Now here is something to truly be concerned about

Consider: in 1928 the richest 1 percent of Americans received 23.9 percent of the nation's total income. After that, the share going to the richest 1 percent steadily declined. New Deal reforms, followed by World War II, the GI Bill and the Great Society expanded the circle of prosperity. By the late 1970s the top 1 percent raked in only 8 to 9 percent of America's total annual income. But after that, inequality began to widen again, and income reconcentrated at the top. By 2007 the richest 1 percent were back to where they were in 1928—with 23.5 percent of the total.
-- Robert Reich in Unjust Spoils, The Nation, July 19, 2010

In a nation where revenue-strapped county governments are now grinding up paved roads and spreading gravel in the place of asphalt because they can no longer afford maintenance, and states like California are pondering the deep-sixing of adult education programs even though the less-educated populace suffers most from both chronic and acute economic problems, it's not impolite to tell the undiluted truth.

And the truth is that, despite sweetheart settlements with the likes of Goldman-Sachs, the United States is plagued by corporadoes whose premises should be surrounded, Michael Moore-style, with yellow police tape for class war-crimes.

Unfortunately, it's impolitic to tell the truth of class warfare when Glenn Beck draws blackboard arrows to prove Democrats are National Socialists and other hate-ragers spread the meme of ObaMao, the black-red-and-yellow peril wrapped up in a single soundbite. Intone the words "ruling class," and you're automatically a commie.

The most unfortunate consequence of the sinking of John Edwards's political career is that his powerful narrative about "Two Americas" got submerged along with it. In fact, just as the now nearly abandoned phrase "third world" didn't account for grimmer conditions in a fourth and even fifth world of impoverished nations, "Two Americas" also doesn't quite cover the reality of the economic inequality that has been worsening in the United States. The terminology nonetheless resonated. If only it could be revived without the taint of being connected to you-know-who.

But never mind. Skip the soundbites. The discussion, a nuanced, long-term, no-nonsense, deeply imagined, unclichéd, vision-driven discussion, is what matters now. Turning what emerges from this conversation into campaign themes comes later.

On that score, The Nation's recent six-author collection on inequality in America provides a good beginning - only a beginning - for a comprehensive debate to and fro about inequality, and, most importantly, what to do about it. Happily, Garrett, a seven-year veteran at Daily Kos, has used the Reich piece to kick off a series on inequality on Thursday evenings. If only we could accompany that with a weekly broadcast-and-streaming roundtable on MSNBC and NBC. Rachel Maddow could moderate, poke and provoke these authors and others with her trademarked brilliance. Then the impact of inequality might begin to make some inroads in the public consciousness. A pipe-dream, I know.

For now, the echo-chamber will have to do. To begin, look at a few visuals from the report of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, Income Gaps Between Very Rich And Everyone Else More Than Tripled In Last Three Decades, New Data Show [pdf]:

This is a post about the border issue we have in AZ.

Couple of quick points. Why are we so hot and heavy to use force to solve the issue? I understand that there is a violent situation to deal with, but is there no other solution? Our argument is we have more guns, lets use them. When my liberal bleeding heart (as some of you would call me) way of thinking says, why don't we figure out WHY these things are going on and deal with those issues. With great power come great responsibility, we are by a factor 3 (compared to our closest rival), the richest most powerful nation on the planet. Why is it, we chose force first to solve the issues.

There are reasons people are flowing into our country illegally. We pay them to do it.

There are reasons people are pumping drugs into our country. We pay them to do it.

People love to rant about how the government is not doing anything. Yet deportations are UP, arrests are UP, enforcement is UP. But it's not stopping the flow, it's just upping the ante, the desperate are getting more desperate and thus more violent. Why? Because we are not addressing the real issues we are just blaming the poor for being poor. Passing laws against them, and then calling them criminals.

I am no pacifist, I have no problem putting boot to ass to those who chose violence against our country. But I get very upset when we lump people who pick lettuce to feed their families together with those who chose violence against us to feed theirs. Instead of looking to inflict harm, we should see our neighbors as people in need of help, and reach out in kindness, bringing our great wealth and blessings to bare, to what we can all plainly see is a desperate population of people.

I'm not saying we pay our way out of the problem. What I am saying is we need to think our way out of the problem. Saying it's not our fault, is one th

-just me rambling a bit

Me, I am an educated, land owning white man. I am very conservative fiscally (republicans are not conservative FYI) and very Liberal Socially. Like I believe most Americans, if you can cut through the media and politics.

Fiscally, governments job is to referee, it's important business and people play by the rules. We have all seen what happens when they don't or are left to regulate themselves. Money makes people do very strange things. And if you are not careful, a very few really smart but morally suspect people will wind up with all the money and the rest of the people wind up with nothing. And that leads to revolution, and the destruction of society.

Government should pave our streets, put out fires, fight our wars. All those "social services" we need to exist as a country. But those services should be finite, and limited. Every time we have an issue, seems like we create an agency. Keep this up much longer and we will need every American to work for the government just to fill all the jobs in all the agencies.

Socially, government pretty much needs to stay out of our lives. And we as a people need to stop using government to stick our noses into other peoples lives. Create a level playing field, then let people play out their lives as they choose too. The constitution did a very poor job of protecting anyone who was not a white, land owning male (like me). Women, slaves, homosexuals were all but left out. So we fixed it, took a while but we did. It's time we all accepted that some people are different then us, and stop trying to use the government to control the actions of people we don't like. Let God sort it out later, it's not our place to judge.

Protection is another important role, and that means defining who is to be protected and what constitutes harm. We should error on the side of limited harms (small government theme again). Meaning, if someone punches you, that's harm, but if someone marries another man, you cannot claim it's harming your marriage, or corrupting your child because you don't believe it's right. That is a social debate you need to have with each other, government has nothing to do with it.

Who is to be protected? People, all people. Non-discrimination laws are good. A balanced society means one majority group cannot create or control society to benefit their particular subgroup. It's a founding point of this nation, even if it was not enforced until recently.

Finally, we need to determine what a is a person. By this I mean when does a person cross from a part of the mother, where she is the whole decider, to a person with individual rights of protection. Honest people disagree strongly on this. Personally I again error on the side of smaller government, meaning the mother should maintain control of her body for as long as possible. Woman should have the right to decide what happens to their own bodies. If she makes an immoral choice, let God deal with her, not the government.

But we do need to draw a line at some point, for practical reasons. Is it birth? Seems to late to me. Medically what is the difference between the day before and the day after a baby is born? Not much. At what point does the baby become a person? When it's viable to live outside the mother? That would give the government the right to force a woman to have an operation (risk her life) to save a babies. Are we OK with that being decided by Congress? And not the individual? I am not comfortable with either choice, but I would choose life, and if the baby can exist outside he Mother, then that baby is entitled to be protected from harm, and thus is a person. That said, doctors should still be allowed to termintate, if in their judgement heatlh of the mother is at risk...and we, as Americans, are just going to have to trust people to make the right choice for themselves.