Good Left Hook

The United States is, unfortunately, full of 99ers. 99ers are people who have spent 99 weeks looking for work, only to come up empty. Their unemployment insurance checks then stop coming, and they’re absolutely on their own.

It’s not their fault. For every 1 job, there are 20 applicants. The most wealthy 1 percent like it that way.

The top 1 percent is sitting on huge amounts of wealth, and paying historically low levels of taxes on it. They don’t need to work. They can just sit, and let their investment income come rolling in, living a life of leisure… and then putting their money in overseas tax shelters instead of putting it into job growth here in the United States.

The corporations help the top 1 percent keep their outrageous wealth, and expand it. Corporations are sitting on two trillion dollars in liquid wealth right now, and refusing to use it to create jobs.

Why? They want to keep American workers desperate. They like hearing stories of people showing up to work at companies without being paid, as virtual slaves, in the hopes that one day, they might be offered a real paying job. They want more and more jobs paying minimum wage, and then, as Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul have promised to do, they want to see the minimum wage completely eliminated.

We don’t have to stand still and take it any more. We are the 99 percent. We are the huge majority of Americans who do the work that enriches corporations and the top 1 percent. We’re the ones who are suffering under budget cuts to education and the to the social safety net. We’re the 99 percent that’s been given more and more of the burden while the rich of the top 1 percent sit back and take it easy.

We’re the 99 percent, and we’re not going to take it any more. We’re occupying Wall Street. We’re occupying Freedom Plaza. We’re occupying every city in the United States of America, and we’re not going home until we are heard.

We want corporations to pay their fair share. We want the top 1 percent most wealthy Americans to stop hoarding their money overseas, and to invest in the USA. We want politicians in Congress to stop destroying our the government that is the instrument of our popular democracy. We want the expensive and bloody wars of the last decade to end.

We are the 99 percent. Can you hear us now?

American moms know what their kids are up against. They are soon going to be entering a job market that’s been decimated by a wrecked economy.

Mothers also are famous for their long memories. They remember when the recession started – and it wasn’t under Barack Obama. It was the Republicans and their coddling of Wall Street speculators that caused the current economic crisis.

Mitt Romney wants to make it worse, by cutting programs our children need in these difficult times – education programs, family nutrition program, community support agencies. All would suffer under Mitt Romney’s axe.

Is it any wonder that we’re seeing the rise of Mothers Against Mitt Romney as a force in the 2012 presidential election?

The rumors are roiling that Rick Perry, Republican Governor of Texas, will soon announce that he’s running for President in 2012. The announcement is said to come this Saturday, during a speech that Perry will make in South Carolina.

One does have to wonder what on earth a Texas politician is doing making a speech hundreds of lines outside of state lines.

South Carolina is a big presidential primary state, with a considerable population, coming early in the campaign schedule. So, if we’re going to choose a place to stop the Rick Perry steamroller, South Carolina is a good choice. It’d be a good idea too – Rick Perry is radically out of touch with the progress of American culture away from the right wing caricatures of the 1900s. This is the guy who suggested that Texas secede from the United States of America.

This bumper sticker can help you in the project to stop Rick Perry, identifying you as part of South Carolina Against Rick Perry.

For many Democrats, this is the moment when Barack Obama has gone too far. Last night, It was announced by the Obama White House that President Obama is working with John Boehner to make deep cuts to Medicare and Social Security. Add this to Obama’s complete neglect of the growing issue of climate change, his refusal to end George W. Bush’s wars, and his continuation of Bush’s unconstitutional policies.

Many Democrats are concluding that Barack Obama has become a Republican in all but name, and can no longer support Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. The campaign gear you see here is for them: A collection of bumper stickers, buttons and tshirts for liberal Democrats who are now looking for a genuine progressive alternative to Obama in 2012.

Display these items proudly to show that you’re more of a progressive patriot than you are a blind partisan. Also take a look at the New Progressive Alliance, a group that is looking for a liberal to challenge Barack Obama in the 2012 Democratic Primary. Also see Democrats Against Obama on Squidoo.

Democrats Against Obama tshirt – made in the USA!

Liberals against Obama bumper sticker

Tshirt – When Barack Obama broke his promises, he lost my support

Dump Obama. He’s not liberal enough!

Draft Russ Feingold for President in 2012

Draft Bernard Sanders President button, magnet, or lapel sticker

Mohandas K. Gandhi is often cited as the source of the saying “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.” Actually, the person who originally made that statement was A. J. Muste, a minister who was fired from the Central Congregational Church in Newtonville, Massachusetts after he gave an anti-war sermon. Muste continued to campaign for peace and for justice for many decades after that. He was… gasp… a socialist.

Really, it doesn’t matter who said it first. What matters is that the idea makes sense. Celebrate these famous words, and all the people who have said them. Remind yourself to keep to the way of peace with this bumper sticker.

This week, on the Democracy Now radio show, Harry Belafonte called for a loyal rebellion from the American Left to push Barack Obama to abandon his embrace of right wing politics. Belafonte said,

“When you ask me about Barack Obama, it is exactly what happened to Kennedy. We, the American people, made the history of that time come to another place by our passion and our commitment to change. What is saddened—what is sad for this moment is that there is no force, no energy, of popular voice, popular rebellion, popular upheaval, no champion for radical thought at the table of the discourse. And as a consequence, Barack Obama has nothing to listen to, except his detractors and those who help pave the way to his own personal comfort with power—power contained, power misdirected, power not fully engaged. And it is our task to no longer have expectations of him, unless we have forced him to the table and he still resists us. And if he does that, then we know what else we have to do, is to make change completely. But I think he plays the game that he plays because he sees no threat from evidencing concerns for the poor. He sees no threat from evidencing a deeper concern for the needs of black people, as such. He feels no great threat from evidencing a greater policy towards the international community, for expressing thoughts that criticize the American position on things and turns that around. Until we do that, I think we’ll be forever disappointed in what that administration will deliver.”

And who can we look to as a leader around which liberal Americans can rally to show their profound disappointment? How about Harry Belafonte? I’m proposing it now: Harry Belafonte for President!

Let’s be honest about this: Barack Obama has lost the trust of many American liberals. His policies have not been the hoped-for dramatic departure from the agenda of George W. Bush.

Let’s be practical too, though. An election is not about getting exactly what you want. In a nation of over 300 million people, we have to choose the best of the available choices. In the 2012 presidential election, though Barack Obama is flawed, he’s preferable to the other choices.

The pro-Obama bumper sticker you see here is communicating that idea, I think. It’s features the same symbol used in the 2008 presidential election by Barack Obama, but this time, in the year 2012.

I see that symbol as a sun that’s rising again. It’s a symbol of reintroduction for liberals to Barack Obama. We’ve been through a dark night with Barack Obama, and Obama did a lot to let us down, but, as dark as the night was, Obama wasn’t the biggest of our problems, and Obama does make things brighter, he does make things better, than a Republican candidate can.

Obama is not really what we want, but he’s what we’ve got. Can we work with that?

This May 17, California voters in the 36th congressional district in California will have a chance to elect a new U.S. Representative – and to correct the dysfunctional politics that Republicans have introduced to the U.S. Congress. Here we are, facing a shutdown of the American government – not by terrorists, but by Republicans who are insisting upon taking away the social safety net from working Americans.

In this special election, there’s one candidate who is consistently standing up against the Tea Party radicalization of American politics: Marcy Winograd.

Winograd announced today, “The gloves are off, with the GOP leadership declaring open warfare on America’s greatest safety nets for seniors. We need Democrats in Congress who are going to stand strong against these Republican attacks.”

We don’t need to wait until 2012 to take a stand against dangerous right wing politics in Congress. With Marcy Winograd’s help, we can take that stand today.

I’m with Winograd for Congress in 2011

Back in February, Ohio Governor John Kasich gave “props to @GovWalker” for Scott Walker’s legislation to destroy labor unions in Wisconsin. Now, Kasich has pulled a Walker in Ohio, having the Ohio state legislature pass union-busting legislation that he’s pledged to sign into law.

Kasich is hitting working Ohioans with a double whammy, with budget cuts targeted against the lower middle class just as he’s taking away collective bargaining rights. A writer for Blue Wave News comments, “I mostly feel a compassionate sadness for the people in Ohio who are being or will be hurt by Kasich’s reign over the state. You see, Ohio doesn’t have any legal provisions for recalling its governor, or any other elected state official. It doesn’t matter how much damage he does to working people or the poor or the economy of the state. It doesn’t matter how much further his job approval plummets or how angry he makes independent voters, or even his own Republican voters. Ohio is stuck with John Kasich for four long years.”

Ohio may be stuck with Kasich, but Ohio voters can influence the political process to keep Kasich in a corner. Electing an anti-Kasich legislature is the first step in the process. Spread the word of an Ohio revolt with this Working Ohio Against Kasich bumper sticker.

The Louisville Courier Journal refers to Michele Bachmann as the political equivalent of “a truck of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil”. Another Kentuckian comments, “Bachmann’s continued presence is pure napalm to Republican chances of resecuring the White House in 2012.” Explosion seems to be a theme of Bachmann’s politics.

Kentucky is wary of Bachmann’s plans to run for President, and not just because some libertarians would prefer Kentucky’s senator Rand Paul to run for President. Michele Bachmann represents a form of politics that isn’t just ignorant and ill advised and ignorant. Bachmann’s language and legislation is downright nasty, seeking to take constitutional rights away from entire groups of Americans, just because Bachmann doesn’t happen to approve of them.

Has Bachmann ever heard of a little old motto we have here in the USA – E Pluribus Unum? It means that we’re one nation, but made up of many people who have difference cultures and ways of living. We have a Constitution that guarantees equality in spite of diversity. That’s an ideal that Michele Bachmann can’t fathom.

Kentuckians get it, though. That’s why, whether she’s running for President or staying as a troublemaker in Congress, Kentucky is against Michele Bachmann.