Do you have a relative or friend who is a working person, but insists on badmouthing unions?  Do they vociferously defend political policies that hurt working people, but attack policies that help us?  Chances are that because they are addicted to right-wing talk radio and a certain right wing cable news network, their brains are fried!  So how can we get through to people like that?

Did you ever notice that three and four year old children are always asking "why?"  It seems like every sentence out of their little mouths starts with why:  “Why is the sky blue?”  “Why are leaves green?” “Why is uncle Bubba a Republican?”  Just kidding about the last one to see if you're paying attention. 

You can harness the power of those innocent questions for a noble purpose, winning people over to our side.  The next time your relative or neighbor opens his or her mouth and a right-wing talk show host's words come out, use the power of that innocent question, why?  Don't argue with uncle Bubba when he says that “unions kill jobs by demanding high salaries for their members that drive companies out of business”, use the power of why to ask him the following questions:

• Why do “right to work states”, states that have laws that hinder the unionizing of businesses, have lower average salaries than non “right to work” states?
  
• Why is it good for the American economy when corporations pay workers low wages and the workers have little money to spend? 
  
• Why do many corporations use the threat of sending manufacturing to China to keep wages down here?
  
• Why is it good for America to let China, a communist country set the wage standards for American workers?
  
• Why is it good for working Americans that corporations have trade associations and lobbyists to represent them and persuade their pet Congressmen and Senators to vote for legislation that's favorable to them, even if it hurts John and Jane Q. Public, but not good for John and Jane to have the AFL-CIO represent them?
  
•  Why is it good for working Americans to deny them the right of union representation when they need more of a level playing field in dealing with their mega corporation employers? 

Remember, you can't argue with people who have been brainwashed by right-wing talk radio or that certain unnamed right-wing cable news network, but you can get them to convince themselves.  If you have an anti-union uncle like Bubba or perhaps Billie Bob, the anti-union neighbor, don't fight with them, use the power of why.  Just ask them the magic questions and let them convince themselves. 

Ever since Rush Limbaugh made those horrendous comments about Sandra Fluke, many people, myself included, have been and are up in arms.  There has been a massive grass roots campaign to convince advertisers not to advertise on his show.  Many advertisers, being sensitive to public opinion, have responded by pulling their ads.  Needless to say, our voices are being heard about this situation.

Though we are seeing the early results of people power in action, it makes one wonder how much change those grassroots efforts will bring about?  Will merely getting his show canceled fix the circumstances that helped to spawn the flock of conservative talk shows that dominate the radio airwaves or just silence Rush?  Will it fix the flood of, what I feel is, intentional misinformation that many of the conservative talk shows spew out on a daily basis?  The answer is a resounding NO!

The only way that talk radio will become anything more than a medium that spews out right-wing propaganda and serves as giant megaphone for mega-corporations that want to reduce us to mere servitude, is by each one of us putting the same effort into making our electeds re-regulate the broadcast media that we did in the current situation with Limbaugh.  We need to make sure that our electeds restore the old regulatory standards that were decimated under the Reagan and Clinton administrations.  We need to let them know that the airwaves are not bits of electronic real estate to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, but are a natural resource that is owned by each and every one of us and assigned to those who can prove that they will use their licenses to operate in the public convenience, interest and necessity. 

What that translates to is, to paraphrase the Occupy movement; WHOSE AIRWAVES? OUR AIRWAVES!  Remember, whoever controls the broadcast media, controls the hearts and minds of most Americans.  If we can get the airwaves back, we'll get our country back!

With the Federal Reserve Bank keeping the interest rate that banks pay to borrow money at around 0.25 %, you would think that banks would pay that courtesy forward by lowering their super high credit card interest rates.  No such luck, many credit cards are carrying interest rates of 22% or more.  In my humble opinion, that's a vig that would make Tony Soprano happy.

A really nasty side-effect of The Fed keeping the interest rate they charge banks low is because they get that cheap money, the banks become arrogant and independent.  They literally get their money at giveaway rates from The Fed and more and more are turning up their noses at small depositors like us. What it amounts to is that The Fed has gone into competition with us small savers and priced us out of the market. 

Most of the banks have their own ways of letting us know that they don't need our piddling savings accounts.  They have reduced the interest they pay us to the point where we might as well stuff our money into a convenient mattress, because the interest they pay is both insulting and doesn't keep up with inflation by a long shot.  To pour salt on the wound, they are coming up with more and more bloodsucking fees that not only wipe out any interest paid, but put us in the position of having to pay rent to keep our money in their bank.

What is the answer?  Perhaps we need to vote for politicians who have the courage and integrity to take on and straighten out The Fed and America’s new breed of predatory banker.