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Washington is back to talking about deficits and not about jobs. Didn’t we just have an election? Didn't we vote to tax the wealthy, provide public services and benefits and provide people with jobs? Isn't the deficit down 50% from where Bush left it? So why are even our own people talking about deficits instead of jobs? Unemployment is destroying people. Do something about that.

I was going to write about the trade deficit again today, and the damage it is doing to the country's economy. (And the trade deficit is one more way the billionaires grab more and more of the country's income and wealth.) But I read this, Unemployment Stories, Vol. Six: ‘If It Weren’t For My Children I Probably Would Have Killed Myself By Now’, linked by Atrios, and I'm too depressed to do the research.

People need jobs, and Washington is talking about how to cut back on ... jobs and government and the things We, the People do to make our lives better.

OK, look. You know it and I know it: These Republican cuts, sequestration, hostage-taking, whatever, are not about the deficit at all. This is all about cutting the things We, the People do to make our lives better. It is about getting government (We, the People) out of the way of the billionaires, period. The cuts are about keeping agencies from enforcing regulations that keep the billionaires' companies from hurting us and the environment. The cuts are about forcing wages lower and getting rid of benefits so that money can instead go into a few pockets at the top. The cuts are about destroying unions. The cuts are about privatizing. We all know this, so why does anyone play along?

People. Need. Jobs.

Post Office

Combine that with the story of the destruction of the Postal Service (and all of its jobs) by Republicans, obviously being done in service to UPS and FedEx. They are destroying the Postal Service in one more privatization scheme to transfer public assets to private companies. It is just one more stealth strategy -- done for pay -- to privatize things that We, the People were doing to make our lives better:

1) Require the postal service to "prefund" 75 years of pension benefits.
2) When the postal service runs out of money declare that government doesn't work, and kill the agency. The owners of FedEx and UPS get all the business, and profits. The workers lose their jobs.

See SaveThePostOffice.com

The Media Discussion

Have you noticed how all the public discussion is tilted one way, a set-up for a desired outcome? There is no discussion of jobs, no discussion of Medicare-for-All, no discussion of increasing Social Security payments, no discussion of a wealth tax, no discussion of a Financial Transaction Tax -- in fact there is no discussion of anything sensible that helps We, the People. There is only discussion of the billionaires' agenda of cuts for us and things that bring more wealth and power for them.

The media levers of debate are tilted entirely toward the agenda of the billionaires ... who happen to own that media. Just 6 companies own almost all of the channels through which people get their information. (That link goes to These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America. Please click links in my posts, they go to great sources of info...)

And so that information entirely reflects the interests of the billionaire owners of those 6 companies.

This Is Not About Ideology

This really is not a battle of ideas, between competing visions of government and democracy. Not at all. This is really about billionaires and their giant corporate fronts using their wealth and power to grab more wealth and power for themselves. That is not ideology.

Call it corruption, not ideology.

Getting paid by corporations to block government action that helps We, the People but hits corporate profits isn't an ideology, it's corruption.

Getting paid by corporations to cut taxes and regulations for corporations isn't an ideology, it's corruption.

Getting paid by billionaires to cut taxes for billionaires isn't an ideology, it is corruption

Call it what it is, don't launder it by calling it ideology. It is corruption.

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