Consumer confidence is terrible; citizen confidence is worse: Only 11 percent of Americans have confidence in Congress.  No surprise there is record-setting anti-incumbency anger rampant among Americans.  But the sad truth is damned if you do and damned if you don't vote for incumbents. 

The problem is that the reformers, populist outsiders, tea party candidates, surprise primary winners and others expecting to oust incumbents in the coming mid-term elections for members of Congress and state governors and other officials mostly suck.  Why?  They are nutty, ignorant, dishonest or racist. 

Pathetic US Senate candidates like Alvin Greene on the left in South Carolina and Sharron Angle on the right in Nevada, for example, are intellectual nits and an insult to a once envied political system.  And in Memphis, Tennessee Willie Herenton, who is African-American, sells black racism to oust two-term incumbent Congressman Steve Cohen in a primary, telling blacks to not vote for his white opponent.

Many ambitious candidates drained the economy to become super-rich.  Is this any time to trust people who have taken advantage of our corrupt corporate system to run the government and serve those they have previously taken advantage of for personal gain?  Will anger about the corrupt, dysfunctional government system be sufficient for voters to turn the government over to people who have nothing in common with most Americans?

Consider California.  Meg Whitman, a Republican candidate for governor wants to beat the familiar, incumbent-like Democrat Jerry Brown, now attorney general, and was previously the chief executive of eBay.  She has outspent all other self-financed candidates across the country by using $91 million of her own money to knock out Steve Poizner, who spent $24 million of his own money, in the Republican primary.  California is big, but $91 million and likely even more!!  She will greatly outspend Brown.  And Carly Fiorina, a Republican who is challenging Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer in California, has the audacity to claim on her website that she will "fight for every job" if elected even though, as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard in 2003 she cut about 18,000 jobs and did little good for the company.  She has already spent $5 million.  Are these people worthy of public support?

Consider Florida.  Republican Rick Scott, the former head of Columbia/HCA Healthcare -- an awful large hospital chain that paid $1.7 billion in fines for fraudulently billing government programs like Medicare -- has become the front-runner for Florida governor.  He supposedly is worth about $200 million.  He was ousted by his own board of directors in 1997 amid the nation's biggest health care fraud scandal.  He loaned his campaign $22.9 million during the period from April 9 through July 16 and spent $22.65 million of it.  In contrast, he received only $415,126 in contributions.  Bill McCollum, his Republican opponent, raised a little over $1 million during the reporting period and spent about $1.7 million.  He has raised $5.7 million since he announced his campaign last year.  He has less than $500,000 left.  Democrat candidate Alex Sink, with no primary opponent, raised $1.1 million for the reporting period and has raised $7.3 million so far.  Is Scott better qualified because of his wealth and ability to advertise more?

Also in Florida is Jeff Greene who wants to be US Senator, a Democrat who had been a Republican with a strange gang of friends like Mike Tyson and Heidi Fleiss.  Incredibly, most of his fortune, estimated at $1.4 billion, came from derivatives that let him profit from the collapse of subprime mortgages which helped tank the US economy.  He lives in an oceanfront mansion when he is not on one of his yachts or his plane with gold seat-belt buckles.  He recently reported taking a paltry $3,036 in outside contributions, while lending himself -- and spending -- $5.9 million in the second quarter.  Recent polls found Greene roughly even in the primary with Democrat Representative Kendrick B. Meek, who had been the party favorite and took 18 months to raise a similar amount.  Incumbent-like candidate Governor Charlie Crist still leads as an independent in a three-way general election.  Greene boasts that now is the moment for self-financed candidates. "If 2008 was the year of change, 2010 is the year of frustration," he said.  But does frustration justify voting for these characters?

And then there is Linda E. McMahon, a Connecticut Republican who made her fortune in professional wrestling before her Senate run.  She has stated a willingness to spend $50 million of her own money to win the election, a lot of money for such a small state, and has already spent $21.5 million.  A television ad declares "politicians have had their chance, and blown it" while her jobs plan "is backed by experience."  She became president of the WWF as a legal maneuver to save the company in 1993, because her husband was indicted for distributing steroids to his wrestlers.  Cleverly, she blew the whistle and told regulators something few in the industry would admit: wrestling matches were scripted shows and not athletic competitions that required the kind of oversight that, say, boxing required.  The financial benefit was that her wrestling business operates in 29 states without supervision by state athletic boards or commissions, saving the company licensing fees.  She served only a few months on the state Board of Education and then became a candidate.  She supports policies that favor the rich and advocates offshore oil drilling.  She faces Democrat incumbent-like Richard Blumenthal, now attorney general of Connecticut.  Is her wrestling business experience really the basis for being a great senator?

Voters should remember this: None of these characters are legitimate populists, progressives or reformers with a political record to show their true capabilities or positions.  Why trust them?  Would they perform better than incumbents?  I don't think so.  More likely, they would serve elites and corporate interests.  In the past very few rich candidates have won office (just 11 percent), but considering the anti-incumbency sentiment this year, big money may prevail.

Is the evil you don't know really better than the evil you do know because of failed government experience?  Are some incumbents worth support?  Or will many Americans admit that voting no longer can fix and reform our battered democracy and stay home?  I think I will.  There are just too many fools and idiots voting that offset the votes of informed and intelligent citizens.  Maybe if voter turnout was totally abysmal, say 20 percent, maybe then we would get the reforms or revolution we need by de-legitimizing our government.

[Contact Joel S. Hirschhorn through delusionaldemocracy.com.]

After listening to a number of speeches at a national conference of progressives I come to this conclusion: Progressives are more than eager to take credit for electing President Obama and even to complain about the many failures of him and his administration.  They overwhelmingly feel that his campaign promises were far, far better than what he has delivered.  They are disappointed.  They are frustrated.  They are sad.  But ultimately they are also cowards.

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Can you trust national averages?  As bad as the jobless data you hear are, you have not been told the whole truth.  If you think the terrible impact of America's Great Recession is shown by an official unemployment rate of about 10 percent, think again.

Economic inequality and the myth of Reagan trickle down logic are shown by new data from the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.  The report noted: "What has been missing from the public debate over the labor market crisis is an honest and detailed analysis of which American workers have been most adversely affected by the deep deterioration in labor markets."  The researchers found a correlation between household income and unemployment rate in the last quarter of 2009:  Look carefully at these numbers and see how unemployment rises as income drops:

$150,000 or more, 3.2 percent

$100,000 to 149,999, 8 percent

$75,000 to $99,999, 5 percent

$60,000 to $75,000, 6.4 percent

$50,000 to $59,000, 7.8 percent

$40,000 to $49,000, 9 percent

$30,000 to $39,999, 12.2 percent

$20,000 to $29,999, 19.7 percent

$12,500 to $20,000, 19.1 percent

$12,499 or less, 30.8 percent

Ten times worse unemployment in the lowest class than in the highest class!  Truly amazing and disheartening, don't you think?  And you can also infer that in some hard hit geographical areas the poorest people and people of color are being even more adversely impacted.  And don't think for a minute that things have really improved in 2010.

The report summed up the situation: "A true labor market depression faced those in the bottom...of the income distribution; a deep labor market recession prevailed among those in the middle of the distribution, and close to a full employment environment prevailed at the top."  People at the top remain winners no matter how bad the whole economy.  Why?  The wealthy Upper Class controls so much of the political system and benefit from countless government policies.  They may lose something in an economic meltdown but not enough to suffer significantly.

Conversely, those at the bottom of the economic system with no political power are experiencing something as bad as the Great Depression, with no end in sight.

What pundits don't emphasize is that government policies that do not target lower income groups are a failure and disgrace.  Worse than destroying the middle class, we are creating a Lower Class like that found in third world countries.  Indeed, compared to places like China and European nations, America's poor are suffering about as badly as anyone on the planet, except for a few dismal places like Haiti.  Needing food handouts, losing homes, missing health insurance, and lacking jobs mock the American Dream.

Wait; there is even more bad news.  When underemployment is factored in -- part time workers that want to work full time, and those who have stopped looking but want a job -- the picture gets even worse.  In the lowest group, the underemployment rate was 20.6 percent, compared with just 1.6 percent in the highest group.  So the total in the lowest class is 51.4 percent (3.7 million people) compared to 4.8 percent in the wealthy class (530,000 people).  Also consider that last November nearly 20 percent of all men between 25 and 54 did not have jobs, the highest figure since the labor bureau began counting in 1948.

Now you know why the constantly noted official jobless rate for the nation of 10 percent and 17 percent when underemployment is counted are a joke, or is it a purposeful deception, like a truth bubble?

How can jobs be created for the lower economic classes?  You hear very, very few new ideas from politicians.  It comes down to federal spending that better targets job creation to the lower income groups, and waiting for more general consumer spending, especially by the more affluent, to create more low level jobs, mostly in service areas.  But we need specifics and better legislation.

Consider this green energy fiasco.  A huge amount of federal stimulus money provided for building wind farms.  It is creating jobs in Chine to build wind turbines, not in America.  In fact, 80 percent of such federal funding is going overseas.  All because Congress and the White House did not ensure a made-in-America requirement.  Was a backroom deal made to keep China happy so that they would keep loaning us money?

When the poorest people suffer so disproportionately as compared to the wealthiest, perhaps only violent revolution will fix America's dysfunctional, broken and delusional democracy.  Will President Obama cite the above frightening data in any public forum to make the case for stronger federal efforts?  What do you think?

The high numbers for the lower income people mean that no amount of government action, in even five years or more, will solve jobless problem, because no amount of economic growth can possibly create enough new jobs.  The US would have to produce 10 million new jobs just to get back to the unemployment levels of 2007 - impossible for many years.  So, politicians will keep making things look better by citing the national average.

[Contact Joel S. Hirschhorn through delusionaldemocracy.com.]

My anger has morphed into sadness, heartbreak actually.  As the decade of zeros ends I see nothing but a tragic, historic and deadening American Disappointment, a terrible replacement for a once noble American Dream.  The Great Recession was merely one symptom of the nation's slide into slime, a quicksand created by the two-party plutocracy.

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Millions of Americans are politically informed, smart, active and angry.  They see many wrongs in our political and government system.  They are fed up with politics as usual, meaning corrosive corruption of politicians by corporate and other special interests.  They see little good in either the Democrat or Republican parties.  And they almost always share a common bond: They love and honor the US Constitution, even though they may see some flaws in it.  Yet they are also constitutional hypocrites.

Why do I say this?  Because Americans are overwhelmingly ignorant or misinformed about the constitutional paths for amending the Constitution.  Too many, in fact, seem to miss the profoundly important point that the Founders and Framers knew that they had not created a perfect document and blueprint for the US.  That is why they placed two specific paths for amending the Constitution.

But very few Americans know that only one of these amendment mechanisms has been used in the entire history of the country.  All the current amendments were proposed by Congress.  This should raise this serious question today: Considering the very low regard for Congress by the overwhelming majority of Americans, which is richly deserved, why should we have any confidence that Congress would ever propose amendments that could kill so much of the corruption that plagues our system, especially corruption of members of Congress?

This situation was somehow anticipated by the Framers.  They could see that there was a strong possibility that Americans would eventually lose confidence in the federal government.  Which is why they put a second path to amending the Constitution into the document.  A path that has never been used.  This is the provision in Article V for a convention of state delegates that could propose amendments, which like the proposals from Congress would still have to be ratified by three-quarters of the states.

Being human, the Framers made a mistake.  They gave Congress the sole power to call or convene an Article V convention.  The single explicit requirement that was supposed to make Congress call a convention was that two-thirds of state legislatures had to request an Article V convention.  The Framers did not, apparently, envision a future in which Congress would stubbornly ignore state applications for a convention and get away with it, despite language that demands that Congress "shall" call a convention when one simple requirement is met.  How could they envision that Congress would blatantly disobey something so simply stated in the Constitution?  How could they anticipate such weak states, unwilling to make Congress respect their constitutional right?  The Framers clearly were not cynical enough.

The situation we face today is that all 50 states have submitted over 750 applications for a convention, considerably more than enough to trigger the constitutional mandate that Congress convene an Article V convention.  How could Congress get away with this kind of unconstitutional behavior?  Apparently, a combination of political corruption and public ignorance has allowed Congress to get away with this.  Even among the millions of Americans that proudly declare their loyal allegiance to the Constitution, there is no recognition that unless they demand that Congress obey Article V, they are constitutional hypocrites.  Congress has no right to unilaterally decide that it can ignore and disobey a part of the Constitution.

Note that Congress never even created a mechanism where they would collect in a public way the state applications for an Article V convention, which helped create public ignorance of this situation.  Add to this that many, many organized vested interests on the left and right like their ability to corrupt Congress to get what they want from it.  This is why they have frequently mounted campaigns to make the public fear a convention, because such a convention might actually propose reforms that would remove corruption of Congress by contributing money for campaigns and pursuing lobbying.

Ignorance and fear have combined to thwart public demands that Congress obey the Constitution and convene the first Article V convention.  In fact, there is only one national, nonpartisan organization vainly attempting to educate the public so that Congress would be forced to finally give us the first Article V convention.  Friends of the Article V Convention at foavc.org is also the only group that has collected state applications for a convention and made them publicly available.

Their efforts may be working.  A new online survey asked this: Based on your assessment of American politics, would you support or oppose a call for a Constitutional Convention?  Supporters won easily at 65 percent.

It comes down to this, unless you get informed and join the mission to make Congress obey the Constitution, you are a constitutional hypocrite, not what the nation needs.

[Contact Dr. Hirschhorn, a co-founder of FOAVC, through delusionaldemocracy.com]

Americans clearly are capable of being outraged.  Missing, however, is a sustained, vibrant demand for deep reforms of our political and government system.  You hear a lot about populist rage these days, especially connected to the AIG bonus debacle.  But populist rage as a reflection of class conflict and anger about our economic meltdown does not necessarily make a political revolution.  The saddest thing about Obama winning the presidency was that his change message drained what might have been sufficient national energy for true revolutionary political reforms.

With the Bush-corrosion of our Constitution and collapse of the economic system after it had been exploited by the rich and corrupt, what better time for revolution?  Instead, we got a president with a glib tongue, a terrific smile and a deep commitment to the two-party plutocracy and corporate state.  Obama is no populist, not even close.  Nor is he a genuine reformer.  At best, he is a master exploiter of populism.

Obama was and still is a master of masquerading as just a regular guy.  Even now, after making more than $8 million from his books, and even before when his wife made a huge salary and he lived in a million dollar house, and he reaped the many benefits of an elite Harvard Law School ticket to success.  Totally consistent with his plutocratic and elitist background he has packed his administration with the same Harvard, elitist and Wall Street crowd that pumped many millions of dollars into his campaign and did nothing to stop the mortgage crisis and economic meltdown.

He has shown absolutely no courage or interest in standing up to the status quo, earmark-driven, and corrupt Democratic leaders in the House and Senate who, in large measure, share blame for the nation's economic crisis, especially its roots in the mortgage insanity and under-regulation of the financial sector that they nurtured.  Obama should have rejected the spending bill with tons of pork earmarks.  But in reality Obama has shown no taste for standing up for principles.  He had no problem with a Treasury Secretary that was a blatant tax dodger.  Almost on a daily basis there is news about decisions being made that resemble Bush policies.  Rather than shunning signing statements when Congress sends him bills, so abused by Bush, Obama immediately issued his own one.

The spending of the nation's debt-based wealth on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue with no end in sight, despite the painful economic meltdown and mind-boggling deficit spending.  When it comes to the wars and domestic problems, he seeks success through massive spending rather than through structural and systemic reforms.

Here is the problem: All the venom aimed at AIG and its bonus-receiving employees served more as a distraction than a viable political strategy to reform our government.  True, there has been terrible economic warfare by the rich and corrupt in government and the private sector that has savaged ordinary Americans.  Our corrupt and dysfunctional government did not protect us.  We need a Second American Revolution.  We need deep structural reforms to make our current MISrepresentatives obsolete and return our government to us.  For this to happen we must not let ourselves be deceived by lying politicians.  We must recognize that voting and elections have NOT worked effectively.  We must look to our Constitution for the legal path to revolution.

The Founders anticipated that Americans would eventually lose confidence in the federal government.  They created a never-used option in Article V.  Never used because Congress has refused to obey the Constitution and gotten away with violating it and their oath of office.  That option is an Article V convention of state delegates that has the constitutional power to propose constitutional amendments, only amendments, no wholesale rewriting of the Constitution.  The one and only requirement in Article V is that two-thirds of state legislatures must apply to Congress for a convention.  In fact, there have been over 700 such state applications from all 50 states.

Why no Article V convention?  Because Congress and virtually every politically powerful group on the left and right oppose and fear an Article V convention.  Why?  Because clearly such a convention which is outside the control of Congress, the President and the Supreme Court has the constitutional authority to discuss and propose amendments that could truly reform our government to remove corruption and make it much more equitable and effective for we the people.  Where is the public outrage over Congress disobeying and disrespecting the Constitution?  There is far less to fear from a convention than from maintaining the status quo two-party plutocracy.

If you believe in our Constitution, if you liked the change rhetoric of Obama, if you are furious about the economic meltdown, and if you see the need to seriously reform our government, then examine the materials at foavc.org and become a member of the nonpartisan Friends of the Article V Convention.  Help make Congress obey the Constitution and give us the convention we have a constitutional right to have.  If you see yourself as a patriot, dissident or activist, join our effort.

[Contact Joel S. Hirschhorn through www.delusionaldemocracy.com; he is a co-founder of Friends of the Article V Convention.]

"I've been through Y2K and I've been through 9/11.  I have never seen people so afraid as what we are seeing right now," said gun shop owner Scott Moss recently.   With more guns per capita - easily 250 million privately owned ones - and certainly more people in prisons than any other democracy, the intriguing question in this still worsening economic calamity is: If Americans found the courage for political rebellion now, would it preempt massive criminal violence, social havoc and armed rebellion later?

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By now most Americans have experienced extreme disgust upon hearing about the nearly $20 billion in bonuses given to people in New York City's financial sector at the end of 2008.  After sending the nation into the current economic black hole there is no way of comprehending the audacity of financial company executives in giving themselves and their colleagues shameful rewards for abysmal and disgraceful performance.  Other than screaming and moaning about all this dishonorable behavior what should the Obama administration and Congress do?

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Libertarianism: If Not Now, Then When?

Joel S. Hirschhorn

With the meltdown of the American economy, what better time to ask: Can libertarianism come to the rescue?  Perhaps the most interesting statement in the Wikipedia discussion of libertarianism is that "There is no single theory that can be reliably identified as the libertarian theory, and no single principle or set of principles on which all libertarians would agree."

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When I was young talk about millions of dollars impressed me.  When I was older talk about billions of dollars dismayed me.  Now, regular talk about trillions of dollars, especially government spending, nauseates me.  People never seem to learn that they control the fate of the American economy.

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The current Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich, recently charged with crimes by the federal government, just follows in the footsteps of previous convicted Illinois governors and a huge number of other Illinois officials convicted of crimes.  What is remarkable is that in the 2008 election Illinois voters had the opportunity to recognize that they needed to use their constitutional convention opportunity to reform state government.  They voted not to use it.

Which raises the question: How stupid or brainwashed are most Illinois citizens?

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Electing Barack Obama president was the first step in redeeming American democracy.  The second step must be indicting ex-president George W. Bush, giving him a fair trial, finding him guilty of many criminal acts and putting him in prison.  Forget revenge.  Think rule of law and justice.

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Set aside any Obama euphoria you feel.  The other important news is that third-party presidential candidates had a miserable showing this year, totaling just over one percent of the grand total with 1.5 million votes nationwide, compared to some 123 million votes for Barack Obama and John McCain.

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Voting out congressional incumbents failed this year, showing the anti-incumbency movement to be a clear letdown.  For some years many groups and their websites have been advocating voting out congressional incumbents as an effective means to reform government and make it work better.  Two of the better ones are Vote Out Incumbents Democracy and Tenure Corrupts.

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McCain Considering Conceding Election Soon?