To The Rich, From America

To protest the law requiring everyone to identify themselves honestly before voting is ridiculous. Voting is a right for citizens only, yet there are many today who would like to extend this right to foreigners for political reasons. Who want to allow illegals who are not citizens, to vote. Asking someone to show a photo ID is hardly fascist or a sign of hating democracy. It is a way of preserving citizenship and the meaning of citizenship. It is a legal requirement much as writing a check at the grocery store or showing photo ID at the entrance to private property. If you want to live in a non-photo ID world I'd advise moving to an Arabian desert or deep in an African jungle. No need to prove who you are at all.

Bravo, thanks for a finger pointing that needs to be pointed. When F.Scott Fitzgerald looked in awe at the lifestyles of the wealthy and said, "The rich aren't like you and I," Hemingway retorted, "Yeah, they've got more money." Both were true and it's still true 80 years later. Money doesn't guarantee happiness, but you don't see rich people giving it all away and going back to middle-class living. That's because everyone knows that wealth protects us from the harsh realities of life -- it affords us greater freedom of choice, better health care, better schools, and the emotional safety net of nicer homes, better food and the status of fashion, cars and great vacations. But it's time the wealthy step up to the responsibilities of their higher position in life and support the ambitions of the poor and middle class in Education, Job training and Mentoring programs, so others can learn their steps to success. We need the wealthy, those who have multiplied opportunities for so many already, to lead with the positive moral force only they can give.

One of the most insidious legacies of the coddling rich is their assault on democracy. In Indiana, their henchmen, the Republican legislature, passed a law requiring all voters to a photo ID such as a passport or a drivers license in order to vote. Supposedly the Indiana legislature fears voter fraud, but exhaustive studies conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University debunk prove that voter fraud is virtually non-existent (I invite any one to check out these reports on their website.) The Republican legislature is simply trying to restrict voting to people who can afford to buy a car or people who can afford a Mediterranean cruise. The Republican party plans to instigate similar laws in other states. The voter ID law is merely a thinly disguised version of the poll tax, but the Supreme Court, packed with reactionary justices is likely to uphold the Indiana law. The passage of the restrictive voter ID law in Indiana by the Republican governor and legislature proves that the wealthy hate democracy - They wish to replace our democratic government with a neo-fascist so-called ???Federalist??? republic.

Daniel Gross,
You've obviously never flown into St. Barths.
A Gulfstream V couldn't land on the runway at that airport! In fact, no jet could!
Regards,
Tom Levine

One of the most insidious legacies of the rich is the war in Iraq. The rich brought us George W. Bush. The entire invasion of Iraq was cooked up years before 9/11 by think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, and it???s no accident that Bush first announced to war to a gathering of this organization. Since the war, the stock portfolios of the wealthy have soared as American corporations robbed this country blind through endless amount of profiteering. Simply look at the earnings of Halliburton, or the Carlyle Group, which until recently, was closed to John Q Public. (You had to be ???invited to invest - and George Bush the first serves as one of the directors.) Neither the rich nor their children fight in Iraq or Afghanistan. You won???t find the sons of Mitt Romeny in uniform, nor the son of Newsweek???s own apologist for the rich, Robert Samuelson. Inevitably the kids who get cheated and short changed the most from society are the kids who serve. Stupidly we gave the rich a bunch of tax breaks, and for gratitude they gave us the War in Iraq. We need to take back all the tax breaks. We need to return to the tax structure of the Eisenhower years, (when top incomes paid 91% of their earnings.) Even at that rate, the rich will have enough money to pay with - and we can pay off the national debt and make the public investments this country needs to thrive.

Who does Daniel Gross think the rich are? Daddy Warbucks? Santa Claus? Yeah, the rich have spent a fortune - they???ve consumed more than their share of the world???s resources, contributed more than their share to global warming, and produced more than their share of the world???s trash. However, the jobs either get off-shored overseas or the rich import ???guest workers??? to whom they pay slave labor wages? If any jobs are available to Americans, their jobs with crummy wages, off-clock work hours, no medical insurance, and no retirement benefits. The rich have dismantled the OSHA and EPA, meaning more people get killed and injured at work, and more people get sick from the environment. They???ve profiteered from the war in Iraq - and not that rich kids never go over there to fight. They???ve squandered their millions in campaign contributions and lobbyists turning every branch of government from the presidency, to Congress, to the Supreme Court into Houses of Prostitution. They???ve also done the same for the media. Despite, Gross??? rather pathetic plea, the rich really give a rat about America. They travel in their own private jets; they live in their own gated communities. They only thing the rich love is their money - America be damned. St. Paul said, ???The love of money is the root of all evil.??? The behavior of the rich in this country has proven the truth of St. Paul???s words.

Daniel, I suspect the quieting of America's wealthiest investors and spenders isn't about some change in behavior among the uppermost tier; it's probably more due to the aging of upper-upper-middle class (nouveau-riche) Baby Boomers. They are a huge generation who disproportionately retain America???s wealth. My own parents, for example, own a $1.7 million home and have somewhere around $3 million in assets. But now that they are officially retired, they have literally stopped shopping for luxury items, and they have refrained from investing in anything riskier than Big Blue. ???We???re on a fixed income," my mother says. Nevermind that hers and my Dad???s ???fixed income??? is somewhere in the mid-sixes a year. I suspect their new retirement mode is impacting the domestic economy by at least $350,000 a year in untaken vacations, unpurchased luxury cars, electronics and clothing, and entirely too much dining in. ;-)

i USED TO BE MIDDLE CLASS, NOW I'M THE WORKING POOR............................

I think the biggest lie in America is: Everyone thinks they are Middle Class. If you are living paycheck to paycheck and have no savings you are not Middle Class. Stop living the lie.

All this neocon policies just destroy the wealth of the poor and widens the gap between social classes. It cannot result into something different than social conflict in the near future. Andr?? Gunder Frank used to call this kind of selfish burgeoisies "lumpen burgeoisie" because they are unable to foresee theor own future, their destruction by suicide... the destruction of the very environmnet so witnesses...