstein, Mac was a humanitarian as well as an intellectual – indeed, the one was the expression of the other. His brilliant mind was only matched by his tremendous heart. Mathematics was one of his hobbies, and he spent fifty-five years looking for a solution to the Four-Color problem, which, to his great delight, he finally discovered in his last years.

Mac was a rabid sports enthusiast, but especially a golf fanatic, and near the end of his life was able to fulfill his dream of going to the Master’s in Augusta – and was cheering in the stands along with his daughter Leigh, his son-in-law Jay, and his granddaughter Jena when the Florida Gators won the NCAA basketball championship on the same day, and the four of them also experienced the thrill of being at Game 7 of the Stanley Cup playoffs when the Tampa Bay Lightning prevailed. Another life goal was reached when the Red Sox finally won the World Series in 2004. (His mother Florence had the distinction of being alive for both Red Sox World Series victories!) In 1994 he and his son Willard III made a journey to Massachusetts to go to a Red Sox game together at Fenway Park – yet another long-held ambition realized. When they went to Charlton to visit old haunts, they stopped by his former school, which was shaded by a huge old oak tree. “I remember planting that tree on Arbor Day,” Mac remarked. He dove head-first into every kind of creative endeavor. He was a prolific writer; he was an actor in many USF plays; he played a mean blues guitar and was a jazz aficionado, having spent much of the ‘50s in New York City, where he hung out with the great jazz musicians of the day, as well as the Beat writers and artists who, with him, were pushing the boundaries and exploring and expanding the definition of art, music and literature in our culture.

Family was the center of Mac’s life, and laughter and love was the woof and warp that held us all together. He was immensely proud of all his children and grandchildren, and they all adored their Baha in return. He took care of his parents in their last years, putting all else aside. When he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2005, not long after his mother passed, the family were prepared for the worst, as this particular kind of cancer is often terminal by the time it is discovered. Thanks to his flinty Yankee stubbornness, his brilliant oncology team and his wonderful physician and friend Dr. Jai Cho, with a combination of radiation, chemotherapy and some surgical procedures he was able to be treated and have several years of remission. The treatments were grueling, and he was often in great pain and unable to eat, yet he never complained, instead insisting on living life the way he always had. The silver lining inside the dark cloud of cancer is that the family were given extra, precious time to spend with Mac, especially his grandchildren in California, who developed a strong bond with their grandfather who had been three thousand miles away. They will always remember the card games, the pool games, the pancakes and chocolate-chip waffles that their Baha made for them, the goofy photos - Baha, down on his knees, with a pair of shoes in front of them, and a top hat and cane, calling himself ‘Toulouse-Lautrec’ - and the stack of jazz CDs that he gave his saxophone-playing grandson Sam – CDs of the many jazz artists he knew as friends in New York. These last few years, though heartbreakingly difficult, enabled his family to come together to share with him how much they loved him, and to revel in the warmth and love and humor that was so much a part of him. He also lived to give away his youngest daughter Breeze at her wedding last year, and his newest grandson Kingston James came home two days before Mac’s passing. He joined his son Will at church, and attended Mass every day for the last six months of his life, which afforded him much peace and solace.

Mac McCracken was truly one-of-a-kind – brilliantly unique, incredibly gifted, unusual and wonderful. Anyone who met him never forgot him, and anyone who knew him loved him. His lifelong friend, mentor and colleague, artist Dr. Don Saff, described him as the ‘philosopher-in-residence’ of the USF Fine Arts department – a ‘cerebral humanitarian’. A visionary, a perpetual scholar besotted with learning, yet earthy and real, to Mac art and life were interwoven – indeed, intrinsically inseparable. He demonstrated that art is not only for the elite and sophisticated, but is the expression of the very core of who we are as humans, and is as necessary as air to human existence. Mac was a soulful man, in every meaning of the word. He thought big, lived big, loved big. He dreamed impossible dreams, and believed wholeheartedly in the power of possibilities. Failure may have come to him at times, as it must to all of us, but never a failure of heart or soul. Without our artists, our dreamers, our idealists, those who risk everything to dare to look beyond and tell us what they see there, life would be bleak indeed – even pointless. He reached for his dreams with the bright-eyed optimism of a child, and if he failed to reach them, they were no less real and valuable. Mac McCracken possessed the magical power of being able to show us those possibilities, to weave those dreams that bring beauty and light and joy to life, and to inspire us to reach for them, too.


Alicia McCracken Morgan
August 20, 2009

Bowed but Unbroken

I just got back from Las Vegas and the Netroots Nation conference. It was amazing, inspiring; I met so many old and new friends, and so many fierce progressive activists - even some Congress members! I was able to meet (and give my book to) wonderful folks like Laura Flanders, Amanda Marcotte, Lizz Winstead, Alan Grayson, Amy Goodman, Pam Spaulding, Elizabeth Warren, D. Aristophanes (from Sadly, No!), Markos and Digby - even if they dropped it into the trashcan at the first chance they got, I was able to put it into their hands. It was the opportunity of a lifetime to connect with other progressives and get busy doing what needs to be done.

Back to life; back to reality.

I am still finding it an uphill battle just to get up every day and do the minimum that has to be done to keep my world and family functioning. Today I got an email from my blog friend ddjango at P! and his post really touched me. He writes:

From the heart ...

Three times in the past I have abandoned the blogoswamp because I was too sick to write. I have nearly done it again. I can't really blame "illness" again, although I have been fighting my seemingly intractable clinical depression again over the last six months. But it's been more than that. I have been constitutionally incapable of continuing to catalog in these pages our descent into hell.

That spoke right to me. I wrote him back:

I am in the same boat as you are, my friend. I am fighting depression that is not only chemical but situational. I am a chronic depressive and have been able to manage it quite well with medication, as (oddly) I am by nature a happy, optimistic person. But this last year has kicked my ass. The banksters are playing cat and mouse with our house - they want to take it from us badly and they are using trick after trick to try and trip us up so they can swoop in and take it. We are in the process of trying to get a loan mod and they put a sale date on it every month because of something bogus like 'losing' our paperwork four or five times; the last one, last week, claimed that we didn't sign our 50-page document correctly. We did; I have the proof; we know it and they know it. But their tactic is just to keep fucking with us until we slip up. Plus, my new department head is trying to kick me to the curb at work, cutting my hours to almost nothing.

This has resulted in my inability to write with any kind of consistency, or do anything proactive at all; I can't focus, I can hardly move. What I want more than anything is to be writing about what's going on, but it's not possible in my state. At a time when it's nore important than ever to act, it's all I can do to get through the basics of my day. I spend the whole day telling myself "Get up; get moving; don't go back to sleep."

But I believe in my bones that though we have been let down so badly, that means that we have to keep fighting. Even more. And hope is a luxury we really can't afford. Sure, I would love to have hope, but every important social change - civil rights, women's rights, labor rights - has come about in the face of no hope. And if we believe that something is right, we have no option but to press on.

I am hoping I can find a way to keep moving forward. I really, really feel you, ddjango. This hurts. It sucks. But I'm going to keep trying every single day to try to move forward. I am not saying I will succeed. But I will try. I'm sending you my best thoughts and care.

I wouldn't have even been able to write this without feeling the need to connect with ddjango, because I know just how he feels. And the mental and emotional wherewithal to write is almost more than I can dredge up.

When I spoke very briefly to Elizabeth Warren after her panel on mortgages and foreclosures, I told her about our situation and who our bankers were. I told her that OneWest was desperately trying to take the house that we have owned since 1983, because they had bought out IndyMac and had therefore bought our mortgage for pennies on the dollar, and had no interest in letting us keep our house. When I mentioned IndyMac and OneWest, her eyes opened wide and she shook her head. "Then you know exactly what I've been talking about," she said.

Do I ever.

But with all this, I just have to say, "I'm not quitting today." 24 hours at a time is all I can manage. And if I can stay connected somehow, I may be able to get mad enough to keep fighting. I may not fight today. But I won't quit, and that has to be good enough for today.

It beats the alternative.

Pinch Me.

Is this really me, signing my book - right next to Amy Goodman?

This trip has exceeded any expectations I could have possibly had.

I have met so many incredible people - activists, bloggers, progressives of all kinds - both high-profile and regular-profile (like me!) I feel like I'm dreaming.

Ahem.

Need I say more?

And - I gave him my book!

Netroots Nation, Las Vegas - Day 2

Right now: listening to the inspirational Van Jones. Last night: heard Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer.

I've been enjoying hanging out with great online friends who I have known for a long time through blogging and Second Life, and finally met in person. It is an amazing feeling to tap into the real progressive energy and passion that is here at Netroots.

Plus, they are going to let me sell my book at the bookstore booth here!

Van Jones: "If wind power goes wrong, we won't have a 'wind slick'"

Van Jones: "When it gets harder to love...love harder."