Support Needham Youth Civic Engagement!

Great project!! I urge you to contribute at least a little, to show you support these young people getting involved and engaged in the civic questions of our time!  And please forward the request to others! This comes to me by way of Stacie Shapiro: 

A group of Plugged In students recently created a video that was selected for the 2nd annual "If I Had a Trillion Dollars (IHTD)" Film Festival and have been invited to go to Washington, DC to participate in a youth leadership session on lobbying and media messaging, as well as meet with legislators on Capitol Hill to discuss federal spending priorities.

The festival is presented by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and the National Priorities Project (NPP) and encouraged youth to take a closer look at how the United States is spending our money.

The youth were asked to create a short film that expresses what they would do if they could redirect government funds away from things like war and towards projects that would help their own communities.

We are running a GoFundMe campaign to help cover the travel and lodging expenses for the group. 

Class Warfare (Wealth inequality, etc)

Mitt Romney flashing those benjamins

Also:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
World of Class Warfare - Warren Buffett vs. Wealthy Conservatives
www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

The Daily Show on Facebook

("World of Class Warfare: Warren Buffett vs. Wealthy Conservatives", Aug 18, 2011)

Distribution of Wealth

• Why the truly alarming economic trend is not income inequality. It's the Wealth Gap, Stupid | Mother Jones (2/13/2012) 
• The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office confirms that the rich have been getting richer. : CBO | Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007 (10/25/2011) 
• Young Turks covers this CBO report

From CBO report, Oct 25 2011

(chart from MoJo's "It's the Inequality, Stupid")

Growing Pie? shrinking pieces for 99%

• How the McEconomy Bombed the American Worker | MichaelMoore.com  (May 10, 2011)
• Divide and Conquer; convince you that you have to fight for an ever smaller piece of the pie.  (robert reich, "The Republican Strategy" (Feb 2011) 
• "They pit average working Americans against one another, distract attention from the almost unprecedented concentration of wealth and power at the top, and conceal Republican plans to further enlarge and entrench that wealth and power."
• ONE | Catholic bishops to US House: ‘Make the poor a top priority’  (4/14/2011)

Poverty, Income inequality...

• Corporate Profits Just Hit An All-Time High, Wages Just Hit An All-Time Low - Business Insider - (6/22/2012) http://goo.gl/yk4jh
• As Big Bank Stocks Plunge, CEOs Continue To Reap Huge Salaries | ThinkProgress (1/2/2012) 
• Bottom Line - CEOs rake in huge sums when their companies go bankrupt (1/27/2012) 
• Wall St. Record pay when regular Americans facing unemployment, stagnant wages (2/4/2011)--the study is by Wall Street Journal: $135 billion in compensation. Exec payouts = 1/3 of the total Wall St bank bailout ($417billion)
• Review: The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett | Books | The Guardian (3/13/2009)
• the life-diminishing results of valuing growth above equality in rich societies can be seen all around us. Inequality causes shorter, unhealthier and unhappier lives; it increases the rate of teenage pregnancy, violence, obesity, imprisonment and addiction; it destroys relationships between individuals born in the same society but into different classes; and its function as a driver of consumption depletes the planet's resources.
• Wilkinson, a public health researcher of 30 years' standing, has written numerous books and articles on the physical and mental effects of social differentiation. He and Pickett have compiled information from around 200 different sets of data, using reputable sources such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the World Health Organisation and the US Census, to form a bank of evidence against inequality that is impossible to deny.
• 21 CEOs With $100 Million Golden Parachutes | Mother Jones (1/18/2012) 
• Thirty Years of Unleashed Greed | Truthout (10/28/2011) 
• Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1% - Vanity Fair (5/2011) 1% of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation’s income—an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret.
• The Forgotten Truth That Conservatives Created The Welfare State Ray Medeiros/Politicus 2/2011 ( Low wages push ppl onto welfare) 
• Executive Bonuses Bounce Back - WSJ.com  (3/18/2011)
• Executive Excess 2010: CEO Pay and the Great Recession - IPS (Sept 2010)
• Executive Excess 2011: The Massive CEO Rewards for Tax Dodging - IPS (Sept 2011)
• The Rich Get Richer: CEO Bonuses Skyrocket; Worker Pay Flat | Mother Jones 3/18/2011
• War On The Poor: Minnesota Republicans Want To Bust Poor People Who Carry Cash | Crooks and Liars (3/2011)
• "250K Isn't Rich If You're A CEO But 50K is Rich If You're A Teacher":  Ray Medeiros 3/2011
• "It's the Inequality, Stupid" -MoJo 3/2011, great CHARTS AND GRAPHS abt income inequality
• Poverty Scorecard: 2010 scorecard analysis 
• "Executive Excess 2010: Exec Pay and the Great Recession", 9/2010, Institute for Policy Studies
• the CEOs who slashed their payrolls the deepest took home 42 percent more compensation than the year’s chief executive pay average for S&P 500 companies.
• American workers, by contrast, are taking home less in real weekly wages than they took home in the 1970s 
• Politifact:True: , just 400 Americans -- 400 -- have more wealth than half of all Americans combined," (Michael Moore statement in Wisconsin 3/2011)

"Redistribution of Wealth! Communist!"

• On redistribution of wealth : Does The Bible Mix Religion and Politics? - The Christian Left Blog (6/2/2011) 

There's a War on the Middle Class

• House moved to kill HAMP/Obama Mortgage Plan (CNN Money) - Mar. 29, 2011 
• Robert Reich (The Republican Strategy) 2/17/2011 
• - split the vast middle and working class – pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don’t believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class.
• How the middle class became the underclass (And how the DECLINE OF UNIONS hastens the decline of the middle class)- CNN Money Feb. 16, 2011
• Gov Walker's threat to American political stability (Huffpo, Steven Cohen, 3/2011)
• The American middle class owes its existence to the fact and threat of union organizing. That is why the attack on public workers' right to collective bargaining is an attack on the middle class
•  Michael Moore, "The Smug Wealthy Have Gone Too Far", Alternet 3/6/2011
• 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer "bailout" of 2008, now have more loot, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can't bring yourself to call that a financial coup d'état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true
• Michael Moore: We Face a Global War on the Middle Class, AlterNet 3/2011 
• "Foreclosure Follies" House Republicans have introduced bills to eliminate four federal antiforeclosure programs and replace them with — nothing - NYT Ed, 3/2011
• The American Dream is Disappearing for This Generation! - Brian Conners, 2/2011 (compares our econ. situation to Egypt)

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Men of a Certain Wage - Money Talks
www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

The Daily Show on Facebook

("Men of a Certain wage - Money Talks")

[this post was getting too long; I've split off the UNION links to its own blog post]

(related content on Unions and Wisconsin at "Middle Class Fights Back" and "It's the Economy, Stupid" posts)