So no one speaks for the common man nowadays ?

[EVDebs]

That seemed the case even in Eugene V. Deb's day, from 1900 to 1920, also. Back then, when all seemed like the business leaders all knew what they were doing, it was easy to dismiss the concerns of those less fortunate.

""On Christmas Day 1921, President Warren G. Harding, a Republican, freed Debs and 23 other prisoners of conscience. Debs' socialist movement was now dead, the victim of government repression and internal factional fighting between opponents and supporters of the new Bolshevik regime in Russia. But the socialist ideal lived on, inspiring a new generation of social reformers in the 1930s who, under the banner of the New Deal, enacted most of the programs and policies called for in the Socialist Party platform of 1912. It was not the socialist commonwealth, but it was a genuine achievement—one for which Debs and his followers legitimately could claim some credit."" from http://www.aflcio.org/aboutaflcio/history/history/debs.cfm

But we know from the business cycle that it is really a roller coaster, and now we are in a down cycle. Debs was considered a "loser", but his platform of 1912 was the basis for political wins for decades afterwards. Current Dems should take heart from this and look to progressive ideas while they can...

LBJ once said "People are good. What the average folks want is very simple: peace, a roof over their heads, food on their tables, milk for their babies, a good job at good wages, a doctor when they need him, and education for their kids, a little something to live on when they're old, and a nice funeral when they die." Debs and the idealistic socialists knew this too.

If Dems and their progressive allies would highlight the needs of the common average joe, they'd become an unbeatable political force. Why just today in the back pages 'Q and A' segment there is a piece on "60% of US firms pay no income taxes", which went on to cite a GAO study (which said the numbers were even higher than that). Joe Sixpack knows, or should be made aware, that those avoided taxes are made up by HIM and everyone else just like him.

Where are these corporations responsibilities ? Do Dems support the corporations or us ?

[Dover]

1. What constitutes "common"? n/t

[salvorhardin]

2. I'd say 'common'

would refer to anyone who is not of the investor class (those whose income is realized either solely or primarily through dividend checks); i.e. the majority of all Americans.

I think I understand what you're getting at though... 'common' has a negative connotation but that's a connotation that has been assigned to the term by the investor class. Common man (common person to modernize it) though is a term that I feel should be reclaimed.

[EVDebs]

5. Read "Perfectly Legal" by David Cay Johnston and also his

article from today's paper, which should be 'required reading' for DUers:

Stroke the rich
IRS has become a subsidy system for super-wealthy Americans IRS winks at rich deadbeats
David Cay Johnston

Sunday, April 11, 2004

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/04/11/INGV560VO41.DTL

Common man, my friend, is anyone nowadays making less than $3 million annually. That is the cutoff point on the Bush tax cut giveaway program for subsidizing the super rich.

Also, you can get clues to this in Robert Service's poem "The Ordinary Man" http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Robert_William_Service/5405

[ElectricIron Sweeney]

3. No; but I am prepared to mumble.

[punpirate]

4. I think there are a few Dems in Congress...

... who would embrace a less business-oriented government--the problem is that there just aren't that many.

The major lesson of the `30s was not that Roosevelt implemented many of Debs' desired reforms--it was that unrestrained capitalism damned near destroyed the country, and it took a major, years-long depression to convince the public that some drastic changes were necessary. That lesson should be foremost in every Democrat's mind, and yet, it's not.

The favorite phrase of the pundits in the `80s, the `90s and now is "everything's different now," as if that were some sort of talisman to ward off disaster. Nope, it's not that different. What is called "consumerism" today is just a gussied-up way of saying "The Roaring Twenties," for example.

It's going to take a major crash for people to come to their senses about Republicans and what has been seventy years of class warfare on their part. As Molly Ivins says, "there is class warfare in this country, and the upper class is winning."

There are a lot of Democrats in Congress right now who aren't willing to admit that, because that upper class bought their campaigns....

Cheers.