Some Good News the Papers don't want you to know...

[Visitor]

Jennifer,

Why are we even celebrating "Labor Day"? It's no picnic!

Labor Day 2004 is anything but a picnic for the vast majority of America's 147 million member labor force. No matter how you slice it, most US workers are worse off than they were at this time last year.

The average real wage – that is, adjusted for inflation – has actually fallen over the past year. This is in spite of the fact that the economy has grown by 4.7 percent. In other words, even when the economy is growing, most of the people who make it grow aren't getting anything out of it.

This continues a long-term trend – briefly interrupted in the late 1990s – that has dominated the last 30 years. Over the last three decades the median real wage has grown by only about 8 percent. In other words, the majority of the American labor force has failed to share in the gains from economic growth.

This by itself is an outrage and ought to be a major political issue in an election year. Prior to the "Age of Greed" it was normal for the wages of most workers to grow with productivity. If that had happened over the past three decades, the typical (median) family income would be more than $60,000, instead of the $43,300 that it is today.

This is not a utopian "what if" scenario but rather what would have actually occurred if most American workers had not lost so much bargaining power. Most of this loss stems from policy changes rather than just "market forces." For example, the decline in union membership and strength results from legal and institutional changes that have made it extremely difficult for workers to organize unions and bargain collectively. Tens of thousands of workers are illegally fired each year for organizing or attempting to join a union, and companies can refuse to bargain with unions for years even when they are legally obligated to do so. Human Rights Watch found that the United States had a "culture of near impunity" for employers who violate basic labor rights.

Our trade and commercial agreements with other countries have also been deliberately designed to drive down the wages of most workers, while protectionism for professionals – doctors and lawyers, for example – remains intact. It is no wonder that most of the massive redistribution of income of recent decades has gone from the bottom half of the labor force to professional and other highly-paid employees.

To reverse these trends, we will need real labor law reform that restores collective bargaining rights for American labor. But it will still be difficult to make up for 30 years of losses. So labor's best hope for the foreseeable future is probably going to be found in universal programs, such as health care, where workers are currently losing ground as employers cut back on benefits and increase employee co-payments. Most European workers have not only universal health insurance but four or five weeks of vacation a year, paid family leave and often subsidized child care as well. Their societies are no richer than ours; they just have different priorities.

In the case of health care, our costs are so out of control – we spend nearly twice as much per person as other developed countries and still leave a sixth of our population uninsured – that reform will be increasingly difficult to avoid. But universal reforms that allow workers to share in the prosperity that their labor creates also have the advantage – like Social Security and Medicare – of a broad political appeal that makes them easier to win and preserve. If we can make some progress in these areas by next year's labor day, then maybe American labor will have something to celebrate.

[Jennifer]

Visitor,
And it just gets worse and the people who are most affected don't get it?? I don't get it...
Did you hear the part of Bush's speech where he referenece specifically the OB/GYN's and how out of control costs have become for them...why did he reference them specifically? BECAUSE HE'S LOBBYING FOR THEM AND THEY HIM...only protecting the proffessionals is fucking right...

[Visitor]

Jennifer,
And to think Bush has the nerve to attack Kerry for being in bed with "special interest groups." No administration in the history of America has been in the pockets of more corporations or organizations than Bush's. And he also has the nerve to be "offended" that his critics call him a liar. He IS a liar - a bigger liar than Nixon. He looks right in our faces and blatently lies over and over again about healthcare, education, the economy and Iraq and his supporters eat up every lie with relish. It's so much easier than looking into the reality. History is not going to look kindly on Bush or his followers. But what do they care. They'll be dead by then. As will America.

[Visitor]

Visitor,

"What is at stake here is nothing less than a choice between a power politics that sacrifices morality and justice and a path based on human rights for all which also happens to be the only path by which this planet will survive."

Terrorism did not change this concept in the least. All it did was test America to see if they really had the balls to stand by its principles when faced with its first legitimate enemy in decades. And they failed the test with flying colors. Not just Bush - America. Bush may be no less a power-hungry, ignorant thug than Hussein or Hitler or Napolean, but because the mojority of America backs him, you have ALL failed. America stands for nothing anymore. Deal with it.

[Visitor]

Visitor,
I am watching Rumsfeld giving a press conference right now and he just said "The war in Iraq has not created terrorists." MY FUCKING GOD!! How does lying come so easy to these fucks? That is an out and out LIE. Hundreds, if not thousands of young Arab Muslims throughout the Middle East have joined various terrorist groups or the Iraqi resistance SPECIFICALLY because of the US invasion of Iraq. That has been reported and verified for well over a year. And now Rumsfeld comes on TV, looks us in the face and denies it? I HATE THESE FUCKING LIARS!!! THEY HAVE GOT TO GO!!!

[Jennifer]

Visitor,
here's something to ponder:
Young poor white and black men in this country fighting for the rich corporations...doesn't it remind us of the Civil War-where the COnfederate army was filled with poor young southern men who went off to fight for the plantation owners inorder that they themselves would continue to be replaced by low wage earners-SLAVES...???

damn-it's starting to feel like the old south in this fucking country...and we are all the slaves to the big fat rich white corporations...

[Visitor]

astonamous,

"Shocking revelations," said Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe about the release of two dozen new documents related to George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard.

McAuliffe and General "Tony" McPeak held a conference call today to highlight the new information about Bush's Guard service. The new documents were released because of a lawsuit by the Associated Press and highlighted in an article published this morning by the Boston Globe.

"For years, Bush has been claiming he met his obligations [to the Guard]," McAuliffe said. "George W. Bush has either lied or he has severe memory loss."

General McPeak, who led the Air Force in the first Gulf War and who supported Bush in 2000, said, "At a minimum, the President and his spokesmen have not been candid with the American people."

"It goes to the credibility of George W. Bush, to the credibility of the Commander-in-Chief," said McAuliffe. "Bush's activities 35 years ago goes to his credibility today -- Bush mislead us about weapons of mass destruction, about the deficit, about fulling funding Leave No Child Behind, about fixing the healthcare system. George W. Bush has not been truthful from the start."

* * *

"The Associated Press, after being told by the White House in February that it had released all of the President's military records, inexplicably got a new batch of documents from the Pentagon on Tuesday. Nicholas Kristof, columnist for The New York Times, who had not previously written on this subject, nailed the first major interview with Bob Mintz, an Air National Guard lieutenant colonel who claimed he never saw Bush report for duty in Alabama," reported Editor and Publisher.

As Joe Conason wrote in February, "George W. Bush lied about his military service record."

"Earlier this year, President Bush told the nation 'I did my duty' in the National Guard in 1972 when he was supposed to report for service. But according to a major new report, that is not true."

[Visitor]

Visitor,


[img]http://www.bartcop.com/liberty-boot.jpg[/img]

[bingolong]

Visitor,

[Jennifer]

Visitor,
oh lord-that's wonderfully tragic-