A must read -

But we are better off than many: think of the ordinary folks working in coffee shops living on tips who will have no customers if the government shuts down. Even if the government workers get back pay after the shutdown ends, they have lost that income forever.

This country is at serious risk. Our GINI coefficient, indicating our economic inequality, is going up even as we sit here. The stock market may have recovered, but people still lack jobs, and many jobs that exist or are being created at a snail’s pace pay less with fewer benefits than those that were lost. Wealth continues to be shifted into the pockets of those who already have too much.

We cannot afford our military-industrial-congressional complex. That is how Eisenhower wanted to describe it.

Our endeavors in Afghanistan are not only killing and destroying lives, of Afghans far more than of Americans, it is using up scarce funds that are desperately needed to help the American people.

Our tax policies are destroying what is left of the ability of the government to intervene on behalf of those in or approaching desperation.

It is early morning on a Saturday. Today’s New York Times contains yet another must read from Bob Herbert. I read it. I wrote about it, and more.

And now? Today there are demonstrations all around the nation.

Today we have an opportunity to try to take back our nation.

Today we should remind ourselves that we need to be vigilant and active, to ensure that our government is of the people, by the people, and for the people, not – as I wrote in this piece for CNN a government of the corporations, by the already powerful, for the wealthy.

If it is not already too late.

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