Everything for Youns

Bush was critisized for his actions against Iraq and U.S. Christian Leaders of the World Council of Churches (WCC) appoligized for the U.S. Government’s foreign policy of preimentent attacks and war mongering.

But, what I find especially puzzling is that the member churches of the WCC are not the conservative hard-line right-wing religious movement in the U.S. but are the more liberal Christians.  The religious-right in the U.S. is behind the war and the Bush policies of deception, lies and death.  Kind of tells you the types of Christians that believe they have the moral high ground in this country!

After the booming 1990s when incomes and stock prices were soaring, this decade has been less of a thrill ride for most American families. The average American family’s income declines during the Bush administration!

Average incomes after adjusting for inflation actually fell from 2001 to 2004, and the growth in net worth was the weakest in a decade, the Federal Reserve reported today.

The gap between the very wealthy and other income groups widened during the period.

The top 10 percent of households saw their net worth rise by 6.1 percent to an average of $3.11 million while the bottom 25 percent suffered a decline from a net worth in which their assets equaled their liabilities in 2001 to owing $1,400 more than their total assets in 2004.

“This is the continuing story of the rich getting richer,” said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor’s in New York. “Clearly, the gains in wealth are going to the top end.”

And this is a surprise to whom?

Read more…..

Everywhere you turn on the radio or TV you’re bombarded with news from the media - but on what slant? Is the news biased and if so to which side?

There is a right-wing media, and if you look where most Americans are now getting their news, that’s where they’re getting it. According to Pew (Research Center), 30 percent of Americans now say that their primary news source is talk radio, which is 90 percent dominated by the right.

Unshackled by any meaningful oversight from the Federal Communications Commission or any sense of fairness, the right has elbowed its way into the mainstream, backed by big bucks. Twenty-two percent of Americans say their primary news source is Fox News, MSNBC or CNBC, all dominated by the right, and another 10 percent, Sinclair network, which is the most right wing of all. Sinclair also happens to be primarily Midwestern, a broadcast company whose owner makes news employees swear they won’t criticize the war in Iraq or the Bush administration.

Right-wing radio may be the most pernicious of all in the way that it sneaks its way into the workplace day after day. If one person listens, then all in earshot must, too. You hear it everywhere, in the places where people work hard for a living.

There’s good reason for to worry, nearly 50 million Americans lack health care insurance, and many times we face shrinking benefits and growing premiums. Now there’s something to worry about. Higher education? It’s slipping out of reach for many.

But on drones this great distraction from the right. It makes little distinction between Muslim extremists and loyal but liberal Americans. When Al Gore recently criticized the Bush administration for trampling on civil rights, right-wing radio accused him of treason. One can only hope that they didn’t sentence him to a hunting trip with Dick Cheney.

The message on a daily basis seems to be that it’s OK to hate, to shout other people down, to go about one’s life in an angry mood.

Perhaps more frightening is this: If this brand of thinking is now mainstream, what is next? What supplants the right at the far end of the spectrum? What will feed the monster in coming years?

The so called “Liberal Media”, where is it? I say it’s time we hear from the media on issues and concerns for Americans.