Muldoonicus~~ I had not the slightest inkling what PNAC stood for when I read your one word answer. So I looked it up. If there is anyone else out there that doesn't know, I suggest you look it up.

Here is a choice excerpt from the Statement Of Principles of PNAC~~~ June 3, 1997

The United States must be prudent in how it exercises its power. But we cannot safely avoid the responsibilities of a global leadership or the costs that are associated with its exercise. America has a vital role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests. The history of the 20th centruy should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of this century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership

Our aim is to remind Americans of these lessons and to draw their consequences for today. Here are four consequences:

1. we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future;

2. we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;

3. we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad;

4. we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.

Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.

William Krystol, Chairman.

Just how America could do this isn't hard to understand. Bill "Kill the New Deal" Clinton tore out the entitlement to poverty relief and used the poor to create an involuntary, super-cheap workforce (a.k.a., indentured servitude). This has proved to be a powerful tool to block unionizing efforts and suppress wages. We no longer talk about US poverty. The issue was removed from the public discussion. We have watched a steady stream of jobs flow out of this country, and our sole response to poverty is, "Get a job or die." This generation of "progressives" -- at least, many in the media -- continue to praise Clinton. Today, the discussion is restricted to the concerns of middle class workers alone. We've utterly dehumanized anyone who gets pushed out of the middle class. I believe Mr. "New Democrat" Clinton could explain this. Historically, each time the richest few gained too much power, the poor and middle classes united to successfully push back, to the benefit of both. What happened to the poor is now happening to the middle class. Neither the poor nor middle class alone has the power to fight back. "Divide and conquer" has always been a powerful political strategy.

America has completely embraced a "survival of the fittest" agenda that much of the world rejects. We are brutal to those who fall behind, to a degree that the more modern nations find morally repulsive. America is deeply divided by class, and we've nurtured a culture that encourages contempt for anyone who isn't the same as us. Meanwhile, the US has, indeed, chosen to terrorize a range of foreign nations over the past century on the pretext of bringing peace and democracy. We send our young to war, and if they come back damaged, we throw them away. In our land of opportunity, modern policies have brought class movility almost to a standstill. Our land of freedom imprisons a greater percentage of its population than any other country. In our land of democracy, we have seen a steady campaign to limit the right to vote to "the right people." When it comes to international relations, the US is consistently belligerent and arrogant. Wonder why other countries don't love us?

If capitalism truly works, then if there was more consumer activism people would see an opportunity to create jobs at home first
thereby raising people up out of poverty.
In the UK an independent review found child poverty levels would go back to at least those of 20yrs ago as austerity plans kick in.
The thought of any child going to bed hungry ANYWHERE is abhorrent never mind 2 of the richest nations on earth.
Politicians of all partys hang your heads in shame!!
One thing I guarantee it won't be their kids going without!!!!

There are two kinds of people in the U.S. for certain political economic purposes, those who are the owners of businesses and those who work for somebody else - Capital and Labor, more classically. The owners of businesses have succeeded in making their priorities - tax cuts, dereguation, etc. - dominate the national conversation. Their political representatives say things like, "We're gonna help the working people by letting them keep more of their own money.". That, of course, is ignoring the fact that working people don't have any money that doesn't come from the owners of businesses, or their employers.

David Cay Johnstone, lefty tax analyst, once described the dishonest use of language in messaging when Republicans, business people and whoever else, say things like, "The workers of _ will, heretofore, have to pay more of their own pension benefit" or "more of their own health care insurance" characterizing those benefits as some sort of charitable generosity on the part of the employers rather than what they are, the just, negotiated and agreed upon compensation by the workers owed to them by their employers. As Johnstone points out, to say that the workers will, from now on, have to "pay more of their own pension benefit" or "more of their own health insurance" is like saying that "from now on the workers will have to pay more of their own wages or salaries". That may seem to make logical sense if you are an owner of business as owners of busineses do, in fact, pay their own salaries but it doesn't fit at all when you apply it to working people.

In our political economy the owners of businesses owe those who work for them, that is, realistically, everybody else in society, a just compensation. That compensation comes in two forms, wages or salaries and other direct compansations and less direct compensation in the form of taxes. If the owners of businesses refuse to do either, as they are now, you have, then, a situation as we have now in which the middle class is destroyed and the working people are pauperized.

When I was in Madison, Wi. last spring there were many slogans being displayed on more or less makeshift signs and banners. One of my favorite ones was, "A benefit cut is a tax". So, these days, when I stand and hold a banner with Occupy Chicago in our financial district, I like to hold one that reads, "A program cut is a tax on the 99% and welfare [or free labor] for the 1%". We have to stop allowing schools, hospitals, libraries, food stamps, etc. from being characterized as charitable generosities of the 1% toward the 99%. They are, in fact, the just compensation owed the 99% by the 1% that the 99% are justly entitled to.

The Occupy movement has been accused of wanting" "free stuff" as their main platform. I liked the Diggers' (the Hippie Free Food and Free Store services in Haight Ashbury in the '60s) slogan of, "It's free because it's yours". In negation of private property rights they declared that they were giving you things for free because they are already rightfully yours. It was justice not charity. Similarly, the Occupy movement is demanding what is already rightfully ours and not a charitable donation. They are demanding what the hardworking people of our society rightly deserve.

The hippies are, in fact, an important part of the Occupy movement but only a part. The Occupy movement is like a Charlie Daniels song, it's the cowboys and the hippies and the rebels and the yanks all got together again. The current political climate is really more the Great Depression all over again than it is the 60's all over again.

Food stamps should be used for those who really need it. If money was spent properly in this country then it wouldn't be an issue. Reform in many areas need to happen because right now someone could sell their food stamp card and then claim that it was lost so that they can get a new one.

• Republicans get blamed for everything when they only want to try to prevent people from committing fraud online on the taxpayers dime, but even they commit it on some level.