Robert John Bennett's List: Truthout

The vast middle class no longer has the purchasing power to keep the economy going. (The rich spend a much lower portion of their incomes.)

Even now, I think about Bobby Kennedy, who was himself a walking contradiction, an example of the way leaders can function in a disreputable vein, change course, and finally emerge as true progressive leaders.

Despite the aura of omnipotence most empires project, a look at their history should remind us that they are fragile organisms. So delicate is their ecology of power that, when things start to go truly bad, empires regularly unravel with unholy speed:

His Blowback Trilogy (Blowback, The Sorrows of Empire, and Nemesis.) will be with us for decades to come. His final work, Dismantling the Empire: America's Last Best Hope, is a testament to his enduring power,

The United States currently spends more than twice as much per person for its health care as the average for Germany, Canada, and other wealthy countries. This gap is projected to rise to a ratio of three and four to one in the decades ahead. If health care costs really do actually rise this much, then it will have a devastating impact on the economy.

“You Americans are such suckers,” he said. “You think that the rules for taxes that apply to rich people also apply to working people, but they don’t. When working peoples’ taxes go up, their pay goes up. When their taxes go down, their pay goes down. It may take a year or two or three to all even out, but it always works this way—look at any country in Europe. And that rule on taxes is the opposite of how it works for rich people!”