The Four Demands

Most of our Senators and Representatives, be they Republican or Democrat, agree with each other on a few issues that most other Americans have entirely different opinions about.


The farce now playing in the Oval Office distracts from the far more important fact of the disconnect between what the people want and what Congress delivers.


Donald and Bernie both criticized the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They both called for something better than Obamacare. They both called for re-prioritizing our trade deals. Most Americans agreed.


Are plans being drawn up to get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan? Is something better than Obamacare in the works? Are new trade deals being written? No, no and no. The majority Republican leaders don't want those kind of changes, and the minority Democratic leaders don't either.


These are not left/right or Democrat/Republican or urban/rural issues. They are issues where elected officials of all stripes are simply not doing what Americans want done.


The American people need to demand that our elected officials work for us. We should present every Senator and Congressperson with our demands and require that they respond yes or no: Are they on our side? We should make it clear we won't vote for them if they're not.


The Four Demands:
Step Back From Empire
Medicare: Once and For All
Tax Us Like It's 1965
Protectionist Trade Policies


Step Back From Empire
We have gone from trying to be the world's policeman-- already a mistake-- to being the world's bully. We have destabilized the Middle East, spent a trillion dollars doing it, and for what? We have immiserated millions there while enriching Halliburton, oil companies, arms dealers, defense contractors and mercenaries. We would not need to spend nearly so much on defense if we were protecting our borders instead of protecting transnational corporate profits. You don't have to be an isolationist to know we're doing it wrong.


Medicare: Once and For All
Universal Health Care is not Socialism; it is civilization. It is what all grown up countries do.


Tax Us Like It's 1965
Taxes on the richest and on corporations have gone down and down for fifty years. How was the economy in 1965? How were wages? Job security? Social mobility? Better! Not good enough, but better. We gave the richest and the corporations a bigger piece of the pie, and it didn't trickle down.


Protectionist Trade Policies
The idea that there is something wrong with protecting the interests of American wage earners is crazy. The idea that the good of American wage earners must take a back seat to the good of international traders is crazy. No amount of hand-waving trickle down theory makes it less crazy. Trade policies should aim to protect American wage earners first and foremost.

What's In a Name?

There's an old joke:

Q: How does a physicist milk a cow?
A: Well, first let us consider a spherical cow...

Well, a spherical wage earner wants to examine 57 different health insurance policies looking for the best deal. Gold or Silver plan? High or low deductibles? Co-pays? What if my income goes up or down?

A real wage earner (an actual human being) wants nothing of the sort, despite the economic theory that says one should. We want simplicity and security. We don't want to do complex math while considering probabilities.

Spherical wage earners are pro-free trade, because of the theoretical trickle down effect.

Actual human beings want jobs that pay a living wage.

You get the idea.