http://www.pbs.org/...
John D. Rockefeller, Jr., son of the legendary founder of Standard Oil, endowed a foundation that promoted religion as a cure for labor-capital conflict.
Isn't it well past the time when democrats should at the least demand that those they voted for, oppose the agenda of our principle political enemies, the conservative media owning, and private army owning billionaire families of the christian evangelical right....things like lowering taxes of the wealthiest instead of raising them, specifically by, if necessary, allowing the sunsetting of all Bush era tax cuts set to expire at the end of this year? Wouldn't the comparatively modest increases wage earners would experience, be more than offset by the increased revenue from inheritance and top bracket income taxes, again set at Y2K levels?
Aren't those sunset provisions in force now because of a compromise then, demanded by our progressive representatives?
Just three CNP members, Philip Anschutz,
Edward Atsinger III, and his brother-in-law, Stuart W. Epperson, through the media they control, are responsible for the "Jesus flavored" political indoctrination of millions of voters.
Through "the message" distributed by Anschutz's
http://www.sourcewatch.org/...
Clarity Media Group is the holding company for media properties owned by Philip F. Anschutz. These include the San Francisco Examiner and the Washington Examiner. An Examiner newspaper in Baltimore was shut down in February 2009.[1]
Clarity Media has trademarked the name "Examiner" for possible future newspapers in dozens of other U.S. cities.[2] The company also operates news portal websites in numerous cities under the "examiner.com" name, and is seeking editors to oversee regional and local content for those websites.[3][4]
On June 17, 2009, Clarity Media Group acquired The Weekly Standard, a conservative opinion journal, from Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.[5]
...and by Atsinger III's and Epperson's
http://www.sourcewatch.org/...
Salem Communications Corporation promotes itself as "the leading provider of radio programming, online resources and magazines targeted to the Christian and family themes audience."[2][3]
Salem Communications states that it currently "owns and operates 95 radio stations nation-wide, with 60 stations located in the top 25 most populated U.S. markets," with the majority of its stations operating "within clusters involving three strategic formats" and its "foundational format ... Christian teaching and talk, featuring well-known speakers such as James Dobson, Janet Parshall, Dr. Charles F. Stanley and Chuck Swindoll."[4]
In April 2006, Salem Communications purchased conservative website Townhall.com.[1]
http://motherjones.com/...
....The left—which for years dismissed evangelical activists as out-of-touch zealots—has nothing on the radio dial even close to Salem’s reach and influence. Air America is broadcast on 70 stations and owns none. Salem owns 103 stations in the nation’s largest markets and broadcasts to more than 1,900 affiliates. It owns radio stations in New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, and Atlanta. In fact, it doesn’t own just one station in those markets. It owns two—sometimes more. In Los Angeles it owns four. In Honolulu it owns seven. It also owns 62 websites and a magazine publishing division.
Though the chain is not as large as Clear Channel Radio (which owns 1,200 stations) or Viacom’s Infinity Broadcasting (178), Salem’s programming is available to one-third of the U.S. population; its websites are read by some 3 million people. Salem Radio Network News division is, according to its website, "the only Christian-focused news organization with fully equipped broadcast facilities at the U.S. House, Senate, and White House manned by full-time correspondents—ensuring timely, on-the-spot coverage of breaking news...specifically created for Christian-formatted radio stations." In a move that mirrors the Republican Party’s objectives, Atsinger and Epperson have recently expanded Salem’s stable of Christian talk-show hosts—James Dobson, Randall Terry, Janet Parshall—to include conservative Jews like Prager and Michael Medved. The company is a leading outlet for Christian rock, one of the music industry’s fastest-growing segments, and is chasing after black and Latino listeners. The company was also quick to embrace iPod technology to do what evangelicals call "godcasting."
By melding business savvy, generous political giving, and an unshakable faith in their own moral righteousness, Epperson and Atsinger have built Salem into a blue-chip Wall Street company that has tapped into what Medved calls "a conservative religious counterculture" that is "far more powerful and far more significant than anything in the stupid counterculture of the 1960s." ...
Instead of opposing every important, right wing political stance espoused by Salem Radio's stooge, Michael Medved, who has declared that there should be shame associated with the unemployed's receipt of public aid, that subsidized school lunch programs should be eliminated, and that the Food Stamps program should be replaced by government warehouses distributing cheese to the hungry queued up in in waiting lines, congressman Adam Smith (D-WA), to name one democrat, regularly appears on Medved's show to either agree with his extreme points or to react to some democratic initiative, with the disclaimer, "I didn't vote for that."
As long as we stand aside while the right cons voters who sell their labor to feed and clothe their families, via the distraction of their alleged obligations associated with their devotion to "Jesus", into voting for the CNP billionaire sponsored agenda and candidates, they will continually compensate for the votes they naturally lack due to the shear numbers of subsistance level voters.
(Continuing the theme in yesterday's diary...)
We must work tirelessly to get out the message to our elected officials and to voters whose net worth and income is not in the top ten percent, that this is the consequence of class division we stand against and intend to reverse through our political organizing and fund raising activities, and not via the propaganda weapon that uses religion to hide the crisis of the gross inequity of security, wealth, and power.
http://www.pbs.org/...
Middletown I
....The rough egalitarianism of the farmland had been replaced by a two-class system
in the city. The Lynds found a business class, which worked with people
and symbols, and a working class, which worked with things. And the
Lynds found that these two groups were as different as two different
tribes. They had different values, different expectations and did not
mingle. Among the differences between the two groups was financial
security: the working class was subject to frequent layoffs with no
notice, while the business class was almost never laid off.
http://online.wsj.com/...
FEBRUARY 13, 2010
From Deal Journal, MarketBeat and Wealth Report
Unemployment? Not for the Rich
Top Decile Earners' Rate Is 3%, New Study Says; Bottom 10th Is at 31%