Got Influence? Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders in in a speech on March of 2007, quoted a Congressional Budget Office Report stating that the wealthiest 1 percent of the U.S. population own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. That means that those who actually produce the wealth, the bottom 90 percent, are getting a pittance compared to those who sit at the top and collect off of the laborers' production. They are like parasites who do nothing but suck wealth out of our labor. They hire lobbyists who take huge wads of cash to Washington to buy influence from those elected officials who should be representing all of us, but who really only represent the wealthiest among us. I suggest that if we sent that top 1 percent to another planet, the rest of us would be just fine without them because we are the one's who make water run, produce cars, build houses, make electricity. The workers are the ones who've always produced the wealth, so why do the top 1 percent get all of the rewards while the bottom rungs can't even pay their mortgages, food or heating and cooling bills? They get it because they are very active in our government while the masses are not. I'll bet most Americans don't even know who their representatives are. The rich get what they pay for and we get what we deserve for being passive bystanders who are ignorant of the actions of our government. But we've got something they never will, numbers. United we can overcome any anti-labor laws that top 1 percent put on us. Call or write to your representatives (congressional switchboard, 800-828-0498) and tell them what you want! The rich do, so should you. Shelley Thoppil ______________________________________________________________________________ 1/16/2007 After 12 Years, Congress shows signs of life The Democrats have been in power for a total of three days as of this writing. I already hear complaints from the other side of partisanship. But let’s look at what the Democrats propose and what the Republican Congress wouldn’t even take up for the past 12 years: Raising the minimum wage to $7.50 an hour. There has been no increase in the minimum wage in nine years, yet the Congress has given themselves $30,000 in raises in that same time period. Putting the Brakes on legal bribery in the form of expensive gifts, meals, and corporate jets. While stopping these giveaways is important, but the worst crime is the bribery of unlimited campaign contributions. Public financing of our representatives is the only way to get them out of the pockets of big business and into the true representation of the public. The Republicans started the “K Street Project” that would funnel money directly into Republican campaigns. Now the Republicans are crying that they don’t want to give up their corporate jets. Tough. They are public servants and they should act as such. The Democrats are finally enacting the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. Even though the commission was a bipartisan committee, the Republicans enacted few of it’s recommendations because it would hurt their corporate buddies. If a law might cost their donors a few bucks to keep Americans safer, forget it. But Democrats will do what the bipartisan commission said would help keep us safe. There is no cure-all that will protect us from a nut job on a plane with a plastic knif3e, but these suggestions, like scanning all incoming freight at our ports for nuclear materials, are a great first step in keeping the worst kind of attack from happening. Shelley Thoppil _____________________________________________________________________________ It's a New Day A wave replaced six Republican incumbents and no Democratic ones. Start watching CSPAN once the new Congress takes over oversight on spending to see how the Republican Congress, for the past 12 years, has wasted and misused our tax dollars. The Republicans wouldn't allow hearings on the war in Iraq because they knew we were lied into it, intentionally. This war is about control of the natural resources in the Middle East, with the icing of enriching the war profiteers: Bechtel, Haliburton, Parsons, Kellog Brown and Root, and the Carlisle Group. Oil, insurance, pharmaceuticals and banking/finance industries have reaped record-breaking profits by giving immoral amounts of money to Republican candidates who write laws that benefit them while harming us. They insist that we will have to privatize Social Security in order to meet our obligations to our elderly and disabled. If we weren't paying trillions to war profiteers and subsidizing the other industries I mentioned, we'd be solvent forever. Privatizing means the corporation makes the greatest profit while giving the least in services allowable by law. Ain't gonna happen now. Now we will become secure by rolling back the "welfare" we've given to the richest and taking the burden off of the middle and lower classes, where it is now. We do all the work, pay all the taxes, fight all the wars -- and get less and less every year for it. Shelley Thoppil ____________________________________________________________________