QUOTE OF THE MONTH:
“I know of no country, indeed, where the love of money has taken stronger hold on the affections of men and where a profounder contempt is expressed for the theory of the permanent equality of property.”
Alexis de Tocqueville
Democracy in America
1835
SENSE AND NONSENSE—COMPASS MEMBERS ARE “ACTIVISTS”
From the editor: Compass Society member Eben Carsey of Boulder is on a mission to highlight the importance of a growing “well-being inequality” in this country. His letter to editors of various newspapers follows this article.
Compass member Auzie Blevins of Billings is gathering information on the big money behind the Tea Partiers.
Compass member Pat Chapman of Santa Fe is spending countless hours calling Democrats in an ongoing effort to get out the vote.
Compass member Fred Bender of Santa Fe continues to fight for a two-state solution to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.
Compass Society members from Washington state to the “rust belt” are actively sharing facts and figures with relatives and friends across the country to counter the deluge of propaganda ads funded by anonymous donors unleashed by the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (Docket No. 08-205).
More than any election in this nation’s history, the 2010 mid-term elections is about big-moneyed individuals and corporations who believe the national treasury is their own private bank account.
Each time we hear the word “privatization,” a listener can rest assured the word is code for “send tax dollars to the rich” in the form of direct incentives, corporate tax loopholes, and off-shore tax shelters.
“Privatization” missionaries try to conflate big business with the small businesses that are the true source of new jobs. The five major sins of big business are: 1) benefiting from no-bid contracts handed out to private contractors (like winning lottery tickets) in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as during the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita; 2) converting bad commercial and residential real estate loans into highly leveraged and speculative securities called “credit default swaps” and “collateralized debt obligations;” 3) putting the profit motive ahead of patient well being in the health care industry; 4) perpetuating the myth that private business can regulate itself, and 5) outsourcing jobs to foreign entities.
The “corporatism” of America falsely claims that corporations are “persons” with First Amendment rights and that big corporations form the headwaters of the American dream. The American dream throughout this nation’s history has always rested upon the existence of a strong middle class providing a ladder of upward mobility without any missing rungs in it.
In an October 16 article for The New York Times, Robert Frank, Cornell University economics professor, writes, “During the three decades after World War II, for example, incomes in the United States rose rapidly and at about the same rate -- almost 3 percent a year -- for people at all income levels….
“By contrast, during the last three decades the…share of total income going to the top 1 percent of earners, which stood at 8.9 percent in 1976, rose to 23.5 percent by 2007, but during the same period, the average inflation-adjusted hourly wage declined by more than 7 percent.”
Frank concludes, “There is no persuasive evidence that greater inequality bolsters economic growth or enhances anyone’s well-being….And in our winner-take-all economy, one effect of the growing inequality has been to lure our most talented graduates to the largely unproductive chase for financial bonanzas on Wall Street.”
The gap between rich and poor is obscene and is evidence of long-standing class warfare. More importantly, it is self-destructive and includes the risk of bringing our economy and our country down with it.
For years, The Compass has tried to call attention to the problem by highlighting books by Kevin Phillips including The Politics of Rich and Poor (1990), Wealth and Democracy (2002), American Dynasty (2004), and American Theocracy (2006).
Other authors offering specifics include Thom Hartmann in his books Unequal Protection (2002) and Screwed (2006), as well as David Cay Johnston in Perfectly Legal (2003). The subtitle of Johnston’s book is “The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich -- And Cheat Everybody Else.”
Whereas the threat of terrorist attacks from abroad and within warrant constant vigilance, our country is more likely to lose its political and economic “soul” by ignoring the economic threat from within. Thomas Jefferson defined the principle upon which our national soul rests when he wrote, “WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Corporate greed and avarice trample upon this principle daily. The midterm elections of 2010 provide a clear choice between civilization and the steady creep toward chaos.
Maynard Chapman, Editor
The Compass
ADDRESSING “WELL-BEING INEQUALITY”
From Dr. Eben Carsey of Boulder: “According to Harvard professor Michael Norton, the top 20% of people in the U.S. have 85% of the wealth, and the bottom 40% have no significant wealth. Many of the bottom 40% have a negative wealth. This inequality in wealth distribution has a very strong tendency to persist over generations. This inequality in wealth distribution is much greater than most of our citizens think exists, and it is a much greater inequality than they think it should be.
“More important is the great inequality that exists in basic well-being that often proceeds from inequality in wealth especially in regard to necessities such as food, shelter, and healthcare.
“Also, for people to have a chance to improve their wealth, there needs to be quality education, starting from early childhood and continuing, if appropriate, into early adulthood. When wealth inequality is great enough to produce well-being inequality in regard to such basics, it is especially vicious.
“Failure to address the issue of the well-being inequality in this country is a failure to address 4 of 6 purposes of our Constitution as outlined in the preamble. Since taxes need to be collected to accomplish these purposes, it makes sense that those with greater wealth should be asked to contribute in proportion to their extraordinary ability to pay. And as Norton indicates, we can (collect) taxes on inheritance as we have done without even threatening the preservation of wealth (sic) from generation to generation to generation.
“Finally, wealth inequality also produces an exponentially greater inequality in political power and influence. The power of people of great wealth and of corporations, that are grotesquely recognized as persons, to express themselves ad nauseam and to buy influence over our Congress through lobbying very effectively drowns out any First Amendment freedom of speech left to the average citizen.
“Such considerations have obvious implications for election of our officials and voting on ballot issues this fall.”
(Editor’s Note: The Preamble to our Constitution, to which Dr. Carsey refers, states, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” I would argue that “well-being inequality” jeopardizes all 6 purposes of the Preamble. The six purposes are: 1) form a more perfect union; 2) establish Justice; 3) insure domestic Tranquility; 4) provide for the common defense; 5) promote the general Welfare; and 6) secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.)
(Special Note: Capitalization and spellings in the Preamble are taken from the original documents.)
THE TEA PARTY EXPRESS TO NOWHERE
From the editor: Tea Party activist Amy Kremer of Atlanta is the chairperson of the Tea Party Express IV, a 15-day bus tour that stops in 30 cities and 19 states. The first stop was Oct 18 in Reno, Nevada and the last will be in Concord, New Hampshire on November 1.
The Tea Party Express is describe as “the largest money-spinning group within a movement that is having a big impact on next month’s midterm elections” by the Guardian, a major British newspaper.
It raises the legitimate question: Who is providing the money that is being ‘spun’ by groups such as The Tea Party Express?
The key protagonists in the obfuscation of funding are brothers David and Charles Koch (pronounced “Coke”), lifelong libertarians who have carefully created a network of front organizations including Americans for Prosperity (AFP) founded by David Koch in 2004. Koch now serves as Chairman of the Board for AFP.
While David Koch is quoted by New York magazine (not to be confused with The New Yorker magazine) as saying “I’ve never been to a tea-party event,” his disclaimer does not disclose the fact that Mr. Koch’s money has been very active in the Tea Party movement.
Author Jane Mayer’s article for The New Yorker magazine published August 30, 2010, reports that AFP “has worked closely with the Tea Party since the movement’s inception.” For example, Mayer discloses that “…before the first Tax Day protests, in April, 2009, Americans for Prosperity hosted a Web site offering supporters ‘Tea Party Talking Points.’”
A second major source of funding for the Tea Party is Freedom Works, an organization chaired by ex House Majority Leader Dick Armey. However, the tentacles and money of the Koch Foundation are inextricably linked to Freedom Works. The Kochs founded Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE) in 1984, which together with Empower America morphed into Freedom Works and Americans for Prosperity in 2004. Koch charities were the largest funders of these groups between 1985 and 2005.
Mayer’s article sums up the agenda of the Kochs, Dick Armey, and their “charities.” She writes, “The anti-government fervor infusing the 2010 elections represents a political triumph for the Kochs. By giving money to ‘educate,’ fund, and organize Tea Party protesters, they have helped turn their private agenda into a mass movement. Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist and a historian, who once worked at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a Dallas-based think tank that the Kochs fund, said, ‘The problem with the whole libertarian movement is that it’s been all chiefs and no Indians. There haven’t been any actual people, like voters, who give a crap about it. So the problem for the Kochs has been trying to create a movement.’ With the emergence of the Tea Party, he said, ‘everyone suddenly sees that for the first time there are Indians out there--people who can provide real ideological power.’ The Kochs, he said, are ‘trying to shape and control and channel the populist uprising into their own policies.’”
Mayer continues, “A Republican campaign consultant who has done research on behalf of Charles and David Koch said of the Tea Party, ‘The Koch brothers gave the money that founded it. It’s like they put the seeds in the ground. Then the rainstorm comes, and the frogs come out of the mud--and they’re our candidates!”
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