With a headline like ours today, you may think that there's nothing to talk about - when that is actually the furthest thing from our minds.
In fact, there are such a huge number of topics we'd like to discuss, we're not sure where to start.
For starters, congrats go out to multiple media people we know - including one of our editors, Deb. She is now the Blog Director for the Washington, DC Young Republicans and their new website 'GOProckstars.com'. We also have to give congratulations to Mr. Keith Olbermann and many of his staff members, who will be moving soon to CurrentTV for a new and improved version of Keith's show.
Unfortunately, all we can link to is preliminary announcements about these two items, since neither website actually exists at this time.
We'd thought about writing a commentary on the slow but steady rise in the price of gasoline in the U.S. and the fact that no one is talking about it. However, we couldn't find much serious recent journalism on the subject other than this stub article from the LA Times - simultaneously proving our point, while giving us not much to address on that subject. That being said, today's Daily Felltoon pretty much says all that needs to be said about that topic.
We could discuss how much American families and businesses are paying in taxes - except that, for the third year in a row, Americans are paying less in federal taxes than they did under the Bush administration. In fact, as a share of the nation's economy, this is the lowest proportional tax rate for most Americans in over sixty years.
In theory, we could alter that idea slightly and talk about changes in tax rates, and eliminating loopholes, like the President proposed during the State of the Union Address. Those changes could help grow our economy and would actually mean more money in Federal coffers, even though Americans would be paying lower actual rates. However, we hit on that subject yesterday, when we covered the President's Monday address to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. As he said then, the solution to getting out of this economic hole is simple: American businesses must hire Americans and invest in America to grow the nation's economy.
We could even discuss some of the responses that we received from you, commenting on Tuesday's Daily Felltoon edition, regarding unions and corporations working together. Unfortunately, more than one response kept attempting to equate hearsay with facts - which are two entirely different things.
With many of the topics we thought about writing on today, there simply aren't enough legitimate sources for us to link to - or there are too many sources that discuss topics in a jargon inaccessible to most people.
Every once in a while, we have to remind our readers of the difference between speculation, rumor, hearsay, and opinion - and well-supported, fact-based, commentary.
We provide the latter here, in both written and visual form.
We could provide you with an absence of substantive, meaningful content, and just use our pixels to give you hearsay or crude drawings with no deeper meaning - but you can get that from plenty of other media sources, both print and electronic.
Tomorrow, we'll go back to doing what we always do: providing direct, thought provoking, fact-based, well-written and drawn content. For those who may not have enjoyed our exercise in irony today, we're sorry if we disappointed you.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
It Takes A Union...
Modern scientists say that hypothetically, there are a few unifying mathematical theories that - if ever proven to be true - would make some of our wildest possibilities reality. Like being in two places at one time.
While some people focus on the "theory" part of that fantastical description, it's often been our opinion that the "union" part of that explanation is really where the power lies.
With that in mind, it's easy to see why some of our staff has been perplexed for quite a while, now, as to why large numbers of Americans still don't seem to see the potential power in large numbers of people coming together for a common purpose - like securing decent wages for workers who give an honest day's work.
In fact, in many corners of the country, opinions and attitudes surrounding unions are still as unattractive as avocado gold appliances and shag carpeting straight out of the 1970's. Unions have matured and changed and grown since the days when they had much more clout - even if the average wage levels of most American workers hasn't.
Unions aren't like the characters portrayed in the movie "Hoffa" anymore, and haven't been for a long time - much longer than the lifespans of most of our staff. In short, unions are merely the flip side of the economic coin. Unions can be just as beneficial as corporations (More so, if you're not inclined to subscribe to the fantasy that the company will take care of the best interests of its workers first).
President Obama made his point - that what's good for American labor interests is also good for American business - while he was delivering a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Monday. What surprised us more was that this was an opportunity to speak that the Chamber had offered to him to give to their members.
The President didn't let this opportunity go to waste.
He hit corporations and business leaders with multiple truths during his speech on Monday. And while he may not have been as antagonistic as FDR, or as direct as Kennedy, his message came across just as clearly to many in the audience: the era where corporations can do whatever the hell they want at the expense of their workers and the communities they reside in, is over.
The President even spoke of how the union (there's that word again) between the government and business could be powerful and beneficial to all groups - workers, corporations, and government - so long as everyone takes care of their collective responsibilities.
Unfortunately in some states like Nebraska, unions have been treated so poorly, for so long - and have allowed themselves to be treated poorly - that their influence has weakened considerably.
Still, it now appears that even in states like Nebraska, unions are beginning to truly see a resurgence - and we welcome that balance.
As the President himself said in front of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Monday, without American labor - specifically American workers - American business won't get ahead in their competition with the rest of world.
It will take all of us, working together, for the benefit of everyone, to bring America out of the economic nightmare we've been having to live with these last few years.
While some people focus on the "theory" part of that fantastical description, it's often been our opinion that the "union" part of that explanation is really where the power lies.
With that in mind, it's easy to see why some of our staff has been perplexed for quite a while, now, as to why large numbers of Americans still don't seem to see the potential power in large numbers of people coming together for a common purpose - like securing decent wages for workers who give an honest day's work.
In fact, in many corners of the country, opinions and attitudes surrounding unions are still as unattractive as avocado gold appliances and shag carpeting straight out of the 1970's. Unions have matured and changed and grown since the days when they had much more clout - even if the average wage levels of most American workers hasn't.
Unions aren't like the characters portrayed in the movie "Hoffa" anymore, and haven't been for a long time - much longer than the lifespans of most of our staff. In short, unions are merely the flip side of the economic coin. Unions can be just as beneficial as corporations (More so, if you're not inclined to subscribe to the fantasy that the company will take care of the best interests of its workers first).
President Obama made his point - that what's good for American labor interests is also good for American business - while he was delivering a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Monday. What surprised us more was that this was an opportunity to speak that the Chamber had offered to him to give to their members.
The President didn't let this opportunity go to waste.
He hit corporations and business leaders with multiple truths during his speech on Monday. And while he may not have been as antagonistic as FDR, or as direct as Kennedy, his message came across just as clearly to many in the audience: the era where corporations can do whatever the hell they want at the expense of their workers and the communities they reside in, is over.
The President even spoke of how the union (there's that word again) between the government and business could be powerful and beneficial to all groups - workers, corporations, and government - so long as everyone takes care of their collective responsibilities.
Unfortunately in some states like Nebraska, unions have been treated so poorly, for so long - and have allowed themselves to be treated poorly - that their influence has weakened considerably.
Still, it now appears that even in states like Nebraska, unions are beginning to truly see a resurgence - and we welcome that balance.
As the President himself said in front of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Monday, without American labor - specifically American workers - American business won't get ahead in their competition with the rest of world.
It will take all of us, working together, for the benefit of everyone, to bring America out of the economic nightmare we've been having to live with these last few years.
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