181 Comments

I'm watching from another country and what's happening in the US is absolutely terrifying. I'm watching the same progression that Germany went through in the 30's, right down to the brown shirt action with the proud boys, boogaloo boys and too many other conservative groups. The GOP is running on bare faced lies and they have created their own Suicide Spreaders to keep a worldwide pandemic going ina country with free access to vaccines.

If you're not scared 💩less about the elimination of voting in red States, again, you should be. This is right out of the fascists playbook, right down to the brown shirts threatening the few voters they allow.

Y'all have a choice, either the current Gov't rejects corporate cash and actually does something now or start practicing your Bellamy salute because "the new nazis" will have won and have the largest military ever assembled.

We know how that played out in Europe. 😬

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I agree with most of what you say. I have a friend who grew up in 30s Germany, and he says it's the same process. But, when you suggest that the "current Gov't rejects corporate cash" you hit upon the deepest problem. Right now the system is refined to the point where any politician who rejects corporate cash does not win. So, what is the solution?

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That isn't so easy. Both parties are being paid by the same donors and the only candidates that are trustworthy are the ones who are categorically rejecting all corporate, PAC and billionaire donations and that's like 2 Senators and the justice Democrats in the house.

If they take corporate cash they serve corporations.

If they take dark money, they serve dark money.

When candidates like Ed Markey and OAC rin on small donations and win, the voters are represented, not the lobbyists.

It's just that simple.

..and the current president was known as the Senator from MBNA🤦🏿‍♂️🤦‍♂️ while the speaker of the house got the position by bringing in the most cash from companies and billionaires.

The vote blocking in red states is the single biggest threat to the United States since WW2 and that's no joke.

They even have their own Aryan legend with the confederacy where everyone was "happy" and minorities knew their place, in the fields. 🤦🏿‍♂️🤦‍♂️

It's frickin horrifying.

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You have just completed my argument of why there is NO HOPE for America at this point in time. We have two kinds of leadership: Our Political System and the Never Ending Military Complex, both of which are owned by Corporate America!!!

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Though elsewhere I’ve recounted sound arguments, in my view, that justify why I am in no way optimistic about America, nor about world affairs overall, still, I prevail upon all of us to remain hopeful if for no other reason than to stay in the fight.

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Barbara, that is enough of a reason for me to remain somewhat optimistic.

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Linda—I greatly appreciated hearing from you. If ever someone asks why I persist despite such pervasive and decadent moral and cultural decay, I will recall our exchange. B

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It is not just the US, but we (the US) are in the biggest mess ever and most people don't care or pay attention. But corporations worldwide have far to much money and control in the way the world works. Governments are powerless against these companies--they do what they want with minimal repercussions. What also gets me is how the US allowed so many companies to do business in China, providing them with the know-how to compete with us. In the Cold War with Russia, no one would have set up shop in Russia to make high-tech products, yet here we are essentially in a Cold War with China providing them with our valuable trade secrets. Who bought of who to let this situation happen?

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I'm hearing this exact same msg from my friends who live outside the US. They are further shocked that it is being allowed to happen here. We have never faced this before, and I'm afraid we do not have a mechanism in place to stop it. One thing kept this from happening in the past - a well informed fact based citizenry - we no longer have that here.

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Well said.

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Term limits would give the corporate political consumers a much shorter connection. The would spend 4 or 8 years accessing their commodity till he or she disappeared. Then they would have to court another just like them. Term limits would really upset the rhythm,

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Well said all around. I'm 70. Grew up in South Philadelphia (a 2 streeter). My mom was a waitress at The Melrose most of my life. Neighbors used to have pride in their property, modest as it was, and watch out for each other and each other's children. But hopelessness and a loss of self-worth have made this a dog eat dog country. There has been no forward progress in decades. I fear we are becoming a society of 'every man for himself'. We are being broken into tribes, and it is absolutely intentional. I'm hanging onto hope that the young in this country and around the world will re-evaluate and work towards and kinder, gentler and more equitable civilization.

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Yes I agree with you (& am one year older!). We have similar problems in the now disUnited Kingdom, with the right wing Conservative government reminding me of the Republicans in the United States. They & another small right wing party, UKIP, caused & are responsible for wanting Brexit (which was a very big mistake to leave Europe), a terrible rise in xenophobia and the cut to all public services including the NHS (the National Health Service), which is gradually being privatised!

I can understand why Scotland wants to become independent of the UK & could eventually see Northern Ireland & Ireland being one United Ireland. Then possibly being joined by Wales to form their own Celtic Union to be part of Europe again. I can but hope!

Thankyou for your comment Kathleen Burger.

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I'm so sorry. Seems that many countries now have been taken over by right wing governments only interested in profits and division. I'm shocked to hear that your NHS is being under attack.

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I absolutely agree. The far right and corporate moguls use morality as a tool for self interest. The corporations pad the pockets of willing politicians to enact laws that protect them and increase profits. The politicians use it to divide and conquer to amass power. I just read Wisconsin Senate to lower the work age to 14 to get more workers. Rather than increase hourly wages they can keep them low by employing kids to do the jobs. They'll use children to maintain and increase profits, they have no morality. Time to call them all out.

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I heard this story too. What monsters these republicans are! I also just watched a news story about how military humvees are being improved. Trillions on wars that we haven’t won since WWII…but helping people? Where will we get the money? I hope the republican party is completely dismantled after this lunacy.

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And, let's not forget that they also made a law that children 14 and above are not guaranteed the minimum wage as in previous times, since they are children, they will not get full minimum wage. I think it's only 3/4s of the minimum wage.

The 1996 Amendments to the FLSA allow employers to pay a youth minimum wage of not less than $4.25 an hour to employees who are under 20 years of age during the first 90 consecutive calendar days after initial employment. The law contains certain protections for employees that prohibit employers from displacing any employee in order to hire someone at the youth minimum wage. This fact sheet provides general answers to questions that may arise about the youth wage provisions.

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Unfortunately that's true. Called the "Opportunity" wage of $4.25 for the first 90 days. Hopefully parents will step in and not allow this exploitation of their children.

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I have watched with dismay as the Right has corrupted the language we use t speak about this: ie, an immoral "Moral Majority", Insurrectionists calling themselves "Patriots", and on and on. Orwell and Huxley wrote metaphors to warn us about the corruption of language but we didn't listen. Now, when we need to fight back, our language, the tool we need to fight, has been perverted, corrupted.

When scuba divers forget which way is up, they die. That's how I feel about us right now. Which way indeed is up? I think I know, but the majority of my fellow citizens appear to be confused. Scuba divers just have to watch the bubbles to see which way is up to survive. But what if the bubbles can no longer be trusted ?

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Bob, many are confused -- which is why I urge you (and others) to speak out clearly and forcefully about public morality and the common good.

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I'm going to write my next article about public morality and the common good.

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I totally agree. No matter how futile you think it is to speak up and out, do it anyway. By not saying anything , you are tacitly agreeing with with whatever ill is going down. This is why I think we must keep hammering our legislators to get to the bottom of what went down on January 6th. I absolutely think Donald Trump and the others who were in on this coup must be held accountable here. To have Republicans say that this was just a "tourist" thing is an insult to the millions of eyes and ears who witnessed the horrifying events of that day.

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When it comes to commenting on the highest level of morality, we should listen to one of our founding fathers, Thomas Paine: "The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion."

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Oct 26, 2021Liked by Robert Reich

Thank you for the succinct message, today. One letter at a time, I am working on taking my life back. I will do what I can for democracy.

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author

Good!!

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It's terrifying! Our lawmakers/representatives definably are not representing what the majority of Americans want...they are in politics for personal gain. I'm ashamed of my government.

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sooo true

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The lack of public morality is not a new thing. It first had its major start back in 1981 when Reagan became president and became so popular with the white working class even though his tax cuts for the wealthy didn't help them and many of them are still convinced they did. It was back then the rich first started to get their stranglehold on the country and it has grown progressively worse. Now in the Democratic party they even have Manchin and Sinema to do their bidding.

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Yes. This steep slope of decline was accelerated by Reagn.

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Everyone blames Reagan but I believe this downfall of Democracy lies within the Bush family. Samuel Bush, during WWI was in charge of munitions and working with the munitions companies which earned unprecedented wealth. Sound familiar? Prescott Bush, his son, was a Wall Street investor, a Senator from Connecticut for 12 years and only his son George HW, went into oil, whereas his other sons joined him on Wall Street. This has been a Wall Street takeover of Democracy.

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Well done, Mr. Reich.

Believe me, this topic also concerns European communities and certain officials of European countries.

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I wholeheartedly agree, I was personally offended when in the past they pronounced their supposed moral majority sloganeering. In fact, whenever they would claim their moral majority I would think or say to myself "Who the hell are you to tell me I am not moral." Mind you pushing this supposed empty saying while doing all the things that you mentioned and more or worse. In fact the juxtaposition of these false moral majority stances were/are a mere smoke screen leading to why we are where we are at in our country today. Including the perversion of the constitutional separation of church and state leading to the inserection. While Phyllis Schaply was roaming all over the country/world asspousing her holier than thou talking points one of which was women staying home with family she herself was never home doing her little Miss homemaker schict but loved telling others how to be one. I saw right through their/her bogus proclamations and nobody tells me how to be a mother, if I chose to stay home or not or how to be a family especially since she was being promoted and well paid to push her/their agenda and I was changing diapers, getting spit up on, never getting any sleep and everything else that comes with rearing children and not getting paid. I've done both and believe me working outside the home is easier. Mind you I will not even begin to discuss how all their moral majority crap was also being spewd while Dennis Hastert was doing what he did and being covered up by the same GOP supposed moral majority party also or all of the other things done of which are to many to mention on this forum. My point being is that all their phony moral majority holier than thou is nothing more than smoke and mirrors propaganda and if you don't know that by now you never will. Please do so though and quickly because not only their continual moral b.s. but more importantly their policies will be even more harmful to yourselves and our country.

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I love the way you write. Well said!

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Thank you so much as I do you also, great minds must think alike. 😊

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What has been done is amoral, unconstitutional/illegal, immoral. The biggest problem is allowing utterly unqualified/criminal people to be seated in congress. We will not make much progress unless we change our entire election system. And we must make federal election laws uniform across all states.

This is the danger of negotiating and trying to seek middle ground where there should be none. Compromising has turned into a word that means give-in to right wing support of the wealthy & corporate rule.

We have rot in congress, police forces, etc. It’s far harder to get them out than keep them out.

As a majority, the Dems keep losing presidential elections even though we win the popular vote.

We need a lot of changes, we cannot start this until we show the world people are going to be held accountable for these outrageous actions.

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That is a key fact. We need to see the insurrectionists get penalties and even jail time. Or if they see civil penalties, go bankrupt and live in someone's basement. There were statements I overheard on TV that some congress persons are actually talking about expelling certain members because evidence shows that they were involved with the planning of Jan 6th. And a civil trial of the Charlotte Hate march is coming in the next few weeks. four years later. They are already crying that they are broke from lawyer's fees. A good deterrence for would be future bullies, I hope. Wouldn't it be nice to see these dark clouds start to move on?

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Seeing the proper punishment is the only way forward. The big honchos need to be severely punished as an example so that this never happens again. They’re only going after small potatoes now. And I think waiting until they collect even more overwhelming evidence, allows these nut cases to keep grouping and keep spreading these lies. A complete danger to society. It is beyond frightening and shocking to see just how vile the republican party is.

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I agree! Give them enough rope to hang themselves! There are mountains of evidence. And now witnesses coming forward. they are a menace!

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In the current state of noise on the internet - I feel powerless and insignificant.

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You are not powerless or insignificant. You have a voice. Share the best of it, like good seeds, and it will travel/grow. I 'use' the best - i.e. Robert Reich, Bernie Sanders and take the most meaningful articles/posts, daily, and share away. Many of my posts have been shared dozens of times, a few hundreds of times. And every once in awhile a receive a friend request from someone moved by my words - that are not mine, and I always give credit where it's due. At a class reunion, a friend said, "I may not respond to your posts, but I read them and agree with you". You do/can make a difference! It's like giving blood. One pint may not seem to make much of a difference, but each one adds up. Ley your/our words add up and give back to our society.

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I have had similar experiences on FB threads. I make a comment and someone likes it and after awhile I see the thought repeated like flowers blooming. People who were bashing boomers are repeating that it is a waste of precious time to do that. We need to stop working for those who like to see us work against each other. They talk about taking positive steps and for a few comments down the thread it becomes more positive with fewer negative remarks. It is healing to read these. People want hope.

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Thank you. I do what I can, wish I could do more.

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I don’t know that you can separate public and private morals. They seem to grow from each other. What needs to be separate are actual morals from the desire to control others. The anti abortion laws have nothing to do with a moral stance. Coming from a heavily Quaker background, I have had to deal with the issue of pacifism my whole life. A moral stance against abortion would include concern for the mother and baby, and would be part of a wider concern including opposition to war, the death penalty, etc. Singling out a desire to control women is not a moral stance, it is simply a desire to control.

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Respectfully, I disagree. When you accept a position in our government, you are to represent ALL of your constituents, not only yourself and your personal financial gains. You can understand everyone is not a Christian. The far right wing is trying to envoke Christian defined morality on ALL people. Separation of church and state is in the constitution for just this reason.

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Indeed, I see The religious right in the southern states supporting Donald Trump's hand picked candidates and wonder at their twisted sense of 'morality'. Did they not see the many instances of scandalous behavior (grabbing by the p#$%y), dishonesty, the hour long phone call pushing an election official to 'find' votes and on and on. 'I could shoot somebody on main street and get away with it'. What morality? He is photographed holding a bible surrounded by clergy laying hands on him. Like it matters how many flags surround him as a measure of his patriotism! The 'faithful' misplace their 'faith', and don't know what morality is. But separation of church and state is in the Constitution. Faith, blind or not has nothing to do with governing.

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Of course the church and state should be separate. Perhaps I was not clear. I was not suggesting that every politician should hold my moral stance. I would suggest that what we have now is politicians with no actual moral stances but a deep desire to control and remain in power. This leads to gross inconsistencies such as anti abortion laws, invoked in the idea of the sanctity of human life, in a country with the largest military in the world. What the far right invokes is not Christian morality, it is not morality at all. No politician actually represents everyone. If they did, they would not take a position on anything, because some constituent would disagree. It is at best, a balance of interests.

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I said represent the majority...not every individual...great response, respectfully accepted.

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Thank you! Love the conversation!

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The founding fathers must have had an inkling that public morality would be tested at the highest levels of state and national governance. They inserted Section 3 into the Fourteenth Amendment to the U S Constitution providing for lifetime bans from holding office for those found to be involved or supporting insurrection and rebellion.

The application of this punishment for ALL those proved to be part of the January 6, 2021 catastrophe at the U S Capitol should go a long way to encourage a return to public morality.

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Gary, it seems as if Attorney General Merrick Garland is reluctant to impanel a grand jury to examine whether Donald Trump engaged in a criminal conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States. I can understand that reluctance in terms of further dividing the country and making Trump a martyr in the eyes of some of his followers. But I disagree with it. Unless or until he and other leaders of that conspiracy are held accountable, we stand a good chance of having another attempted coup -- perhaps in 2024 when and if Trump runs again. Another advantage of a criminal indictment and decision would be to invoke Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, so that Trump cannot run again.

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Agree. Additionally, recently, there was an article in the Washington Post about Trump supporters opposing Biden with vitriol and profound disrespect. There are also the enraged parents who disrupt school board meetings and threaten school board members and teachers with violence for just doing their jobs. In my state, they are egged on by our state attorney general. Trump and his enablers, along with social media, have made uncivil behavior, including violence and threats thereof acceptable to many. This is also immoral.

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Trump is one of the worst examples of a human being that there is. And the fact that the republican party backs him tells us everything we need to know.

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It's all about their addiction to more and more money, no matter the cost.

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What is happening is assault. anyone doing these things that are recorded and seen on media would have been stopped and charged and placed in custody. It's hard for me to believe how lawless things are now! It is not free speech to verbally abuse someone and invade her or his space because they have their child wearing a mask to prevent exposure to a deadly disease. And there they are with their cell phones threatening to report the offending parent to the police for child abuse! It's the Marjorie Taylor Green world!

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I only hope that discussion of public policy in moral terms leads to more USians recognizing how horrific GOP aims and means and techniques are. :(

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Unfortunately, the GOP has made life so horrific that people dying outside hospitals is considered normal. Being bankrupted by medical bills is normal, being crushed by student loans because they can't be discharged in bankruptcy is normal and an entire news network is owned by an Australian to literally spread lies and propaganda for billionaires to ensure the hate and fear of "the other" will never go away while Facebook propagates theses lies b/c it makes them more money than the truth.🤦🏿‍♂️🤦‍♂️

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That is certainly true.

But I think it's also the case that people are successfully distracted from one of those things, let alone the vast total. Have been taught to make a virtue of la-la-laing their way past all that in the name of good manners or "politics is Bad" or whatever.

And that's what I'm hoping can be ended, and with attention, profound and patient work toward making a sustainable and equitable world engaged. (Hoping. Not sanguine.)

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I really do hope that you can. The cult of cash is more than willing to literally destroy the planet if there's a minuscule chance they'll become even richer before the end.

Jimmy Carter has solar panels on the white house and their removal and destruction was Reagan's first act as president after being purchased into power by billionaires and corporations.

It's like all the little prks that you knew in high school took over the Gov't and proceeded to bend the entire nation over a pool table because they could.

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Boy, that is exactly how it feels.

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I've been watching US politicians for a while and there used to be some level of morality and justice but now, it's just pure greed for the majority to the point we know the individual names of those who aren't completely d'owned, body and soul.

Sinema is just the most honest example of just how badly SCOTUS has opened the doors for actual fascism to take control.

Of course, the last 3 appointments were made with millions in dark money and the bench boofer had all his debts erased magically overnight. That was 7 figures.🤦‍♂️🤦🏿‍♂️

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