Predatory Lending and the Deliberate Destruction of Black Economic Power

(Atlanta Blackstar)  Economic exploitation in the Black community is real, and a reminder that racism goes far beyond hating Black people and calling us names. Not to downplay the effects of that individualized, person-to-person discrimination, but we need to focus far more on institutional racism, the policies that pick our pockets and rob us blind for generations. Old patterns of systemic discrimination continue, stealing from the Black community and placing it at a disadvantage with wealth accumulation.

Financial institutions still engage in the economic exploitation of Black America, a reality which was brought home amid the devastation of African-American and Latino communities during the Great Recession. As was published in the most recent edition of the journal Social Problems, Black borrowers in segregated cities have been preyed upon with subprime mortgages, destroying families and entire communities. The U.S. housing meltdown and the foreclosure crisis was a racialized process.

The latest unemployment numbers are great if you’re not black

(theGrio)  Does a rising tide lift all boats, as President Obama once said? The economy is improving, and that’s a good thing, right? It depends on who you’re asking. While the economy is moving ahead, blacks are being left behind.

50 years since the march from Selma to Montgomery, we are reminded that institutional racism, racial disparities in wages and wealth, and discrimination based on color are still a harsh reality of American life. And we have a long way to go.

This Jobs Crisis Is Obama's Kryptonite

Many commentators and observers, including this writer, argued for a far more aggressive and comprehensive strategy from the White House for getting America out of its economic morass. Obama's team chose a half-hearted, half-assed stimulus package, and the result is what we see today. Don't get me wrong, the stimulus helped. But it is running out, and you can see the effects that the empty well is having on state and local governments as they proceed to cut education and essential social services and programs.

Unemployment is high, twice as high for blacks, and the jobs aren't coming. 80 percent of recent college graduates are moving back home. And there is talk of a double-dip recession on the way, as housing prices are falling, with a faltering real estate market threatening to pull us back down in the hole. The President's abysmal failure of a foreclosure relief plan is blamed, in part, for the economic woes.

A new Washington Post-ABC poll reveals that President Obama has lost his post-Bin Laden bump in popularity. And more importantly, by a 2-to-1 margin, Americans believe the country is seriously on the wrong track. Nine in 10 rate the economy negatively, and six in 10 say the economy is not on the road to recovery. About six in 10 give Obama negative marks on the economy and the deficit. This comes on the heels of the departure of Austan Goolsbee -- one of Obama's progressive-leaning economic advisors -- who was frustrated that the President abandoned more stimulus investment to spur the economy, opting instead to pursue the folly of attacking deficits.

Polls at this early stage in the game don't mean a whole lot, but it is worth noting that Obama leads 5 of 6 Republican contenders, and is in a dead heat with Mitt Romney. I believe that Obama could handily beat any empty suit the GOP throws his way. Given the proclivities of the Republican primary electorate, I'll bet that Romney's status as frontrunner will be short lived. I will bet on Sarah Palin or someone of her ilk. Howard Dean said himself that Sarah Palin could defeat Obama in the general election, particularly with unemployment as it is.

Now, do I really think that Palin is presidential material? Not for a moment. Her latest gaffe -- actually a botchery of the historical account of Paul Revere's ride, in which she claimed Revere warned the British -- shows how ignorant and flighty the woman truly is. That is precisely why she could win. I don't trust the American electorate, especially when times are tough. Too many Americans drink the stupid juice when the economy is in the tank, and pull the lever against their own economic interests. Or, demoralized and disenchanted, they just stay home and don't vote at all. The results of the 2010 midterm elections provide all the evidence you need of that proposition. Voters cast their ballots for some of the most regressive governors, state legislators and members of Congress one can imagine.

The country is hurting, but instead we get voter ID legislation, decimation of labor rights, criminalization of abortion, Vouchercare, and laws banning sagging pants. We knew they would do something like this, even though they didn't explicitly say they would. The Republican track record on overreach speaks for itself. And the lackluster Democrats did their best to bring a GOP victory last year, eager as they are to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Although Palin and the other Republican hopefuls hardly seem viable candidates at first glance, consider Ronald Reagan. People laughed at the prospect of an actor becoming president. His opponent, the incumbent, was smart and capable, and didn't drag the country into war. But Jimmy Carter was done in by stagflation and the Iran hostage crisis, not to mention an intra-party challenge from Ted Kennedy, and two opponents in the general election.

If the economy continues to suffer enough, as it appears it will, Obama should take heed. Americans will elect the factually challenged, knowledge deficient and intellectually starved if given half a chance, which is why Obama needs to get serious about jobs, jobs, jobs. Regardless of how much he can accomplish on that front between now and Election Day 2012, he needs to get started yesterday. And it is time for him to ignore the Republicans. They have two goals in mind: First, to wreck the economy for 2012, and second, to establish a nation fully owned and operated by religious fanatics, the greedy and the unstable. They are making good on both of these promises.

That's the short term situation. Obama must find some jobs or he'll be out of one. Now, here's the long term problem, which leads us back to the short term: America is a feudal capitalist state with the highest inequality in the industrialized world. The inequality has widened over three decades, and is now at chronic proportions -- the highest since the Great Depression. The elites have decided to ride this one out, not through economic growth, because all they have to do, they've decided, is to squeeze as much as they can from the rest of us sharecroppers. And they're doing a superb job of it. Favorable tax policies and deregulation ensure that they get more and more, and the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision allowed them to buy the political system outright. So, a bribery-based political system -- concerned only with the next election cycle -- serves the interests of a crony capitalist system that cares only about the next quarterly profit statement.

Say what you will about China, but at least they never pretended to operate under any pretense of democracy. However, China does look one hundred years into the future, when America can barely look past the latest episode of Celebrity Apprentice. And as China silently colonizes Africa and wrests the leadership in renewable energy, the U.S. has no industrial policy other than military contractors. We can't even build a national high-speed rail system because the superstitious among us brand it as socialist big government welfare spending.

These are the problems that President Obama must face, because hell, world leaders are paid to do that. He can solve this whole thing tomorrow is he just calls for a new New Deal program already. But will he have the courage? Time will tell, but the President, like this sad nation, is short on time.

What Will It Take to Bring Obama Home? Making Him Realize There's No Other Choice

The following is part of the ongoing "Moving Left" series in BlackCommentator.com:

When it comes to the 2008 election of Barack Obama, the mistake people made was mistaking voting for activism. I believe that before we have any discussion on whether and how we can bring Obama home to progressive values, we must first come to terms with this reality.

It's not as if you can blame them. After eight years of a disaster that was the Bush administration, voters wanted and needed a major change in the direction of the country. We needed to wipe the slate clean and set a new tone for America. A new man for the times came on the scene. He was a person of color, clean and articulate, and with lofty rhetoric. And he provided hurting, hungry people with hope and promises of change. In fact, he was the embodiment of change.

Now, in 2011, things are a little different. Main Street is hurting, and unemployment is high and seemingly intractable. Meanwhile, as poor and working people struggle and fail to keep their necks above water, Wall Street and the corporate elites never had it so good. Profits are at a record high, and the gap between the richest of Americans and the rest of us is higher than at any time since the first Great Depression.

In the midst of this, the current administration has lacked the backbone, the heart and the intestinal fortitude to fight for ordinary folks. There have been some successes for progressives over the past few years, to be sure, but sprinkled among a larger host of disappointments and missed opportunities. The President made no attempts at a public option or single payer health insurance system, opting instead for a watered-down compromise plan that has proven itself as a giveaway to corporate interests. He extended the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest people in this nation, and embraces budget cuts that support the fraudulent Republican narrative of austerity and trickle-down economics. The Bush military policies continue, as does the practice of rendition and detaining terror suspects at Guantanamo. And when the President goes to the bargaining table to negotiate with the Republicans, he gives away the store right away and asks for nothing in return. Democrats, progressives and other Obama supporters are shaking their heads in disbelief. Where is the fighting spirit, the will to work hard for our values?

Part of the problem is that Obama took the Goldman Sachs money in the presidential campaign, and has to play their tune. He stacked his inner circle with Wall Street water carriers and Clinton-era neoliberals with a deregulation fetish. These are the people who helped create the country's economic mess, in which the plenty greedy were allowed to plunder America's resources by gambling it all away at the casino.

The other part of the problem is Obama's quixotic journey to the political center. There is nothing in the middle of the road but yellow lines and road kill, and you'd better believe it. Although his campaign rhetoric was progressive, this president chooses to govern from the middle. That decision in itself is questionable for a number of fundamental reasons:

• First, the people who elected Barack Obama did not want a centrist who stands for nothing, sees how the wind is blowing and splits the difference. They wanted bold, decisive leadership, not a referee-in-chief.
• Second, such a strategy hopes to garner support from undecided independent voters who want Democrats and Republicans to play nice together, while ignoring the base. Sometimes, compromise is not a prudent step, particularly if your opponent has an unacceptable point of view. These voters live solely in the minds of inside-the-Beltway prognosticators and pundits.
• Third, governing from the center is a tough proposition when you fail to define what the center actually is. Ultra-rightwing Christian fundamentalism is driving the center in its traditional sense rightward. So, if your desire is to be Republican-light, be forewarned that when a fake Republican runs against a real Republican, the Republican always wins.
• Fourth, President Clinton was able to get away with triangulation, but that was Clinton's style. Plus, Bill had the benefit of a booming economy. So, although the base was angry when he sided with the Republicans to end welfare as we know it, he remained popular. But there is a sense today that voters are done with the foolishness. And the protests in Wisconsin and elsewhere point to a pushback against a conservative onslaught that would dismantle the New Deal-Great Society legacy.

If the disgruntled Obama supporters thought they would get everything they wanted from this White House - without lifting a finger other than to cast their ballot in the voting booth - they were sorely mistaken. Elections are important, but are no substitute for the hard work of building movements, coalitions and institutions. At the same time, diehard Obama supporters and apologists who say he is just one man and cannot do it alone must realize that he is not doing it alone. He has an administration filled with intelligent, capable individuals. Yet, Democrats have not put enough pressure on Obama, which is why we are here today. But Democratic leaders--including progressive lawmakers and members of the Congressional Black Caucus-- and groups such as MoveOn.org and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee(PCCC) are pushing back, challenging the President to reject the Republican budget agenda, and not to cut programs for low income people.


President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked civil rights leader A. Phillip Randolph to "go out and make me do it," that is, make him use his power and the bully pulpit to right the wrongs and do the things they both agreed should be addressed. That is precisely what today's progressives must do with Obama. They must build the infrastructure of an independent movement that supports the President when he deserves it, and pressures him out of love, like a wayward family member, when necessary. Most of all, this movement must look toward the future, with the goal of surviving beyond an Obama administration or any other presidency.

Progressives must also craft a media narrative that places their ideals squarely in the political center, with the President having no choice but to embrace them. Justice for union workers, a living wage and benefits, a clean environment, social safety net and fighting against wealth inequality are mainstream policies. Triangulation is both unnecessary and counterproductive for a president who already enjoys support among moderates, who have fled the GOP in droves. The once mainstream Republican Party is now dominated by conspiracy theorists, crackpot Birthers in the mold of Donald Trump, self-righteous religious zealots and morality police, and Neo-Confederates. They want to turn extremism into the mainstream, and make ignorant the new smart. It is hard to imagine finding common ground with a party whose core constituencies include hate groups.

Further, the base must remind President Obama that the Republican goal is to run the economy into the ground -- and his presidency with it -- all for political gain. Therefore, he has no choice but to come home. And progressives should make it clear that if he wants a second term, he most certainly must come home in order for his supporters to come out next Election Day. That is not to say the Obama voters will flock to a viable challenger from within or outside the Democratic Party. Rather, many of them, demoralized and lacking in enthusiasm, simply will stay home and, by default, bestow victory upon the Republicans. That's what happened in the 2010 midterms, and the rest is history.

Class Warfare Is Ugly but Necessary to Get Rid of the Bad Blood

Harvard University, my alma mater, has decided that students from low income families -- earning less than $60,000 a year -- will pay no tuition and have no student loan burden. This was a forward-thinking policy decision by a wealthy institution sitting on $27.6 billion, the largest university endowment in the land. Implicit in Harvard's decision is an acknowledgment that things are getting out of hand in higher education, and in society in general. A quality education, often prohibitively expensive and out of reach to many, should not be accessible solely to the wealthy or those who are able to afford it.

Harvard's spirit of equity and fairness should be shared around the country, in the Congress and in state houses throughout the wealthiest nation on earth. Despite what some people would tell you, America is a nation of plenty, the world's largest economy. The only problem is that in the so-called land of opportunity -- not unlike Egypt, Libya, and the various other unraveling countries in the Mideast -- only a few people are actually enjoying the wealth. Here, the bankers received their bailout, a reward for their greed, incompetence and inflated sense of self-worth. Meanwhile, the super duper-rich had their Bush-era tax breaks extended under a Democratic president whose idea of compromise has been to grant Republicans whatever they want.

The Obama budget reflects an acceptance of the conservative narrative that the poor must suffer in the name of austerity and balancing the budget. Wall Street enjoys record profits and bonuses, while the working poor must endure cuts to social programs, home heating assistance programs and access to graduate education. But the talk of deficit reduction is pure grandstanding. After all, the Bush tax cuts are driving the deficit, and significant cuts to America's bloated military behemoth are off the table.

In their quest to shrink government down to nothing, conservatives have found their new welfare queen in the form of public labor unions. Everyday people who are just trying to earn an honest living are suddenly scapegoated, blamed for the nation's financial and fiscal woes. Of course, there is a larger picture at play, which is why thousands of Wisconsin workers have protested against Gov. Scott Walker's plan to strip public employees of their collective bargaining rights. The Democrats in Wisconsin fled the state to deny Republicans the quorum to vote for the union-busting legislation, with Democrats in other states like Indiana following suit, and Republicans locking protestors out of the Ohio Statehouse. The Republican Party wants to remove all vestiges of union power in this country, so that corporations are allowed to roam, unfettered and unchallenged, and trample over the rights of American workers. The Supreme Court has allowed corporations to buy what was passing as democracy, and now Tea Party legislatures and governors would render this a full-fledged nation of serfs and sharecroppers.

In all manner of Talibanic extremism, the unhinged, lunatic rightward fringe is using this opportunity to push all of the foolishness they could imagine when they lived in the political wilderness and were jonesing for power. The lunatics are running the asylum, literally. It is a nasty little sideshow, and there would be some entertainment value in it all if actual lives were not at stake. Congress voted to defund Planned Parenthood. In South Dakota, a bill would sanction the murder of abortion providers as justifiable homicide. A bill in the Georgia legislature would punish miscarriages with the death penalty. A Missouri lawmaker wants to do away with those "over the top" labor laws that prohibit child labor. And Texas could allow college students to wear concealed weapons on campus. After all, what better way to deal with campus gun violence than to recreate the Wild West on campus, in Texas of all places? Meanwhile, the NRA, further revealing its kinship with rightwing extremist groups, advocates the formation of armed militias -- private police forces unanswerable to government authority.

In the midst of all of this, ordinary citizens are waking up, and thousands are taking to the streets in nonviolent protest. Although Glenn Beck would paint the workers marching in Wisconsin as anarchists, socialists and communists, not to mention allies of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, there is a thread which binds the protestors in the Middle East and the U.S. They all know authoritarianism when they see it, and they realize the government, reeking with oligarchy and plutocracy, is working to undermine their interests. As F.D.R. once said, in the words etched in his memorial, "They (who) seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers... call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order."

Class warfare is ugly, but sometimes it is necessary. It can be a liberating thing, and it is the best thing that can happen to a progressive movement that needs a president to "make me do it," as F.D.R. urged A. Philip Randolph. And as they said in The Godfather, "These things have to happen every five, ten years. Gets rid of the bad blood." Getting rid of the bad blood could also mean getting rid of an overreaching GOP living on borrowed time.

Playing both sides of the fence in the class wars, Democrats must choose a side, lest they get swept away, too.

Wage Theft: Thou Shalt Not Steal From Your Workers

As we enter this holiday season, Americans are reminded of the massive suffering that millions of people are experiencing right now, with unemployment, foreclosures, poverty, hunger and homelessness. But Wall Street, which is celebrating a year of record profits, never had it so good. Surely, their bonus checks overfloweth this season, with vast sums of money that no one could possibly believe they deserve. In contrast, the common folk never had it so bad, at least not since the first Great Depression, as what Americans are living through surely must be the second.

To make things worse, as the wealthy bankers are propped up and subsidized by the government, everyday working people who have little as it is are robbed daily - by their employers. Now is a better time than most to discuss the crisis of wage theft in the United States.

Unfortunately, the problem is common and widespread, and affects millions of workers each year. According to the organization Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ), the average low wage worker loses $2,600 per year in unpaid wages. Further, three-quarters of low wage workers who work more than 40 hours a week are not paid the overtime the law requires. And millions of people are wrongly classified as independent contractors so businesses can avoid paying minimum wage, overtime and FICA tax - which amounts to stealing from workers as well as robbing the government. Wage theft forces its victims to choose between paying rent and buying food, and forces the government to cut important services. Righteous employers who play by the rules are placed at a competitive disadvantage.

On November 18, IWJ kicked off a campaign to tackle the issue, with a National Day of Action Against Wage Theft. Over 35 groups across the country held rallies and events as part of the day of action. As the participants in this movement can attest, wage theft is as old as the scriptures, and the world’s religions have long ago spoken out against the unethical, illegal and immoral practice. “Unfortunately, stealing wages from workers is nothing new. The Hebrew prophet Malachi in chapter 3, verse 5 proclaimed that God will be quick to testify against those who defraud laborers of their wages,” said Kim Bobo, IWJ executive director. “Stealing wages was wrong then and it is wrong today.”

Rev. Daniel Klawitter, chairperson of the Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice of Colorado, also addressed the biblical mandate against wage theft. He noted that in Deuteronomy 24:14-15, it states “you shall not withhold the wages of poor and needy laborers whether other Israelites or aliens who reside in your lands or in one of your towns. You shall pay them their wages daily before sunset because they are poor and their livelihood depends on them. Otherwise they might cry to the lord against you and you would incur guilt.”

Rev. Klawitter - who believes it is imperative that communities of faith address wage theft - noted that nearly half of day laborers are victims of the practice. We are trying to minister to folks in our congregations and our communities during a time of great economic turmoil and uncertainty,” said Klawitter. “And we have to be clear as faith leaders that the practice of wage theft is a moral outrage and that it’s our duty to care for our neighbors.” He even recalled a heartwrenching story of a Denver man who was found abandoned in the streets. The worker had fallen from a roof and became seriously brain damaged. His employer, who had picked him up on a street corner, dropped him off in the dark to avoid taking responsibility for his well-being.

Rabbi Renée Bauer, Director of the Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice of South Central Wisconsin, decries the lack of enforcement and prosecution of wage theft cases by the government. She calls the fight against wage theft not merely a political, legal and economic issue, but a religious mandate. “Jewish tradition is clear that not paying workers what they are due in a timely fashion is a crime,” Rabbi Bauer noted. “The Torah considers the lack or the delay of payment a form of theft and abuse, and the Talmud teaches that one who withholds an employee's wages is as though he deprived the worker of his life.”

And wage theft is inextricably linked with the poor state of the economy and widespread deprivation. According to Bobo, while the religious community gives out turkeys to needy families every Thanksgiving, millions of poor families could actually afford to buy their own turkeys if they were paid the wages due to them under the law. That’s food for thought for a nation struggling to find ways to jumpstart a troubled economy. “What better way to stimulate the economy, put more money back into neighborhood businesses than to actually ensure that workers are paid all their wages,” she said.

There are efforts afoot to get a Stop Wage Theft Bill through Congress. Further, Rep. George Miller (D-IL) introduced HR 3303, the Wage Theft Prevention Act. The legislation would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act and give the Department of Labor more power to protect workers. It would let workers file private lawsuits while the federal government is investigating a claim. And the Act would also eliminate the statute of limitations that forces the feds to resolve a wage complaint in two years.

Meanwhile, thanks to bad economic times, voter disillusionment and the buying of elections, the House of Representatives is about to be taken over by the Tea Party-infused Republican Party. Scrooge arrived just in time for the holidays, with Social Darwinism, bootstraps, slashing and cutting as a prescription for all our woes. And no doubt there will be an abundance of moralizing and self-righteous indignation in the lower chamber of our federal legislature, along with corporate greed and a shortage of caring for the needs of the least among us, much less solutions to make the poor whole. They would extend tax cuts to the wealthy as they preach fiscal responsibility. And they would cut healthcare and jobless benefits, and label even any noncontroversial attempts at restorative justice as communism, socialism and fascism.

Yet the struggle against this massive payroll robbery in America continues. This is part of a larger fight against the dramatic upward redistribution of wealth in recent decades, in which labor continually gets short shrift, and business seems to hold all the cards. But it is up to the people to make it right.

Americans, Your Country Isn't So Great

This is a commentary I was bound to write regardless of the outcome of the midterm election. I start by saying that your country is not so great, Americans. Any discussion of "what went wrong" must be prefaced with that statement. Harsh words, perhaps, but I do not utter them in haste. And we need to say it over and over again until we change it.

The United States is at the bottom of the barrel. We don't live well. Since the 1970s, the bottom 90 percent has experienced income stagnation, while the top 1 percent has seen its wealth skyrocket. In America, two-thirds of income gains in recent years went to the top 1 percent. The gap between rich and poor hasn't been so great since 1928, right before the first Great Depression, with the top 20 percent controlling 84 percent of the wealth. In Sweden, the top 20 percent owns 36 percent. Canada and Western Europe all have greater social mobility than the so-called "land of opportunity," and with far more generous benefits, over a month of vacation, real universal health care -- you get the picture. If the citizens of all of these advanced nations are living better than Americans, then what is so special about America?

And yet, this recent election is a testament to this country's proclivity -- with help from the bottom 90 percent -- to keep things the way they are, if not worsen them. Some people vote with the oligarchy against their own interests because they simply lack the proper information. There's lots of blame to go around.

Turnout from the base. Young voters and African-Americans, a key part of the Democratic base, refused to show up in the numbers they should have to turn this thing around. And 29 million people who voted in 2008 stayed home this year. If you don't use democracy you lose it. But then again, perhaps many felt as if they had no reason to vote. And their silence is as deafening as the noise made in the voting booth. There is no question that the president lost touch with his soldiers, far more than a hundred interviews on hip-hop radio stations could ever make up. This is not to excuse those who sat out of the race, but it's trickier than that. The reality is that the White House appeared arrogant and distant, even dismissive and impatient towards its progressive supporters-turned-critics. Obama must answer to the voters, not scold them, but he got it twisted somewhere along the way.

Anti-Wall Street sentiment. Clearly, the voters who went against the Democrats were mad at Wall Street. One would conclude that an anti-Wall Street fervor should favor the Democrats. But the Democrats are as much a party of corporate enablers as are the Republicans. Obama decided to cozy up to the bankers and prop them up rather than tear them down for the havoc they engineered. Plus, he surrounded himself with dead weight -- Wall Street shills and neoliberal Clinton insiders among his closest advisors. These individuals have utter contempt for unions, "the professional left" and other components of the base. This was not the change the Obama supporters thought they were getting in November 2008. Meanwhile, average Americans observed that as they struggled through hard times, with mounting bills, chronic unemployment and foreclosures, the banks were not left wanting.

Compromise. "We were in such a hurry to get things done that we didn't change how things got done," President Obama said. And he is right. Cutting deals with lobbyists and watering down health care reform for the sake of putting another notch in your belt is the old way of doing things. Compromising with the other side from a position of weakness and giving away the store before the negotiations even start -- well that's just plain naïve.

Also naïve was the administration's belief that it could compromise with Republicans, the extremists who awake every morning wishing and hoping for his downfall. Perhaps it would have been possible decades ago, but not now. Wasting too much time on this quixotic dream of compromise as an end, rather than one of various possible means to an end, gave the Republicans their opening. Now, the GOP is even more extreme, racist and uncompromising after its Teabilly infusion of white supremacists, Christian Taliban, conspiracy theorists and certified kooks.

A weak, fraidy cat administration. Obama failed to exert his power and authority in many ways, often appearing weak and equivocating. His heart just wasn't in it. The stimulus was a half measure that was not bold enough, and contained tax cuts designed to attract Republican support that never came. The plan failed to restore the 11.5 million jobs needed to get America back to pre-recession levels. And Obama continued Bush's trillion dollar folly in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bigger than the rest of the world's armies combined, the U.S. war machine sucks up nearly half of the discretionary dollars in the federal budget, crippling our ability to compete with China.

Obama did not take the jobs problem seriously enough soon enough, and the lunatic right gave him a beat down with it, dismissing his entire agenda as ineffective and creating a top-down faux populist movement to mess him up. The Citizens United decision all but guaranteed a conservative multi-billion dollar buyout of the election by the Koch brothers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Fox and an array of sketchy, shady interests, anonymous and unaccountable.

The Economy and F.D.R. It's the economy stupid, but it's what you do and say as a leader in tough economic times that matters. Oddly, candidate Obama's effective communication strategy has not translated into President Obama the great communicator. The use of the narrative is important, particularly in bad times, and Reagan knew it. President Obama could have traveled the F.D.R. route and crafted a message of economic populism, with Wall Street greed and predatory capitalism as the clear enemy, and himself as the national hero who has come to make things right. If the narrative resonates with an approving public, who cares which party controls Congress?

President Roosevelt betrayed his class, saying "I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made." In his inauguration speech, he said the "Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.... The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit." Not having sought enemies--though the enemies found him-- Obama chose not to follow F.D.R., and is paying a price. Yet he must do this very thing if he wants a second term.

A New Movement. A sustainable movement for social and economic justice must help this president to place him on the path of greatness that these crisis times demand, that his campaign promised. Nothing less than America's future is at stake. Whether it is an internal effort to wrest control from the corporatist neoliberals smothering the Democratic Party, or an independent movement, or both, it must be done. I refer to this genuinely organic, bottom-up antithesis of the Tea Party as the "Hot Chocolate" Party, to coin a term from my father-in-law. Hot chocolate is a sweet mix of diverse ingredients that brings comfort on cold days. Minimally caffeinated compared to tea, it can ease fatigue and positively affect health.

Despite their immediate victory, it is almost certain that the GOP Hate Caucus is running on borrowed time. It is expected they will disappoint immensely. Devoid of ideas, they will die from a combination of infighting, overreaching, and insurmountable demographic shifts in the nation. But in the meantime, progressives must sustain a movement to provide cover and apply pressure to Obama and any subsequent presidents.

Roosevelt asked civil rights leader A. Phillip Randolph to "go out and make me do it," that is, make him use his power and the bully pulpit to right the wrongs and do the things they both agreed should be addressed. We, too, must make Obama do it, for him and for ourselves.

Of Course Poverty Is on the Rise in Charles Dickens' America

Well, it appears that some of the nation's leading economists have proclaimed that the recession is over. Of course, these were the best and brightest who failed to warn us of the Great Recession in the first place, but I don't want to sidetrack you with trivialities.

So, let us pop open a bottle of champagne and celebrate.

I suppose that if you are one of those billion-dollar hedge fund managers, this piece of information could actually mean something to you. However, if you are one of those struggling souls in that Dickens novel known as twenty-first century America, it means little or nothing to you.

That anyone can actually utter the words "the recession is over" at a time of mass unemployment, foreclosures, homelessness and general despair tells you all you need to know about America. The nation actually exists as two nations: the few that have, and the many who don't. The former group does not depend on the well-being of the latter in order to thrive, and arguably thrives on its misfortunes. Ultimately, the American dream is exactly that -- a dream. And as millions of people are waking up to stark realities, they long to resume their slumber.

Currently, as the Census Bureau reported, 43.6 million people, or 14.3 percent of the U.S. population live in poverty. For people of color it is even worse. While 9.4 percent of whites are in poverty, 25.3 percent of Latinos and 25.8 percent of blacks are poor. And childhood poverty has risen to an alarming 20.7 percent. To be sure, it hasn't been this bad since the 1960s. Some people say that all we need to do to alleviate poverty is to grow the economy. But what good will creating a larger pie do for us, with the top 1 percent still taking the lion's share of the pie?

Establishment conservatives are so transparent in their greed that their only solution is to keep the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans making over $250,000. Meanwhile, the Tea Party gangsters are so heartless that their extremist solutions -- to abolish unemployment insurance and reduce dependence on government -- would amount to pouring salt in an open wound.

Amidst all of the suffering we're witnessing during this recent crisis in the world's largest economy, this awkwardly named land of opportunity, the number of billionaires has soared. The gap between the top 1 percent and everyone else hasn't been this large since the 1920s. The top 1 percent claim 33.8 percent of the wealth, and the bottom half of Americans own a negligible 2.5 percent of the economic pie. Real average earnings have not increased in half a century, and the last two decades were great, if you were a CEO, that is.

The fact is that Republican tax policies have widened the gulf between rich and poor, with the rich paying less and less in taxes. Despite the longstanding, folkloric national rhetoric regarding opportunity -- or perhaps even because of it -- the fact is that it is harder to make it in America than anywhere else in the industrialized world. Upward economic mobility is far more elusive in the U.S. than in those so-called evil socialist nations of Scandinavia and the rest of Western Europe. If you are poor in the "land of the free," chances are that you will stay that way. But unlike those Europeans, at least you'll have your guns to protect you, right? Yeah, right.

The Obama administration is at a crossroads with the selection of Elizabeth Warren to get the consumer protection agency up and running. Even some of the most diehard fans of this president were losing faith, with the daily parade of white male Wall Street front men advising Obama into the abyss of one-term presidential status. They have served him poorly, and would do for the U.S. economy what they already have done for the U.S. economy, which is to wreck it further and collect their spoils.

But perhaps now, there is a chance that the people might win for a change. The middle class has been hollowed out and wiped out, while the poor is even more entrenched than ever. And yet one gets the sense that it cannot remain like this. Something's gotta give, one way or another. The question is how we will let this all play out as a country -- with widespread destitution, social unrest and uprisings, or with responsive government action that seeks to bring about equity and justice to the many. Call it a new New Deal, call it socialism, call it democracy, call it what you will. But one thing is clear: American-style capitalism is eating the people alive, and now is the time to put it in check.