Corporate media forced to charged dwindling readership for news content as establishment propaganda organs wither and die while alternative media soars
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Thursday, May 7, 2009
Billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch gave a strange response when asked about plans for mainstream news websites to charge for content, declaring, “The current days of the internet will soon be over.”
He was making reference to the fact that corporate media websites cannot continue to survive under their current failing business model.
The establishment media is dying and advertising revenue has plummeted as people turn to blogs and the alternative media for their news in an environment of corporate lies and spin.
This has forced sectors of the corporate media to charge the dwindling number of loyal readers they have left for news content, a practice which is set to become widespread according to Murdoch. This will only send more people over to the alternative media as the old organs of de facto state-controlled propaganda wither and die.
“Asked whether he envisaged fees at his British papers such as the Times, the Sunday Times, the Sun and the News of the World, (Murdoch) replied: “We’re absolutely looking at that,” reports the Guardian. “Taking questions on a conference call with reporters and analysts, he said that moves could begin “within the next 12 months‚” adding: “The current days of the internet will soon be over.”
Murdoch’s newspapers and TV networks, which include Fox News and the Asian Star Network, have seen profits plummet from $216m to just $7m year-on-year. MySpace.com is also floundering despite a recent move to replace the company’s entire management staff.
It was all but over for the Boston Globe this week, following a threat to close the 137-year-old publication after net losses of $85 million this year alone. Only a last minute cost-cutting agreement on behalf of its owner, The New York Times Company, and The Boston Newspaper Guild, saved the newspaper.
This is why You Tube is being forced to pursue lucrative partnerships with giant production studios and broadcasters, at the expense of user generated content which has been relegated to a sub-section of its website, taking the “You” out of You Tube altogether. Content that may be deemed harmful to You Tube’s corporate agenda and its multi-million dollar partnership deals, like The Alex Jones Channel, is being systematically erased from You Tube’s website under the pretext of flimsy copyright infringement claims.
The jig is up for the corporate media. If they continue to allow free access to their content they will go out of business because there’s not enough advertising revenue coming in, whereas if they charge for content they will lose a huge chunk of their audience and their influence in shaping the news agenda will wane completely.
This is the price the corporate media has paid for lying, spinning and obfuscating on behalf of the virulently corrupt power elite and expecting the population to eat it up without question.
The corporate media monopoly has terminal cancer and they are losing their power, which is why they are aggressively supporting moves to phase out the old Internet altogether and replace it with “Internet 2,” a highly regulated and controlled electronic Berlin wall, where alternative voices will be silenced and giant corporate propaganda organs will dominate once again.
This what Murdoch is really getting at when he assures us that, “The Internet will soon be over” and it’s down to us to stop that agenda from being realized.
Saturday we spent canvassing Croton-on-Hudson neighborhoods.
Today I spent the day in Pittston, PA--near Wilkes-Barre--hanging door flyers for Obama/Biden. Nestled in the Susquehana River valley, the neighborhood was beautiful...colorful trees and Halloween decorations still about. Only two minor negatives...one woman outright refused the flyer. Her prerogative. Another group at one house surrounded on both sides by Democratic yard signs yelled "Obama" in my direction several times as I went about my task. When offered a flyer they declined. Down the street an elderly woman asked which flyer I was handing out. She was relieved it was for Obama. She said that her yard sign was recently stolen.
Fire is Born reposting for my friend Giacomo:
"Please watch and share our support video at http://www.youtube.com/watc...
...work on, we can
Guido Giacomo Gattai"
There's hardly any place in Europe that is not for Barack. The Europeans were here with us during the primaries. It is very American to be proud to be American and we will be again. Germany, and Poland, and Italy will love us again, as they did after the war. Now we Americans need to do our job: make the right choice and vote.
Obama/Biden '08
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/wellfolks
I am doing my job for this campaign.
Moderators, you do yours! Do not pretend you cannot see this jerk is not a hater.
BELOW YOU FIND ALL THE INFO YOU NEED!
The post below dated March 3, 2008, in which Mark Andreessen describes the Senator as he met him “earlier last year” means in 2007, falls in the same category: And Barack Obama emerges today, six days to the Election Day, as the same guy he was in the primaries. Simply “the same”. I like what I have seen this last month, just as I liked what I saw then. So I re-post this commentary by Mark Andreessen I have found this morning on Don Pasquale's blog. In essence:
“What's the picture that emerges from these four impressions?
Smart, normal, curious, not radical, and post-Boomer.
If you were asking me to write a capsule description of what I would look for in the next President of the United States, that would be it.”
I subscribe to this wholeheartedly, as I have become an American in the American West of the 70's and loved it from the day one of an Oregonian summer and see myself as a child of the seventies, when I was watching the last glimpses of the American Dream. fib
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Marc Andreessen
An hour and a half with Barack Obama
* Mar 3, 2008
I've tried very hard to keep politics out of this blog -- despite nearly overpowering impulses to the contrary -- for two reasons: one, there's no reason to alienate people who don't share my political views, as wrong-headed as those people may clearly be; two, there's no reason to expect my opinion on political issues should be any more valid than any other reader of what, these days, passes for the New York Times.
That said, in light of the extraordinary events playing out around us right now in the runup to the presidential election, I would like to share with you a personal experience that I was lucky enough to have early last year.
Early in 2007, a friend of mine who is active in both high-tech and politics called me up and said, let's go see this first-term Senator, Barack Obama, who's ramping up to run for President.
And so we did -- my friend, my wife Laura, and me -- and we were able to meet privately with Senator Obama for an hour and a half.
The reason I think you may find this interesting is that our meeting in early 2007 was probably one of the last times Senator Obama was able to spend an hour and a half sitting down and talking with just about anyone -- so I think we got a solid look at what he's like up close, right before he entered the "bubble" within which all major presidential candidates, and presidents, must exist.
Let me get disclaimers out of the way: my only involvement with the Democratic presidential campaigns is as an individual donor -- after meeting with the Senator, my wife and I both contributed the maximum amount of "hard money" we could to the Obama campaign, less than $10,000 total for both the primary and the general election. On the other hand, we also donated to Mitt Romney's Republican primary effort -- conclude from that what you will.
I carried four distinct impressions away from our meeting with Senator Obama.
First, this is a normal guy.
I've spent time with a lot of politicians in the last 15 years. Most of them talk at you. Listening is not their strong suit -- in fact, many of them aren't even very good at faking it.
Senator Obama, in contrast, comes across as a normal human being, with a normal interaction style, and a normal level of interest in the people he's with and the world around him.
We were able to have an actual, honest-to-God conversation, back and forth, on a number of topics. In particular, the Senator was personally interested in the rise of social networking, Facebook, Youtube, and user-generated content, and casually but persistently grilled us on what we thought the next generation of social media would be and how social networking might affect politics -- with no staff present, no prepared materials, no notes. He already knew a fair amount about the topic but was very curious to actually learn more. We also talked about a pretty wide range of other issues, including Silicon Valley and various political topics.
With most politicians, their curiosity ends once they find out how much money you can raise for them. Not so with Senator Obama -- this is a normal guy.
Second, this is a smart guy.
I bring this up for two reasons. One, Senator Obama's political opponents tend to try to paint him as some kind of lightweight, which he most definitely is not. Two, I think he's at or near the top of the scale of intelligence of anyone in political life today.
You can see how smart he is in his background -- for example, lecturer in constitutional law at University of Chicago; before that, president of the Harvard Law Review.
But it's also apparent when you interact with him that you're dealing with one of the intellectually smartest national politicians in recent times, at least since Bill Clinton. He's crisp, lucid, analytical, and clearly assimilates and synthesizes a very large amount of information -- smart.
Third, this is not a radical.
This is not some kind of liberal revolutionary who is intent on throwing everything up in the air and starting over.
Put the primary campaign speeches aside; take a look at his policy positions on any number of issues and what strikes you is how reasonable, moderate, and thoughtful they are.
And in person, that's exactly what he's like. There's no fire in the eyes to realize some utopian or revolutionary dream. Instead, what comes across -- in both his questions and his answers -- is calmness, reason, and judgment.
Fourth, this is the first credible post-Baby Boomer presidential candidate.
The Baby Boomers are best defined as the generation that came of age during the 1960's -- whose worldview and outlook was shaped by Vietnam plus the widespread social unrest and change that peaked in the late 1960's.
Post-Boomers are those of us, like me, who came of age in the 1970's or 1980's -- after Vietnam, after Nixon, after the "sexual revolution" and the cultural wars of the 1960's.
One of the reasons Senator Obama comes across as so fresh and different is that he's the first serious presidential candidate who isn't either from the World War II era (Reagan, Bush Sr, Dole, and even McCain, who was born in 1936) or from the Baby Boomer generation (Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Al Gore, and George W. Bush).
He's a post-Boomer.
Most of the Boomers I know are still fixated on the 1960's in one way or another -- generally in how they think about social change, politics, and the government.
It's very clear when interacting with Senator Obama that he's totally focused on the world as it has existed since after the 1960's -- as am I, and as is practically everyone I know who's younger than 50.
What's the picture that emerges from these four impressions?
If you were asking me to write a capsule description of what I would look for in the next President of the United States, that would be it.
Having met him and then having watched him for the last 12 months run one of the best-executed and cleanest major presidential campaigns in recent memory, I have no doubt that Senator Obama has the judgment, bearing, intellect, and high ethical standards to be an outstanding president -- completely aside from the movement that has formed around him, and in complete contradition to the silly assertions by both the Clinton and McCain campaigns that he's somehow not ready.
Before I close, let me share two specific things he said at the time -- early 2007 -- on the topic of whether he's ready.
We asked him directly, how concerned should we be that you haven't had meaningful experience as an executive -- as a manager and leader of people?
He said, watch how I run my campaign -- you'll see my leadership skills in action.
At the time, I wasn't sure what to make of his answer -- political campaigns are often very messy and chaotic, with a lot of turnover and flux; what conclusions could we possibly draw from one of those?
Well, as any political expert will tell you, it turns out that the Obama campaign has been one of the best organized and executed presidential campaigns in memory. Even Obama's opponents concede that his campaign has been disciplined, methodical, and effective across the full spectrum of activities required to win -- and with a minimum of the negative campaigning and attack ads that normally characterize a race like this, and with almost no staff turnover. By almost any measure, the Obama campaign has simply out-executed both the Clinton and McCain campaigns.
This speaks well to the Senator's ability to run a campaign, but speaks even more to his ability to recruit and manage a top-notch group of campaign professionals and volunteers -- another key leadership characteristic. When you compare this to the awe-inspiring discord, infighting, and staff turnover within both the Clinton and McCain campaigns up to this point -- well, let's just say it's a very interesting data point.
We then asked, well, what about foreign policy -- should we be concerned that you just don't have much experience there?
He said, directly, two things.
First, he said, I'm on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where I serve with a number of Senators who are widely regarded as leading experts on foreign policy -- and I can tell you that I know as much about foreign policy at this point as most of them.
Being a fan of blunt answers, I liked that one.
But then he made what I think is the really good point.
He said -- and I'm going to paraphrase a little here: think about who I am -- my father was Kenyan; I have close relatives in a small rural village in Kenya to this day; and I spent several years of my childhood living in Jakarta, Indonesia. Think about what it's going to mean in many parts of the world -- parts of the world that we really care about -- when I show up as the President of the United States. I'll be fundamentally changing the world's perception of what the United States is all about.
He's got my vote”
reprint from don pasquale blog
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See video here: (click on ROOTS AS INDIAN TERITORY on the right, you will see it on the left)
http://www.oklatravelnet.com/?gclid=CIvnoLbCy5YCFQ89awod7SiezQ#/Video/14096
It is from interacting with Obama supporters on barackobama.com site that I have learned first hand how precious and dear this Native American heritage is to the people. I have expected it to be so, but voices of real people often filled me with an unexpected deep emotion and pride that I am part of a dialog, not merely a learner. I am now more than ever convinced that maintaining and supporting the linguistic diversity of America is vital to the health and happiness of all its people. Barack Obama recognizes this right and will support the language revitalization efforts of the tribes as he has said many times in his numerous addresses.
Please donate a small amount to my fundraiser for Obama campaign which is dedicated to celebrating the linguistic diversity of America. Donate here:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/FireIsBorn
You may also see my blog for other posts related to Native American issues.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/fib
Thank you for supporting Barack Obama!
Help close the deal! Donate now. Only seven days left. Keep going!
The most important endorsement, Oct 27:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/fib/gGgDSl
Mitaku Oyasin! We are all related!
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/fib/gGgDcR
We all are part of a history lesson. WE ARE ! We are living history right at
this moment and time. This is my second chance at actually doing something for
the good of the country and making history but I failed miserably the first time I
had the chance. Don't look back in regret wishing every single day that you could have
been part of the change that was coming.
To the young people, do not think you can stand still and this will happen. Back in 1964
65, 66, 67, when I was a teenager I could have marched in the Freedom marches, joined the
freedom riders, helped with the women's movement but I was young and figured one person did
not make a difference. I later learned I was wrong. One person did make a difference and
it took me to meet with Vice President Gore and President Clinton in Washington, DC when I
picked up the phone and made some calls regarding the American with Disabilities laws not
being enforced in Nashville. I took pictures. I filled out forms and I made complaints. I made
a difference because there was someone on the other end of that phone that cared about The
American People. All the People. Don't think this election is in the bag. Don't get comfortable
and most of all, think of all the people before you who walked in making history and feel
proud they were part of something bigger than their own comfort zone. No matter how cold,
how rainy, how tired, or even sick, you get those people you worked so hard to register to the polls
to vote. You think about the women who chained themselves together and marched during the
suffrage movement for the right to vote. You think of Freedom riders and people like Rep. Lewis
who now has a plate in his head for marching peacefully so these folks can cast a vote. You think
about all the people who have died in Iraq and how many more can die in whatever war the
McCain administration would take us. Think of your children and your children's children because
this is what this election is about. Our very freedoms are at stake. We are at a historic
crossroads. We can work hard now and know we did everything we could or we can wake up
in the middle of the worst times , yes worse than Bush, known to America.
All of the people who just stood by incuding myself in the 60's knew they had to make a difference
for America to rise above it's imperfections and wrongs. Don't look back in regret and say, "Oh
I should have driven that extra mile, I should have worked those polls, I should have stood in line
as long as it took because I had no idea that things would be so horrible for my future and for
my parents, my grandparents. It will be too late Nov. 5th. The movement is now. The history
is being recorded now. The election is now. Grab your weary imaginary bootstraps and
pull a little harder because America is worth saving. The price of freedom does not belong to
group of people. There is no red America. There is no blue America. There is the United States
of America and good men and women haved died for the vote. This is your time. This is your
history movement. We cannot stop now. The dream lives. It only lives if one person, just one
does everything they are capable of doing to keep us free. Go out today. Get people to the polls.
Tuesday...wake up early and stay out till you make sure the people vote. As Sen. Obama said,
"Look to the inner strength and better angels within you ". Be strong, be determined and don't
wait on the other person to bring change and hope. It is up to you ! It is up to me ! This is
History.
It was Friday evening when my phone rang one more time. Caller ID showed John, my Field Organizer. The only paid Obama staff in my county.
"Hi John."
"Hey Bonnie, how's it going?"
"Great! I just finished my last reminder call for tomorrow. We are all set."
"Well, call them all back. I just found out we have eleven Dutch journalists that want to shadow your canavassers tomorrow. First shift. You have to make sure we have an extra big crew, make sure they all come, no last minute cancelations, and see if you can get some more."
"Yipes! Ok, boss, thanks for the warning! Are you sure this time? You've told us twice before that we would have journalists and no body showed up."
"This time its real. Call them all back, call Kathy (my fellow team leader). This is big."
So much for a quiet evening! But this is the way things work in our swing state. Now that Missouri has definately gone blue (thanks I think to my team and all the other teams like it across this state) people are once again paying attention in and to Missouri.
My phone rang again. It was Kathy, my fellow team leader and volunteer recruiter extraordinair! John had gotten her at dinner and she and her husband were headed home so she could do her magic and persuade a few more of our incredible volunteer canvassers out there to get up early and make it in to our staging location, the basement of a friendly small business in our little town.
Kathy is truly amazing with her skills at getting people to volunteer. She and I make phone calls all week. I think I'm doing great when I get one or two volunteers in an hour of calling, then I talk to her and she has found five or six more people! kathy is the reason our team is doing so well. And, good for him, our field organizer John knows it, so when Barack Obama was in Kansas City at our huge 75,000 person rally, Kathy got to meet him back stage and get "an Obama hug."
So, its Saturday morning. I got my two teenagers up to canvass with us and we stopped at the grocery for a couple dozen donuts and creamer.
Sure enough, Kathy was able to just about double our first team from 16, which is pretty good for first shift Saturday, to 24. 2 people per route, and plenty for the eleven journalists to see. So the canvassers start to arrive, most of whom are old hands at this so we spend most of the training time just chatting and waiting for our guests. And waiting... and waiting. We drink coffee, I'm thinking my kids are going to eat all the donuts by themselves... and we get a call. The journalists are delayed, but will come later. So, out the door go our canvassers, sans journalists but in good cheer. We have their cell phone numbers and when (and if) the journalists arrive, we will call them back in to pick up a guest.
One person didn't show so I took a packet and the odd partner (we never send anyone out alone) and headed out, with Kathy holding down the fort. Sure enough, the journalists did arrive and Kathy was able to get some teams back to give the journalists a taste of the Missouri ground game. I think they were impressed. One journalist went out with a team containing our youngest canvasser, an adorable one year old, with her mother and a friend. Another went out with an energetic young couple who are always late, but always make it to canvass if they say they are. We had grandmothers and grandfathers, high school students, Hispanics, African Americans, an Asian American who just got her US citizenship this year. A typical group of Obama volunteers.
I spent some time talking to one journalist after we got back to the office. He asked me if I would have preferred Hillary Clinton, since I'm an older white woman, I guess he just assumed, I don't know. Anyway I told him that I liked the Clintons but I felt that Barack Obama was the better choice for this time. He was a nice guy and kept commenting about how friendly everyone has been to them. They had spent the day before in Ohio doing the same thing, and were heading back to Amsterdam the next day.
I found out today that these journalists were some of the best in the Netherlands, the guy I was talking to worked in The Hague... they were all print journalists. Kathy asked if they would give her a link to the articles so we could read them. Turns out they will all be written in Dutch. Oh well, I'm one of the monolinguals and I can't speak Dutch. When the articles are published we will have to get them translated, I guess.
Fun times. So next weekend is the last chance before election day. If you are able to walk, we need you, Barack Obama needs you, to help get out the vote!
Peace,
Bonnie
This was posted on another Obama blog. I enjoyed it and wanted to share it with you.
Dear Red States,We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren't aware, that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. It may even include Florida and Ohio; they are seriously considering it. We've given them until Nov. 4th to decide. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country. Since we're dropping the middle states we're calling it United America, or simply the U.A.To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. You can take Ted Nugent. We're keeping Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel. You get WorldCom. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get Ole' Miss. We get Harvard and 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms, and the highest concentration of pregnant unwed teenagers. Please be aware that the U.A. will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, really we do, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire. We'd rather spend it on taking care of sick people, and educating our children.With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines, 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT. With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the war, the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy Redies believe you are people with higher morals then we Bluies..Finally, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.Peace out,Blue StatesPatriotism is supporting your country all the time and the government when it deserves it. Mark Twain (1835-1910)
It is quite interesting the contrast between the rallies of McCain versus Palin. It is a no brainer who is drawing the biggest crowds by ten/fifteen to one. There is something fundamentally wrong. Who are voters actually going to be voting for on November 4th? Is it McCain or is it Palin?
If the majority of voters are planning to vote for Palin or is only voting for McCain because Obama is African American, then they are not even considering, nor do they understand the dangerousness of this woman being in the White House. She has made it pretty obvious where she is going and what she is planning to do; and that is the scariest thing, which all Americans need to be concerned about.
Palin has slowly pulled away from McCain’s true message to the point of the frustration of McCain’s own advisors. They are cringing in the background, wishing that she had never been allowed to be a contender for the VP.
At her rallies she incites radicals and she stops speaking, and looks around the audience with her piercing smile, without saying a word. She is pulling the very conservative women into a hypnotic state of submission so that they hang on her every word and they forget that McCain is the one they would be electing, not Palin.
However, you can see it in her eyes, you can hear it in her speeches, you can feel it in your bones; this woman is not speaking to get McCain elected. She is however, giving speeches to endear her to become President; either by default due to the demise of McCain, or to run against Obama in 2012.
What are voters thinking? A better question, what are voters NOT thinking? She already has a proven record of abusing the power of her office by violating the ethics of her current elected office as Governor of Alaska.
She is such a sleazy, dodger of the truth, and a very domineering woman. McCain on the other hand has become a puppet. It is not that high of a leap to believe who will be running the Oval Office from the first day of 2009 or who maneuvering herself into a position to fight Obama for that Oval Office seat in 2012.
Again, who is going to sit in the Oval Office Seat first? On November 4th, it better be Obama. If not, or our Nation can expect we will be headed for Change; just not the “Change we Need,” not the Change we asked for, and not the change we want. It is imperative that Palin not step within one hundred meters of the White House Gate, let alone within one foot of the Oval Office Seat!.
Get out the vote today. Make that vote count for our future. Give that future the opportunity to change; you just need to make sure it is the “Change We Need.” Go to the voting booth and remember just one thing, “Who do you want to sit in the Oval Office Seat first?” And then VOTE!
Are you worried that McCain's smears may be gaining traction in your state or district? I've been worried about Ohio, so I wrote a series of replies to fight back. Please feel free to use one of my letters as a model and send your own letter-to-the-editor of a local paper. Time is running short: many papers have cut-off dates for election-related letters, so do it TODAY!Small town papers are a better bet for getting printed than big-city dailies that receive tons of letters. Also, those "pro-American" towns might need some balance about now. Find lists of newspapers here: http://www.50states.com/news/ and here: http://www.usnpl.com/It's always wise to check in advance if your paper has a length limit. They often don't tell you this on the website, so a quick phone call can save wasted time. Most will accept letters by email, so ask for the editor's (or relevant person's) direct address, too. Always include your address and phone number. They will not print these, but may call to verify that you are the sender.Please leave a comment to let others know where you've sent a letter. Of course, you can also revise any of these letters in your own words.
312 Words:
Dear Editor:
Among the kitchen sinks now being flung at Barack Obama is the charge that he wants to "spread the wealth around." Is that really such a terrible thing? Take a look at South America, where wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few super-rich families, while large percentages of the population live in poverty. Democracy suffers with the priveleged buying political favors on a scale US millionaires would like to become accustomed to. And studies have shown that extremes of economic inequality can lead to poor public health, higher rates of violent crime, and a lack of trust among individuals that creates a bad business climate for everyone. Even Alan Greenspan, hardly noted for socialist leanings, has stated that increasing income inequality in America is a "very disturbing trend."
Indeed, America is one of a very few developed countries where income inequality has increased since the 1980s. Stangating wages, union-busting, limited social services, and the decline of progressive taxation are cited among the factors for this trend. Between 1980 and 2005, the average after-tax income for the richest 1% of Americans went up by 176%, compared to an increase ranging from 20% to just 6% for the less affluent majority. Back in 1982, a CEO's pay was roughly 42 times the average wage of his company's workers; in 2004 it was 430 times more, according to CNNMoney.com.
John McCain should realize that "spreading the wealth" is nothing new. For the past 30 years it's been spreading steadily upward from the many to the few. That trickle-up effect has hardly led to good jobs, retirement security, or reliable health care for most Americans. Concentrated wealth in the hands of those who already have more than they need led to the demand for new, risky investment opportunities, the housing bubble, and ongoing collapse of our financial system.
I'm a lot less firghtened of spreading the wealth back down, than I am of more policies like the ones that got us in this mess.
Amanda -- We cannot afford to spend the next four years wishing we had done more in the final push of this campaign. Your support -- by midnight tonight -- will decide how strong our team is and how far we can extend our reach between now and Election Day. Will you please make a donation before the deadline? Change never comes without a fight. And the status quo is not going to go quietly. The McCain campaign and the RNC have been stepping up their hateful "robocalls" and attack mailings -- they're throwing the kitchen sink of false, negative attacks. The margins of victory in crucial battleground states will be small. And your support today can make all the difference. We can't risk coming up short. The stakes are just too high. Your donation will have a bigger impact now than at any other time: https://donate.barackobama.com/finalfight Thank you for everything you're doing,Barack
