Bad Deeds for 11-1-2010

 

Top 1 Percent of Americans Reaped Two-Thirds of Income Gains in Last Economic Expansion (and you got nothing!) – If you are in the bottom 80 percent of American households, you’ve gained essentially no economic ground in the past three decades. Those of you lucky enough to be in the top 20 percent ($100,000+) might be heartened by the trajectory of the red line on the chart shown here—but sorry: The vast majority of those gains have actually gone to the top 1 percent (average income: $1.9 million). And though the chart doesn’t show this because the line would run off the page, if you’re in the tippy-top 0.1 percent, your gains make the merely filthy rich look like chumps.

 

Breitbart to Be “Election Expert” on ABC – Usually when you are a pundit who is caught lying and falsifying information, you can’t get hired again (at least, not by any place other than Fox News). So needless to say, there is a lot of anger around the news that ABC News has decided to hire Andrew Breitbart, the man who purposefully edited tapes in order to force Obama administration official Shirley Sherrod out of her job by claiming she was a racist, to do election day coverage for them. And a great deal of that anger is coming from the journalists at ABC itself, who apparently were not informed this would be occurring. Sign the petition to ABC at the link.

 

A Bad Deed Does Not Have to be Followed by Another Bad Deed – The following is a letter from stomping victim. Lauren Valle to her stomper, Rand Paul volunteer Tim Profitt:

Mr. Profitt, You have asked that I apologize to you. Perhaps this is not the apology that you are looking for, but I do have some things to say.

I have been called a progressive, a liberal, a professional agitator. You have been called a conservative, a Republican, a member of the Tea Party movement. Fundamentally and most importantly, you and I are both human beings. We are also both American citizens. These two facts, to me, are far more meaningful than the multitude of labels that we carry. And if these two facts are true then it means we are on the same team.

I have not been for one moment angry with you and your actions. Instead I feel thoroughly devastated. It is evident that your physical assault on me is symptomatic of the crisis that this country is struggling through. And it seems that I will heal from my injuries long before this country can work through our separation. Only when we decide let go of our hate, our violence and our aggression will we be able to communicate to each other about the issues that divide us. Right now, we are not communicating, we are stomping on each other. No one can ever win, no one can ever be heard, with violence.

You and I, as fellow citizens, and we, as a country, have a choice. Either we choose to continue the cycle of inflicting violence upon each other, screaming at each other, insulting each other and putting one another down or we and find a way to sit down and start listening to each other. We’ll see how far we get. We are all viciously and vociferously feeding a fire that will only burn us down together. We must reach inside ourselves and make space for each other. We must forgive each other. We must believe in our capacity for transformation. The moment we choose compassion and reconciliation is the moment that we will begin to move toward freedom. There is no other way.

I believe that you should be held accountable for your actions but I also recognize the incredibly negative impact that the consequences must be having on your life, and I wish you all the best as you yourself heal from this. Violence hurts everyone.

Regards,

Jim