Wealth in America

A More Mickey America

Mickey Friedman
January 25, 2012

I’ve tried to convince Bill Shein not to run for Congress. But my friend hasn’t listened to me. Don’t get me wrong, Bill would make a fine Congressman. And I’ll vote for him.

It’s just that I no longer believe in Congress. And don’t think it’s worth Bill’s time to try and get there. Or the time, energy and money his supporters will spend in the effort.

I was surprised by my response. I hadn’t realized I had gotten that cynical. But as I debated Bill, my anger and annoyance at what government has become was impossible to deny.

I think of it as playing in a crooked card game. Richard Neal, who many will tell you is as good a Congressman as you will find, has raised millions of dollars from lobbyists near and far. If you search the Federal Election Commission for Richard E. Neal you can get a list of all those who over the years have given him big money. Try this: http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/can_give/H8MA02041. Don’t try printing it. It comes to 221 pages.

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Re-Invent America; Re-Imagine the World

Mickey Friedman
December 2, 2011

(This column, without illustrations, appeared in the Berkshire Record on Thursday, December 1, 2011. This morning my very conservative friend Anthony told me I should start packing. This time I went too far; I’d probably be deported. We argue and joke all the time about politics. He jokes about retiring to a small imaginary village in Sicily where he and his lovely wife and his new-found donkey don’t have to deal with spam, the e-mail version not the lunch meat. He thinks this column might get me to Sicily before he gets there.)

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Poster by Frank Kozik

Nobody asked me, but I have a suggestion for the Occupy Movement. Be audacious. Dare to dream big. I see that Michael Moore has his ideas: increasing taxes on the rich, limiting corporate contributions, a single-payer health plan. All good ideas that I support. But still too small.

I say that because the Arctic is melting; and Antarctica is next. Because it’s too late for little changes. You can argue that these reforms will greatly change the lives of many. But Nature is telling us loud and clear: the time is now. Actually, the time was decades ago, but we humans are so very slow to learn.

I’ve been a dissident for a very long time so I may not have enough audacity left. But the folks who Occupied the Verizon building using their nifty video projector, flashing the slogans of the movement on valuable New York City corporate real estate, well, they know audacious. The young folks with their cellphones, all live streaming video of police misconduct, they have audacity.

I say take that courage and re-invent America.

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Sen. Downing’s ‘Tips Bill’ & Fundraising Raise Questions

By Bill Shein
October 31, 2011

There’s at least one thread that runs through the many-flavored Occupy Wall Street protests: Big money from a narrow economic elite, flowing into and around our political system, has distorted participatory democracy to create an economic system that’s unfair and unjust. Concentration of wealth, historic income and wealth inequality, and forced belt-tightening for working people are hallmarks of our age.

A bill, S.922, filed by State Sen. Ben Downing (D-Pittsfield) at the request of the owners of Cranwell Resort & Spa, would have gutted legal protections for workers that rely on tips.

Those were also hallmarks of the Gilded Age of the late 19th and early 20th century, the time of robber barons, overt political corruption that would lead to Progressive Era reforms, and, here in western Massachusetts, the construction of enormous Berkshires estates.

One of those properties, inhabited by a succession of wealthy owners beginning in the 1850s, is now the luxury Cranwell Resort, Spa, and Golf Club in Lenox.

According to the resort’s website, “Over the years, Cranwell has served as a home to wealthy industrialists, clergy, writers, students, golfers, and culture lovers in Massachusetts … The history of Cranwell is entwined with many stories of the opulent period between 1880 and 1920 that is known as the Gilded Age.”

This month Cranwell is at the center of a story that reveals, very specifically, what’s broken about our political system in what many consider a new Gilded Age. It came to light when conflicting statements from State Sen. Ben Downing (D-Pittsfield), along with information about his fundraising receipts and expenditures that may be related to a campaign for Congress, raised questions about why he filed – and then withdrew – blatantly anti-worker legislation. READ MORE >>

Occupy Main Street

By Mickey Friedman
October 6, 2011

There’s nothing like leaving home to help you see what’s happening at home. I just spent two glorious weeks in the Costa Rican rain forest trying my very best to do nothing but look for monkeys in the trees.

Costa Rica - Photo: Mickey Friedman

While I was away some folks decided to Occupy Wall Street. Not my choice for a social revolution/camp-out but then I spent some years working on nearby West Street and found the area cold and forbidding.

There’s the obvious symbol of occupying the center of American business, but in my day Wall Street wasn’t a place ordinary people went to.

Anyway I’m sure you won’t be surprised to read that I’m thrilled to see young people in the streets. I suggest we all Occupy Main Street.
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Robin Hood & the 400 Richest Families

Thanks to the folks at United for A Fair Economy (UFE), we now have a pretty good idea what Robin Hood might do with the wealth of the richest 400 families in America.

Turns out they’re not really rich, they’re really, really rich. To the tune of 1.73 trillion dollars. Trillion.

And it turns out that 1.73 trillion bucks has some serious purchasing power.

Here’s the way UFE recently broke it down for us:

    The richest 400 households can pay off every student loan for every single student in the entire United States.

    The richest 400 could pay your rent, and the rent of every renter for three years in the U.S.

    Click here to see what else their 1.73 trillion could buy.

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An online newsmagazine based in the Berkshire Hills of Western Massachusetts, Red Crow News covers what's happening and what we hope will happen.

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“A Red Family: Junius, Gladys & Barbara Scales” by Mickey Friedman

"An extraordinary set of reminiscences, beautifully put together by an extremely sensitive, even gifted interviewer. It is a jewel." --Glenda Gilmore, author of Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950

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