I can connect the dots, can you? I always liked playing "connect the dots" as a child. That's why I like John Edwards. He takes away the confusion. Just connect the dots. John Edwards has a way of pulling back the curtain and showing the citizens how the system works and what we can do to take the power back of "we the people". He makes it clear while others are trying to make it complicated. They want John and Jean Q. Public to be so confused that they leave it to their Daddies and a few Mommies to fix it. We shouldn’t worry our pretty little or pointed heads about such things. But John Edwards plainly and simply is handing us the repair manual called "The Constitution" and the second "Bill of Rights" http://www.worldpolicy.org/...
that FDR wanted to enact and saying, "I can’t do this alone." "The strength of America is in this room," says his new ad. So let’s get ‘er done. http://www.johnedwards.com/...
Edwards like FDR is not anti-business. He’s anti bad business. He’s anti- inefficient business. He’s anti-crook. He’s not anti-capital, he’s anti-capitalizing on the backs of labor. Labor creates wealth; not the other way around.
Nathan Newman has an article over at tpmcafe.com that should have everybody outraged. "The Crime Wave No One Talks About – Theft of Wages in the Workplace"
http://tpmcafe.com/...
From failure to even bother to pay the minimum wage to not paying overtime to not paying for any sick leave or vacation time to workers literally dying over their garment machines, the abuse of workers sounds like something out of Dickens.
But Newman also talks about the abuse of honest small businesses.
Ohio's Attorney General has announced a program to crack down on government contractors violating the state's prevailing wage law. Richard J. Hobbs, executive vice-president of the Association of General Contractors, a construction trade group, applauded the plan since it "keeps your low-rate, less of a quality firm from coming in and underbidding" legitimate honest firms.
Connect the dots: Illegal employers lead to illegal immigrants lead to middle class squeeze.
Although only a minority of those working under illegal work conditions are undocumented immigrants, our nation's systematic lack of enforcement of wage laws has contributed to the dysfunction of our immigration system, while the denial of employment rights to such immigrants has only further undermined wage law enforcement.
It’s not an illegal immigrant problem, it’s an illegal employer problem.
In fact, cracking down on sweatshops and wage violators would probably be the most effective deterrent to employers recruiting undocumented immigrants, a point the Drum Major Institute makes in its "Principles for an Immigration Policy to Strengthen and Expand the American Middle Class." If all employers have to pay a decent wage, the attraction of hiring undocumented immigrants would diminish tremendously.
Connect the Dots: Global Warming, Drought, Famine, War; http://environment.guardian.co.uk/...
With rainfall down by up to 30% over 40 years and the Sahara advancing by well over a mile every year, tensions between farmers and herders over disappearing pasture and evaporating water holes threaten to reignite the half-century war between north and south Sudan, held at bay by a precarious 2005 peace accord.
The southern Nuba tribe, for example, have warned they could "restart the war" because Arab nomads - pushed southwards into their territory by drought - are cutting down trees to feed their camels.
Connect the Dots: Say No to Alito to No Filibuster for Alito to Yes to Corporations free speech and no to ours and yes to corporations over species.
This is what John Edwards asked us to do in 2005: Say no to Alito and support progressive candidates: http://johnedwards.com/...
And a podcast on poverty, "Raising the States", home, strengthening the Democratic Party at the local level, and Judge Roberts: (the Roberts statement is about three quarters of the way through the podcast. Edwards was concerned about Roberts interpretation of the Commerce clause and give examples of what questions should be asked of Roberts) http://johnedwards.com/...
So, of course, the Fat Cat News, the establishment press is going to go after Edwards. They like things the way they are and they have never really believed in that "Wisdom of Crowds" deal.
In an e-mail I received from Jonathan Prince at the Edwards campaign he starts out by saying:
The whole Washington establishment wants our campaign to go away, because they know that John Edwards means the end to business as usual. The Washington lobbyists and PACs don't want us to win because John is the only candidate who has never taken money from them. The political mercenaries and the chattering class don't want us to win because they can't imagine a president who doesn't play by their rules. And you can bet that the big corporate interests—from the insurance companies to the drug companies to the oil companies—don't want us to win because John has been taking on special interests his entire life. So they attack him—personally.
It's classic—they don't want the American people to hear the message, so they attack the messenger. They call him a hypocrite because he came from nothing, built a fortune while standing up for regular people during some of their toughest times, and—heaven forbid!—he has the nerve to remember where he came from and still care passionately about guaranteeing every family the opportunities he had to get ahead.
Yes, John Edwards has a way of exposing the inner workings of government i.e. what's behind the curtain. And it's a lot simpler than we think. Joel Rogers said in February 2004 that Bill Clinton could feel your pain and then tell you "why he couldn’t do anything about it". But Edwards "has a real program of democratic renewal." That was 2004 and, by golly, it’s the same program that he’s pitching now with more urgency, more emotion, and even more details. http://www.thenation.com/...
Let’s put "substance above cynicism". The power of action and the power of sharing the power will help us make One America again for all of our brothers and sisters. There really is only one divide here. It’s between those who love America and those who want to use her. It’s time to start being a community again instead of just a bunch of folks living next to each other. It’s time for some of that nation building here at home.
John Edwards is the first people’s candidate, populist if you will, to have the ability to unite country and city together which we need to begin healing our nation's wounds. Jane Jacobs talking about the symbiosis of the town and the country around it. As we face global warming and other disasters we will need to strengthen these bonds. Edwards can do this. Community comes through liberty, equality, fraternity and sorority. So as we say in the editing room, "Cut to the revolution."