Truth be told, i was clueless about Zionism before the start of the 2008 presidential campaign. Judging from a lot of the reaction i have recieved from my internet ravings there are not many people who fell down the same rabbit hole as me.
I dont know if i have ever written about it here at WUFYS, but it was Obama's long time pastor, and the attendant media outrage over his statements condemning Zionism that opened my eyes to the topic.
Specifically, MSNBC's own Joe Scarborough absolutely in a lather, calling Wright a racist and anti-semite for his condemnation of apartheid Israel and Zionism at large.
Well jeez, everyone wants a place to live right? None of it made any sense...how could Wright be construed as a racist for his condemnation of what i vaguely understood to be some sort of political ideology?
Well, i do not share the incuriousity programmed in to so many of my fellow citizens, and felt compelled to look into it myself And i learned...
I learned everything...EVERYFUCKINGTHING..
PNAC, Strauss, Irgun, the second seige of Hapsburg, WWI, WWII, pogroms, Hitler, false flag terror, the Fed, IMF, NAACP, Cato, CFR, DLC, AEI, LGF, AshkiNAZI's, Switzerland, the caucus regions politics, perception management, Hegel, Machiavelli, the DNC and RNC, Zionist occupation, propaganda, trolls, lashon hara, the Talmud vs Torah, Orthodox Catholicism, Jewish racism...etc etc etc...
All this i learned while looking into why the MSM was trying to use the good Reverend Jerimiah Wright to take down the Obama campaign.
This is not the be-all and end-all of why i support Obama, but the points are relevant to a topic frequently addressed here at WUFYS. Maybe i will expand on this topic in another post, but for now, let me just say...
My ballot has been cast for Barack H. Obama for the next president of the United States of America.

"it is better for Israel to have a liberal supporter in the White House than to have a conservative supporter in the oval office. Obama's views on Israel will have greater impact on young people, on Europe, on the media and on others who tend to identify with the liberal perspective. Although I believe that centrists liberals in general tend to support Israel, I acknowledge that support from the left seems to be weakening as support from the right strengthens. The election of Barack Obama -- a liberal supporter of Israel -- will enhance Israel's position among wavering liberals."
I'm curious. Do you refuse to capitalize the pronoun "i" because of Capitis Diminutio Maxima? Or is it just a texting thing?
No, I am not worried 'bout you but what happened to the first post with Sullivan's comments, just curious?
...when you don't like the comments? It's nothing less than censorship and cowardice.
If you have paid any attention to posts from QRSWave on WUFYS over the past year, you would know that deleting a blog entry that already has comments is seriously frowned upon.
Anyway, what's wrong? Do you have a problem with free speech, or are you just afraid someone will ruin your Obama love-in?
(as confirmed by the logs) shootingsparks deleted it. As you are always asked to confirm such actions, no doubt it was deliberate.
...from McCain and Obama. They're both owned by the Israeli lobby. Obama is just the controlled opposition. Dershowitz wouldn't come out for him unless he KNEW that Obama was owned.
feel free to re-state how HRC supporter Dershowitz's self serving, late to the party endorsement of Obama is somehow germain and relevant..
That was the gist of your comment, silly as it was...and it was NOT the reason i deleted and re-submitted my column.
...then I can't help you. I'm not going to point out the patently obvious to you. Lets just say he is a major Zionist player and he is offering strong last-minute support. Figure the rest out for yourself.
By the way, WUFYS is not an Obama cheerleaders club. If you think it is, then perhaps DailyKos might be more a more suitable place to express your fandom.
You have still to explain why you deleted the other blog post.
C'mon sparky - Sullivan didn't just fall off the turnip truck.
There is no reason to delete and resubmit a blog entry when you have total control over the main content with the EDIT function.
Or maybe you think we're stupid?

I'd like an answer too.
what difference does it make?
mayhaps i had some nefarious intent?
Hows about this, i did it because i felt like it..
lots of attack directed at me personally, not a jot or tittle of commentary about the content of my post itself.
curious indeed
sparky:
This site is unique in that there is no censoring of posts or comments, no matter how disagreeable they might be. Other than for visual obscenity, I can't remember a comment being deleted.
When you take it on yourself to erase a comment, especially from someone as valuable to this blog as Sullivan, then it's a sign that you probably don't appreciate this place for what it is.
I've been on the net since it was DEC net, and places like this, where real free speech is cherished, are indeed a rare treasure that is to be protected.
feel free to re-state how HRC supporter Dershowitz's self serving, late to the party endorsement of Obama is somehow germain and relevant..
Because there are influential fence-sitting Jews that listen to Dirtbagowitz. If he endorses Obummer, then they will too.
Vote for the lesser of the two evils eh? Nice strategy, it has worked out so well in the past.
George Bush | 10.22.08 - 2:33 pm | #
Nesta | 10.22.08 - 2:36 pm | #
Nesta | 10.22.08 - 2:38 pm | #
Anonymous | 10.22.08 - 2:59 pm | #
Non-American
Anonymous | 10.22.08 - 3:27 pm | #
He always hearkens back to the FDR era when Roosevelt rescued the country from a very much feared revolution by temporarily assuming banking functions, providing make work projects, passing the Worker's Compensation, Social Security, and other similar legislation to quiet the rampant discontent that threatened the capitalist ruling elite. The latter were still shaking in their boots from the Russian revolution that occurred only 15 years earlier, and was at that time making rapid progress with no unemployment.
Ron | 10.22.08 - 3:59 pm | #
> "When push comes to shove, the one I want in the White House after this coming Nov. 4th is the one least likely to nuke anyone.
I'm happy to be with you, Zinn and Chomsky and many others here, a part of the "fast-exploding ranks of the reality-based community."
Vote for a pet rock over McInsane. Listen to your Uncles Howard and Noam. Ignore the FUD spreaders.
With the help our various divinities it may soon be January 21st 2009, and a new day. Or as close to November 3rd 2000 as we are going to get. Perfect? HA! That would be a fine thing.
Ex Pat | 10.22.08 - 4:08 pm | #
bases the US has in more 140 countries?
If, your answer is no, then Obama does not deserve votes.
Njoy
Njoy | 10.22.08 - 4:22 pm | #
"Even though Obama does not represent any fundamental change, he creates an opening for a possibility of change." LIES!
" Obama will not fulfill that potential for change, unless he is enveloped by a social movement, which is angry enough, powerful enough, insistent enough, that he fills his abstract phrases about change with some content." MORE LIES!
Obama is an elite PsyOp: a brainwashing tool!
We need to vote out ALL democrats and ALL republicans...but most importantly of all we need to destroy the influence that Zionist Jews have in America!
Vote Nader '08
Dick Stallion | 10.22.08 - 4:29 pm | #
Suppose when someone received an eviction notice that person made a call to ___________. That organization would contact the homeless and advise them that this property is availible for tents to be set up.
These tent people would be the first responders to bring about a massive demonstration at that location when authorities arrive.
If this civil disobedience was isolated it probably would be ineffective.
On a national scale it would be a powerful message of our dissatisfaction and would possibly get media coverage.
An existing organization could best carry out this movement.
THINK ABOUT IT.
zaz | 10.22.08 - 4:55 pm | #
Other problems, such as peace(get rid of the military),food, oil, etc. can wait till he gets elected.
Not to vote or vote for some 3rd party candidate, is a wrong idea.
I have looked at all 3rd party ideas,
almost all have been enacted, over time.
This is a time to invoke desperate measures.
jeanX | 10.22.08 - 4:57 pm | #
Red Star | 10.22.08 - 5:00 pm | #
http://www.wsws.org/articles/200.../bidn- o22.shtml
Ron | 10.22.08 - 5:42 pm | #
Either way, America is finished as the next President will find his hands are tied.
Foreign banks will buy up American corporations and property leaving ordinary citizens with very little.
The Zionists will bring down the world and the affects will be catastrophic and devastating.
Count on it.
Life as we know it will alter/change DRAMATICALLY. Believe it.
anonymous | 10.22.08 - 5:57 pm | #
Where were you Zinn when we asked for a real investigation of 9/11? Where were you Zinn when Democrats deluged Nader and Camejo with persecutorial lawsuits during and after the 2004 election? Why aren't you defending Cindy Sheehan now or even mentioning her brave run against Pelosi? Where were you when Pelosi and Conyers worked to keep impeachment "off the table"? Writing a squib on the backcover of some ambitious idealist's book?
Public intellectuals that deserve to be honored have a greater duty to the truth than to their own hides. I agree with Eric Larson who calls you a tea cosy and a seller of snake-oil.
You, like others who doubtless receive many honors from the most benighted of the politically correct will doubtless receive your share of silver feigning not to hear the crowing of the cock. If you are ever to regain any of my respect, please drop it in a beggar's cup.
(Thanks Ron for the article at WSWS.)
Robert B. Livingston | Homepage | 10.22.08 - 7:01 pm | #
Anonymous | 10.22.08 - 7:07 pm | #
TBR New – October 20, 2008
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/...cle.asp? ID=9556
Date: Wednesday, February 12, 1997
Commenced: 11:15 AM CST
Concluded: 11:45 AM CST
RTC: That has to be you, Gregory. Such timing. Corson was speaking with me a few minutes ago about you. Are your ears still ringing?
GD: No.
RTC: Ah, you are so popular. Bill was warning me that we had both best cut you loose because the wrath of God might descend. Bill has a paper asshole.
GD: Who is it this time? The Pope?
RTC: No the Kimmel people. He regularly turns his Justice people loose on both of us. I think they need a new record. The current one gets stuck. Is it true you killed Abraham Lincoln, Gregory? I mean it’s pretty well set that you are the illegitimate son of Adolf Hitler, or is it Josef Stalin? I can’t seem to remember, its all so mixed up. Anyway, you are pure evil and have to be kept away from. And do let’s keep the Pope out of this. I had enough trouble with that one.
GD: Which Pope?
RTC: John Paul I. We also went after John Paul II but that one didn’t work and we didn’t want to try it again.
GD: Why, in God’s name, did you want to kill the Pope? And out of curiosity, how did you pull it off?
RFC: The first one was going to put a terrible crimp in our drug business out of Italy and we tried to do the second one to blame the Russians. It was a sort of a game with us. Always try to do a bad bit and make it look like the Russians did it.
GD: The drug business? What did the Pope have to do with drugs?
RTC: He didn’t. It was the bank there that did. He had nothing to do with it but it was the Vatican bank.
GD: The Vatican bank was involved with drugs?
RTC: No, we used it to launder money. Who, I ask you, who would ever question the Vatican bank? It was the Mafia who had the inside bank contacts and believe me, there was a lot of money moving around. Let’s see, the Pope was elected in, I think, August of ’79. He replaced Montini. Former Vatican Secretary of State….he was Paul VI. Anyway, we had a fine working arrangement with the Italian Mafia about the movement of money as I said.
GD: I met Montini once, I think in ’51.
RTC: The new one had been in Venice….Luciani….
GD: There was another one from Venice….
RTC: I know but not the same one. That was back in the ‘60s. But the new Pope posed quite a problem. He had been told that there were certain irregularities in the IOR…that’s the Vatican bank. And the new Pope was inclined to be honest and was demanding a full review of the books and so on. If this had happened, a good deal would have been uncovered so the Pope had to go. It was that simple, Gregory. Politics had nothing to do with it, nothing at all.
GD: Couldn’t someone have cooked the books? Was murder necessary?
RTC: You don’t understand the whole picture, Gregory. The Mafia was involved in this up to their eyebrows and if any of it had come out, someone would have talked and pointed to us. We couldn’t have that. We had to get rid of Dag Hammarskjold because he was interfering with the uranium people in the Congo. It was nothing personal at all.
GD: How did you do it?
RTC: Our Station Chief in Rome ran the show. Contacts in the Vatican and especially with Buzonetti, the Pope’s doctor. My God, old Renata cost us plenty. On our payroll since God knows when. And our Political Psychological Division worked on this to put the blame on the KGB. And the P-2 Lodge was also involved and they were ours.
GD: The what?
USA will be Socialist | Homepage | 10.22.08 - 7:34 pm | #
GD: Does the Vatican know now?
RTC: Suspects but would rather not know anything. After the Pope assumed room temperature, we consolidated and revamped the system. There was quite a bit of mopping-up to do. We had to kill off a number of Italian players who had been pushed out of the picture and were longing to get back into the money. One hanged himself from a bridge in England. Obviously killed himself out of remorse.
GD: Stalin said once that it was not difficult to execute a murder but much more difficult to arrange a suicide.
RTC: Josef was a clever man.
GD: And, he said, No man, no problem.
RTC: That one I know. A friend and co-worker had that up over his desk. I am not joking.
GD: Oh, I believe it, Robert. It is lawful to be taught by your enemies.
RTC: I detect a critical attitude here, Gregory. You have to realize that the amount of money we were, and are, making from our drug partnerships is nothing to walk away from. Vast sums of money, Gregory, and enormous political power therefrom.
GD: I can see that but one day they will go too far.
RTC: The Kennedy business is a classic example why nothing will ever come of this sort of thing. If you publish the ZIPPER material you already have and what I am going to give you, you will only excite the conspiracy buffs, all of whom will gather together and hiss at you and heap coals of fire on your head. Let us say that you write a newspaper article on what I just told you. It would never get published and within minutes of your submitting it to an editor, we would be notified.
GD: And then you’d shoot me?
RTC: No, trash you. Laugh at you. Get our little broken down academics to piss on you. The press would ignore you completely and eventually, you would find something else to do. Now, on the other hand, if you had been one of us and had inside knowledge and worse, proof, you would perish very quickly. The faulty brakes while driving on dangerous mountain roads, an overdose of some kind of popular drug and dead in an overheated apartment. Things like that. But as an outsider, just laughter and silence. Of course, there are those who would believe you and if you wrote about this business with the Pope and mentioned some Italian names, you might get different treatment. The bomb under the front seat of your car or something crude like that. But we wouldn’t have done it and I would recommend against stirring those people up. We would look into your tax records and turn the IRS loose on you or let your wife know you were boffing a nice waitress at a cheap local motel. Or one of your nice children would be introduced to dangerous drugs. That’s more effective than a bomb in the car or someone shooting you dead in a parking garage. The Italians tend to be very emotional and we do not.
GD: The Italians once said that he who went softly went safely and he who went safely went far.
RTC: It would be less messy if they actually practiced that sentiment.
GD: By the way, Robert, why did you go after the other Pope? I assume that’s the one that got shot by the Arab in front of the Vatican.
RTC: Yes, but not an Arab, a Turk. They do not like to be equated with Arabs. That one? Actually, we thought that if we had him done in right in front of everybody, it would draw a lot of attention and we could really blame it on the KGB. It was a perfect set up. He was a Polack who was agitating the Solidarity people against Russia so who would be the most logical suspect? And we had been financing the Turkish Grey Wolves for some time. They got the hit man for us. Of course he didn’t know anything so no one shot him in the courtroom.
GD: Que bono! But for no other reason?
RTC: Isn’t that enough? Turn all the world’s Catholics against the Russians in a hurry.
GD: Let’s see here. One Pope for sure, another shot at, a dead UN chief, a dead American president, assorted deceased South American leaders, a Pakistani or two, at least one high level Indian and so on. I would hope not all for such trivial motives.
RTC: Turning huge number of people against Russia is not a trivial motive at all.
GD: The wheel does turn, Robert, it does. And what is now at the bottom comes to the top. Out of curiosity, have you killed any Israelis?
RTC: No, they know just how far to go and we work very closely with them. They do a lot of our dirty work for us. They blew up the Marine barracks in Lebanon and of course we blamed it on the Arabs. It goes on, Gregory, and if you had sat in my chair and walked in my shoes, you would be a bit more understanding.
- ARCHIVE
USA will be Socialist | Homepage | 10.22.08 - 7:34 pm | #
GD: Does the Vatican know now?
RTC: Suspects but would rather not know anything. After the Pope assumed room temperature, we consolidated and revamped the system. There was quite a bit of mopping-up to do. We had to kill off a number of Italian players who had been pushed out of the picture and were longing to get back into the money. One hanged himself from a bridge in England. Obviously killed himself out of remorse.
GD: Stalin said once that it was not difficult to execute a murder but much more difficult to arrange a suicide.
RTC: Josef was a clever man.
GD: And, he said, No man, no problem.
RTC: That one I know. A friend and co-worker had that up over his desk. I am not joking.
GD: Oh, I believe it, Robert. It is lawful to be taught by your enemies.
RTC: I detect a critical attitude here, Gregory. You have to realize that the amount of money we were, and are, making from our drug partnerships is nothing to walk away from. Vast sums of money, Gregory, and enormous political power therefrom.
GD: I can see that but one day they will go too far.
RTC: The Kennedy business is a classic example why nothing will ever come of this sort of thing. If you publish the ZIPPER material you already have and what I am going to give you, you will only excite the conspiracy buffs, all of whom will gather together and hiss at you and heap coals of fire on your head. Let us say that you write a newspaper article on what I just told you. It would never get published and within minutes of your submitting it to an editor, we would be notified.
GD: And then you’d shoot me?
RTC: No, trash you. Laugh at you. Get our little broken down academics to piss on you. The press would ignore you completely and eventually, you would find something else to do. Now, on the other hand, if you had been one of us and had inside knowledge and worse, proof, you would perish very quickly. The faulty brakes while driving on dangerous mountain roads, an overdose of some kind of popular drug and dead in an overheated apartment. Things like that. But as an outsider, just laughter and silence. Of course, there are those who would believe you and if you wrote about this business with the Pope and mentioned some Italian names, you might get different treatment. The bomb under the front seat of your car or something crude like that. But we wouldn’t have done it and I would recommend against stirring those people up. We would look into your tax records and turn the IRS loose on you or let your wife know you were boffing a nice waitress at a cheap local motel. Or one of your nice children would be introduced to dangerous drugs. That’s more effective than a bomb in the car or someone shooting you dead in a parking garage. The Italians tend to be very emotional and we do not.
GD: The Italians once said that he who went softly went safely and he who went safely went far.
RTC: It would be less messy if they actually practiced that sentiment.
GD: By the way, Robert, why did you go after the other Pope? I assume that’s the one that got shot by the Arab in front of the Vatican.
RTC: Yes, but not an Arab, a Turk. They do not like to be equated with Arabs. That one? Actually, we thought that if we had him done in right in front of everybody, it would draw a lot of attention and we could really blame it on the KGB. It was a perfect set up. He was a Polack who was agitating the Solidarity people against Russia so who would be the most logical suspect? And we had been financing the Turkish Grey Wolves for some time. They got the hit man for us. Of course he didn’t know anything so no one shot him in the courtroom.
GD: Que bono! But for no other reason?
RTC: Isn’t that enough? Turn all the world’s Catholics against the Russians in a hurry.
GD: Let’s see here. One Pope for sure, another shot at, a dead UN chief, a dead American president, assorted deceased South American leaders, a Pakistani or two, at least one high level Indian and so on. I would hope not all for such trivial motives.
RTC: Turning huge number of people against Russia is not a trivial motive at all.
GD: The wheel does turn, Robert, it does. And what is now at the bottom comes to the top. Out of curiosity, have you killed any Israelis?
RTC: No, they know just how far to go and we work very closely with them. They do a lot of our dirty work for us. They blew up the Marine barracks in Lebanon and of course we blamed it on the Arabs. It goes on, Gregory, and if you had sat in my chair and walked in my shoes, you would be a bit more understanding.
- ARCHIVE
USA will be Socialist | Homepage | 10.22.08 - 7:34 pm | #
RTC: If it were, I wouldn’t be defending you to the monkeys when they jabber about you. They aren’t worth much. I think your problem is that you never were in a position of command and at a high level. If you had been, you would be less judgmental.
GD: I am just an amateur, Robert, just a dilettante. Thank God.
(Concluded at 11:45 CST)
www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a2885.htm#005
Printer friendly version Email this article to a friend
Last updated 22/10/2008
Homepage
Essential Reading for Newer Readers
The Illuminati Chronicles Part 1 A historical countdown to the New World Order More ...
Coming Clean Chemtrails are not the product of some 'Conspiracy Theory'. They are real. We get the low down from an aircraft mechanic who has done his own investigating More ...
Electronically Hijacking the WTC Attack Aircraft Joe Vialls examines what REALLY caused the 9/11 aircraft to fly into the World Trade Center More ...
Have You Read the Talmud Lately? The Talmud expounds some of the most virulent racism, as these extracts plainly show. However, as a reader points out not all Jews are influenced by it, or even read it. Only the ultra religious study it, the rest haven't a clue. We leave you to decide More ...
The Essene Gospel of Peace III The concluding part of what many think are the authentic words of Christ More ...
Back to the Future!!! Part 1 Geological evidence points to an cataclysmic event that almost defies comprehension. The problem is that it may just happen again ... and soon too. More ...
The Essene Gospel of Peace I Based on texts found in the Vatican library and the Royal Library of the Hapsburg’s and dated to the first century AD, the following is considered by some to be the real words of Christ More ...
Horrifying US Secret Weaponry Unleashed in Baghdad DU was bad enough, but reports filtering out of Baghdad suggest US forces used a new type of weapon to capture the city. This is the real story behind the fall of Baghdad and it truly is the stuff of nightmares More ...
Affidavit of Richard Tomlinson "I firmly believe that there exist documents held by the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) that would yield important new evidence into the cause and circumstances leading to the death of the Princess of Wales." More ...
Back to the Future!!! Part 2 Given Einstein’s endorsement of Hapgood’s ideas it is reasonable to ask whether his hypothesis could actually happen again and if so when More ...
The Man Who Would Be King . Some say that Prince Michael of Albany has a more legitimate claim to the throne of England than the Windsors. Are they right? And why are the Windsors and the mainstream media delberately ignoring him? More ...
Was Timothy McVeigh Really Executed? Despite what the mainstream media may say, there are indications aplenty that Timothy McVeigh was NOT executed More ...
Click here: More essential reading for newer readers
USA will be Socialist | Homepage | 10.22.08 - 7:35 pm | #
Of course don't tell Obama about Zinn/Chomsky's plan. If he finds out that he is going to be used by progressives as an instrument for change he may withdraw his candidacy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Gregory | 10.22.08 - 7:52 pm | #
Enjoy!
Jim | 10.22.08 - 8:09 pm | #
August 22, 2003 | Page 7
http://socialistworker.org/2003- ...Socialist.shtml
WHY DO we live in a world of such obscene inequalities and terrible violence?
A world where 1.2 billion people survive on less than $1 a day. A world where the most powerful country on earth uses horrific weapons of mass destruction in a war for oil and empire. A world where the fat cats live the high life, while working people live in fear that they'll be standing in the unemployment line--or worse.
There is an alternative. The socialist alternative is based on the power of working people to fight together for a better world--and create a society based not on profit but on making a better life for everyone in it. In this special section, we print excerpts from ALAN MAASS' Why You Should Be a Socialist, soon to be republished by Haymarket Books in a new and expanded edition.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE UNITED States is the land of freedom, prosperity and opportunity, we're told. And for some people--a very small number of people with a lot of wealth and power--it's all that and more.
People like Larry Ellison. Ellison is the super-rich CEO of the giant software corporation Oracle. He co-founded the company as a small consulting firm, and it grew from there--not because of any special computer skills that he possessed, but because he latched onto an idea for business software developed by other people, and started selling it before anyone else.
In other words, not because of his superior intelligence or hard work, but old-fashioned good luck. Luck made Larry Ellison a millionaire, then a billionaire, then a multibillionaire. Today, there is no luxury that he can't afford, no interest that he can't pursue, no door closed to him.
He owns a yacht, of course--one that's nearly as long as a football field. There's the private plane and a fleet of fancy cars. But topping all of it is Ellison's new villa, under construction for the last several years in the town of Woodside, Calif., south of San Francisco--which claims on its Web site to be "one of the U.S.'s most exclusive communities, where homes sell for $3 million and up...about as an ideal location as can be found anywhere on the planet."
Ellison's "home" will cost more than $100 million. The enormous main building, five guest houses and assorted other structures--including three garages for Ellison's 14 cars--are designed to look like a 16th century Japanese village. The grounds will be covered with a literal forest of Japanese trees, interspersed with ponds and streams, hills and a 2.7-acre lake, fed by two waterfalls. The lake will be filled with purified drinking water.
Luxury on this scale is hard to grasp--like the stories about France's Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, or the pharaohs of ancient Egypt. But what is even more incredible is the fact that all this is small potatoes for Larry Ellison.
As the sixth-richest person in the world, by Forbes magazine's latest estimate, he's worth $16.6 billion. That means he could afford to build 99 more palatial estates, each with a price tag of $100 million, and still remain a billionaire several times over.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
WILLIAM BLAINE lives across the country from Ellison, in Durham, N.C. But to judge from what passes for prosperity or opportunity in his life, he might as well live on another planet.
After three decades of working as a computer engineer, by the end of the 1990s, Blaine had a good-paying job with the telecommunications company Nortel, as the industry boomed. He hoped that the position would ensure a decent retirement in another 10 or 15 years' time--nothing like Larry Ellison's, but at least comfortable.
Then the telecom boom went bust--and Blaine got the ax during one of the many rounds of layoffs at Nortel. He's looked for work ever since--but there are thousands of unemployed technical workers for every job that opens up.
He's had to raid his retirement savings to make ends meet. He also works part time in a marine store--where his boss last summer was his son. "You feel like someone has pulled the plug on you," Blaine told a reporter.
He's not alone. Between the start of 2001 and the middle of 2003, the U.S. economy lost 3.2 million private-sector jobs--and the number of people classified as long-term unemployed rose to the highest level in 20 years.
Pat Zanon is literally not sure how she'll make it. The divorced mother of three was laid off in the spring of 2002 after 24 years with Qwest, another telecommunications industry player. "Talk about a kick in the gut," she told a reporter late last year. "It was going to be a bleak Christmas anyway, because with unemployment, you don't get that much. But now it's really going to be bleak."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THESE TWO different worlds--rich and poor, powerful and powerless--have always existed in the U.S. But the gap between them has grown massively.
As of 2000, the richest 0.01 percent of U.S. households--just 13,000 families--had a combined annual income nearly as big as the poorest 20 million households. The richest 1 percent of families "earned" about as much as the bottom 40 percent. And that's income. When it comes to wealth--the things that people own--the richest 2 percent of the population have a combined net worth equal to the other 98 percent of the population.
Just how vast is the difference between the super-rich and the rest of us? Think of it this way: Imagine we had a full year's wages for the average U.S. manufacturing worker--$32,181 in 2002, according to the Labor Department--in stacks of $20 bills. If we laid all the bills end to end, they would stretch 831 feet. That's a little more than one-eighth of a mile--about one city block or half a lap around a football field.
Now take Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Poor fellow lost upwards of $60 billion since the 1990s stock market bubble burst, but he's still worth $40.7 billion, according to Forbes magazine. If we had Gates' fortune in $20 bills, laid end to end, they would stretch for 199,132 miles. That's about 800,000 laps around a football field--or back and forth between New York City and Los Angeles 81 times. Actually, it's about eight laps around the full circumference of the earth--or nearly the distance from the earth to the moon.
Two worlds. Larry Ellison lives in one, a world of privilege and power where he's able to indulge any whim. William Blaine and Pat Zanon--like the vast majority of people in the U.S.--belong to a different world.
It's a world of poverty and despair for many people--whether they're suffering through tough times after being laid off, or they were born into tough times and never had a real shot at anything else. Even for those who have a job and can keep their heads above water, it's a struggle from day to day to make ends meet.
Look beyond the borders of the U.S., and this tale of two worlds is even more extreme. Some 1.2 billion people around the world survive on less than $1 a day--and almost one-half of the global population lives on $2 a day or less, according to the latest Human Development Report produced by the World Bank. Meanwhile, the total wealth of the three richest families in the world is equal to the combined economic output of the world's 48 least developed countries.
USA will be Socialist | Homepage | 10.22.08 - 8:22 pm | #
I well understand how folks limited by 6:00 news perspectives, can support both parties. What confounds me is how ICH readers can still come out in support of anything sponsored by the two major parties. It really is quite dumbfounding.
FOJ | 10.22.08 - 8:43 pm | #
sidney falco | 10.23.08 - 1:42 am | #
Hows about this, i did it because i felt like it..
Drupal 6 will be installed at WUFYS soon, and that will put an end to the cowards way out... deleting blogs.
If I recall correctly, the criticism was directed at Obama's candidacy and your Obama fanboyism, and not at you personally. If you can't take the heat, the kitchen is not the place for you.