Kucinich writes: "This Labor Day, President Obama has the opportunity to defend the economic rights of millions of Americans by supporting a substantial increase in the minimum wage."
A wage protest at Washington University in St. Louis. Bernstein argues that a national minimum wage increase is necessary to reduce problems of wage inequality. (photo: Huy Richard Mach/AP)
America Deserves a Raise
01 September 12
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his Labor Day, President Obama has the opportunity to defend the economic rights of millions of Americans by supporting a substantial increase in the minimum wage.
Presently $7.25 per hour, the federal minimum wage is inadequate. The purchasing power of a worker earning minimum wage in 1968 is equal to $10-11 today. That means, at $7.25 an hour, workers today have less wage power than workers in 1968.
Consider that an individual working full-time and taking no vacation or sick time will earn only $1,160 per month. Housing costs alone in a neighborhood in my hometown of Cleveland can easily approach most of the income of a full-time employee earning minimum wage. What about food? What about transportation? What about health care? What about providing for children?
The minimum wage is not a living wage. Taxpayers, through financing a range of social programs, end up subsidizing corporations who do not pay a living wage. Every worker should be paid enough to meet the essential needs of his or her family. Economically secure families make stronger communities which in turn strengthens our nation. This Labor Day let's show that our nation values families by increasing the minimum wage to $10 an hour.
We know that some corporations won't like it. If corporations don't place value on the dignity, happiness or well-being of the American workers, then government must step in to protect workers' economic well-being. Workers are more than a line item in a corporate budget. The United States of America must be more than a profit-seeking machine. I am not suggesting a government handout, but a hand-up, enabling workers to climb out of a fiscal ditch.
The wealth in this nation has been accelerating upwards, leaving behind too many people who helped build America. The wealth that is produced by working Americans must be accessible to working Americans through an increase in the minimum wage. The Federal Reserve is incapable of stirring the economy, which is another reason to act. With unemployment at least 8.3%, an increase in the minimum wage will stimulate the overall economy.
Labor Day 2012. There can be no better way to honor the American worker then to support an increase in the minimum wage, to a living wage of at least $10 per hour. Workers deserve a raise. America deserves a raise. The President can show his recognition of workers by supporting H.R. 5901, Catching Up To 1968 Act of 2012, which would increase the minimum wage to $10 per hour. That would be one Happy Labor Day.
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Granted, best would be to go after the war criminals but it is WE who would have to make that happen.
can "zombie" any man.
Remember the 1962 film
"The Manchurian Candidate." ?
Either that, or you're disappointed that it did not cover every jot and tittle involved in the Israeli nuclear arsenal and that country's constant agitation to bring U.S. and international pressure on Iran, aimed at regime change.
This is a terrific article and neither spares Israel nor fails to put the Iranian nuclear program in perspective.
Those bogus documents, along with "Curveball's" fabrications, were a lynchpin of Cheney's strategy to gather support for the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. The U.S. media, led by pernicious sycophants such as Judith Miller and Michael Gordon at the NY Times, gobbled it up, though any well-informed schoolchild could have told them it was complete bullshit. Of the major media, only Knight-Ridder resisted.
I must confess that I had not read that Manning's documents exposed what was in effect a U.S. takeover of the IAEA for propaganda purposes through its stooge, Amano. I had noticed at the time that with his appointment, it became completely ineffectual.
That still doesn't make it any less hypocritical for the modern State of Israel to tell other countries they can't have nuclear weapons when it is well-armed with the same.
The "upside down morality" extends itself to sectors other than the military. However,as we have seen in this debacle against Pvt. Manning, no one in the other sectors that have turned many Americans live irreversibly upside down forever, will ever be prosecuted, despite of reams of evidence against them.
Appalling to think we live in such an immoral century and in a country that is lead by a man whose "infamous dictum only wants to look "forward not backward.""
Finally, many thanks for your insights and straight shooting as an intrepid and incorruptible journalist.
Something huge--something beyond human comprehension-- needs to happen to turn it all around. Hope karma works on a grand scale.
Thank heavens for Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and all the other genuine patriots who have and still are blowing the most beautiful whistles on the monstrous "patriot act" bull poopy of official washington, d. c. and its wall street manipulators.
How can the "Family of Nations" ever trust the US again. One day we may need real help from allies who no longer exist.
Which Leadership skills to admire?
What Poison to assimilate, and make sense of
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Dear Commanders of Our Armed Forces,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen Martin E. Dempsey.
Major General Jeffery S. Buchanan Convening Authority for Bradley Manning's Court Martial,
The Commander In Chief of our National Defense Forces, President Barack Hussein Obama II, your CIC, has openly stated during Bradley Manning's confinement for trial that he is Guilty.
UCMJ ART. 37. Unlawfully Influencing Action Of Court
Talking to you General Class Commanders these days is a Top Secret America JSOC death sentence for our children too. Been hit hit hit, defenseless and wretchedly sick of it for years thus I've nothing to lose to begin with in our present unlawful state. I am though ruled by principle so in speaking out to you here on this direly urgent matter I am for my part carrying out what I consider my Duty as a Veteran and a natural citizen soldier of our true Constitutional National Defense Force, We the People. What we have here as this Bradley Manning Trial is outrageous, what you do here will define you. Better look in the mirror...
Bobby Baxter HCVeteran & Marihuana Felon
United States Army Security Agency 69-72
Founder Alternative Energy Systems SV.74
~~~*~~~
facebookcom/BobbyBaxterHCVeteranMarihuanaFelon/posts/10151613608857901
But shouldn't we talk about the war crimes? You know, the violent illegal acts that DID destroy thousands of lives? That is the debate we should be having right now.