Nobody's Listening

That's a song title, and I can't remember whose song it is, but it perfectly describes the ruling class -- including those who exist in their little bubble in D.C. -- every time the 99% try to make themselves heard -- if they don't just have us pepper sprayed, or worse.

Via Crooks and Liars, this from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-All of Us):

The American people must make a fundamental decision. Do we continue the 40-year decline of our middle class and the growing gap between the very rich and everyone else, or do we fight for a progressive economic agenda that creates jobs, raises wages, protects the environment and provides health care for all? Are we prepared to take on the enormous economic and political power of the billionaire class, or do we continue to slide into economic and political oligarchy? These are the most important questions of our time, and how we answer them will determine the future of our country.

The long-term deterioration of the middle class, accelerated by the Wall Street crash of 2008, has not been pretty. Today, we have more wealth and income inequality than any major country on earth. We have one of the highest childhood poverty rates and we are the only country in the industrialized world which does not guarantee health care for all. We once led the world in terms of the percentage of our people who graduated college, but we are now in 12th place. Our infrastructure, once the envy of the world, is collapsing.

Real unemployment today is not 5.8 percent, it is 11.5 percent if we include those who have given up looking for work or who are working part time when they want to work full time. Youth unemployment is 18.6 percent and African-American youth unemployment is 32.6 percent.

Today, millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the median male worker earned $783 less last year than he made 41 years ago. The median woman worker made $1,337 less last year than she earned in 2007. Since 1999, the median middle-class family has seen its income go down by almost $5,000 after adjusting for inflation, now earning less than it did 25 years ago.

And, unlike right-wing Randian policy wonks (are you listening, Paul "I've got mine" Ryan?), Sanders actually lays out a plan. Click through to read it -- I suspect that, like me, you're going to find it too commonsensical to need voicing, but then, this is Washington we're dealing with.

I wish Sanders would throw his hat in the ring for 2016 -- might serve to push Hillary to the left.

And check out his website -- it's sort of inspiring.