Let's hope that the failure of the “super committee” quest to take money out of the economy clears the media mist for a minute, so people can focus on real issues that matter to real people. What are the chances of that? Will our government now focus on creating jobs, reducing inequality, fighting climate change, providing health care, increasing justice, balancing trade, increasing education, enabling small business to compete against the multinational?
Real Issues
People are in the streets across the country, demanding that the government start addressing real issues that matter to real people. But the increasingly irrelevant Congress has instead focused on things like blocking the government from making school lunches more nutritious.
Create Jobs
We have millions of people out of work. And we have millions of jobs that we have been putting off getting done.
And, guess what, as of today we can get the money to hire those millions of people to do those millions of need-to-get-done jobs for the lowest cost in history. That's right, the US government can borrow money at the lowest rates ever. Marketwatch: U.S. sells 5-year debt at record-low yield,
The Treasury Department sold $35 billion in 5-year notes on Tuesday at a yield of 0.937%, the lowest level on record and below where traders expected the sale to come.
That just puts the lie to any claim that the world is concerned about our deficits, and that we “don't have the money” to spend on maintaining and modernizing our infrastructure. “The markets” are so confident in the US that they are offering to lend money at the lowest rate ever.
Climate
Maybe it isn't in the news like it was, but the problem of global warming and resulting climate change is just getting worse and worse, and may be reaching the “tipping point.” AP: Greenhouse gases soar; no signs warming is slowed,
Heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are building up so high, so fast, that some scientists now think the world can no longer limit global warming to the level world leaders have agreed upon as safe.
New figures from the U.N. weather agency Monday showed that the three biggest greenhouse gases not only reached record levels last year but were increasing at an ever-faster rate, despite efforts by many countries to reduce emissions.
Did you get that? It turns out that the worst-case scenarios we heard about, back when we were hearing about it, were not as bad as what it turns out is really happening. The operative words here: really happening.
That is reality. So where is the government? Where is the media?
Captured
Why can't we get anything done for the people of the country anymore? Because our Congress and government is almost completely “captured.” Watch this segment of 60 Minutes, in which convicted Congress-briber Jack Abramoff explains how it's done, Jack Abramoff: The lobbyist's playbook – 60 Minutes – CBS News
You let a Congressional staffer, or agency regulator, or even a member of Congress know that there is a “job” waiting for them later, and you get what you want.
Regular people don't have this kind of money to dangle in front of government and elected officials. It isn't just campaign contributions, it's lucrative jobs after you leave government, that is corrupting our system. It is corporate money, being used to enrich the 1% at the expense of the rest of us. The solution is not just to ban corporate money from our politics, it is to ban the use of corporate money for any purpose other than running the corporation. Otherwise it will just leak out and be used to corrupt the system — and us.
I'm sounding like a broken record.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
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