Shasta County Doom and Gloom Number One

This morning, true to form, your paper hit us with the usual 2^nd or 3^rd page Associated Press article “Consumer Confidence Sinks”, to make sure it sinks so conservatives can win in 2010. Then, on the opinion page the usual Sowell blather.

And the Letters to the Editor proclaim that Shasta County really isn’t unhappy, unhealthy or broke.

But we are. And we are because of the right wing philosophy that has dominated California since Reagan. We were sold a bill of goods that the New Deal was wrong, that government was bad, and that tax cuts to stimulate the economy were the ONLY WAY to prosperity. More competition, unleash the free market while giving more to the rich and everything will be better. It did not work!

1. The middle class has been devastated. Before 1980 a single income in a family could provide. Now, if you can get them, multiple low paying jobs for both marriage partners are the norm.
2. Our health care system ranks below ALL the developed nations on earth. If you are rich (a common theme today) you get the best, if you aren’t, forget it.
3. Income disparity is the worst since the 20s. Tax cuts have greatly benefited the top 1%, the rest of us are getting poorer. The Middle Class is disappearing.
4. The prisons in California have become a monster, gobbling up resources and not rehabilitating. We incarcerate more than Russia! We produce criminals now, not products.
5. Our schools, from K-16 have been reduced to second class status. Prop 13 (anyone ever wonder about the luck in this?) by shifting funding from more stable sources, has tied educational funding to the mercurial state budget that tax cuts, not spending, has destroyed. The 2/3 rule of Prop 13 tied state government in knots. (Another conservative brainstorm).
6. And now, some radical, treasonous americans (they don’t deserve capital letters) even one congressman condone a terrorist who flew his plane into a building to protest government. Some of these same people erected flags to memorialize thousands who were killed in a similar terrorist attack; what teasonous hypocracy! That’s right, to advocate the violent overthrow of the government in the United States is TREASON; check any loyalty oath we all signed over the past sixty years. The next time some idiot talks about violently destroying our government, remind them they are committing treason.

It didn’t work. It doesn’t work. It won’t work. Sowell and others are lying to you. Turn off the right wing talk, shake your head, and look at the history of the past fifty years. You are getting screwed, and many of you are advocating the very philosophy that causes your pain, has stolen your jobs, and ruined your futures.

Finally, Sowell tries to “con” us into believing that Wall Street isn’t any more greedy than anyone else. What? How about the Enron debacle? How about the bankers of Wall Street whose bonuses rose 17% in 2009! How about Blue Cross, who right now are trying to foist a 39% rate increase on us while reaping record profits?