We'll Take Care Of The Needy, If You'll Just Let Us!

by Dick Mac

The post-Reagan so-called "free market" drove our economy into the ground, to near-ruin. The apologists will tell you that the reason our economy failed is that industry is still too regulated; that they need to be given completely free reign in order for beneficent capitalism to flourish. Libertarians and "conservatives" will tell you that the only reason capitalism is failing America is that we keep it too constrained by government regulation. What they fail to discuss is that business and industry today have fewer constraints than ever in the history of the post-Depression world. Everywhere around the world.

Oh! If only we would allow the markets and the industrialists and the bankers and manufacturers to operate with no oversight, no taxation, and no limits, then America would be a capitalist nirvana where freedom rings and everyone is healthy. The streets would flow with honey and manna would fall from the heavens.

This is not a new song they are singing. In fact, the last time these people (those who allegedly believe in liberty and conservation) had operated with this little restraint was in the first part of the 20th Century, when they drove the world economy into the ground. At that time (the 1930s), our amazing, beneficent government had to save the world.

These remarks by FDR, in 1936, could have been written yesterday!





We can save the world again; but only if we turn away from the economic policies of the past three decades.

If you support supply-side economic theory (Reaganomics), you have nothing to complain about: you have been given plenty of rope. Watching you hang yourselves with it is not as amusing as I thought it might be.

Mary Travers, 1936 - 2007

by Dick Mac

Mary Travers, one-third of the sixties folk trio, Peter, Paul & Mary, died yesterday. She was 72. Travers developed leukemia and her death was the result of complications of chemotherapy for a bone-marrow transplant she received several years ago.

Just like the other members of Peter, Paul & Mary, she was politically active outside of her singing career, and spoke openly in support of civil rights.

The trio sang songs as varied as the very political "Blowin' In The Wind" and the fairy-tale-ish "Puff, The Magic Dragon." Their three-part harmonies were beautiful and Travers was an image of beauty and sex appeal in a musical genre that was not known for pop culture successes.

Raised in Greenwich Village, she started her career in 1955 as a back-up singer for Pete Seeger in. She then formed the famous trio with Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey in 1961.

After the group disbanded in 1970, Travers embarked on a solo career that produced five albums.

Peter, Paul & Mary reunited in 1978 for a show to benefit the movement against nuclear power. They continued to perform around the world; and many of their concerts were political benefit performances.

Mary Travers was a true hero. A major talent whose shyness kept her humble, whose beautiful voice entertained three generations, and whose political beliefs and activism helped to make the world a better place. We have all lost a special person.

She is survived by a husband, Ethan Robbins; two daughters, Erika Marshall of Naples, Fla., and Alicia Travers of Greenwich, Conn.; a sister, Ann Gordon of Oakland, Calif.; and two grandchildren.

Mary Travers Wikipedia entry

Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary Dies at 72 - an in-depth obit at the NY Times