A few words on tax cuts:

Who really wants to pay higher taxes, and where is it really appropriate to impose them?

First, let's differentiate between the rich: There are the entrepreneurs who make their fortunes by actually creating goods and services, and there are those who have manipulated the financial markets, and their relationship with the government.

It would help liberals and progressives to make this distinction when fighting with Conservatives over the issue of taxes and a fairer distribution of the wealth.

If a capitalist is really intent on manufacturing jet planes, and claims he needs to keep taxes lower for that purpose, can liberals and progressives work with him on that?

The answer is yes, and particularly if the capitalist in question is intent on manufacturing those planes in the U.S. where employees are able to organized into a union and eventually achieve a living wage with benefits.

The people who need to pay higher taxes generally are the 'Gordon Gekko-greed is good' types who became so prevalent during the Reagan-Bush era of deregulation of the financial markets and banking systems (a reference to Oliver Stone's 'Wall Street').

The progressive income tax, which is intended so that the 'rich pay their fair share', was originally intended not to punish the honest entrepreneur, who wants to see his fellow Americans benefit from his enterprises along with his desire to make a good profit, but to go after the 'undeserving rich'; those that crook the system and the political process for their own gain with little or no regard as to how the rest of the country is effected.

Contrary to what arch-Conservatives and 'Streisand bashers' like Mark Levin (the most heinous of the new-breed of right wing talk show hosts imho) falsely claim, the progressive income tax did not start with Karl Marx and Marxism, but with the 'founding fathers' of the United States, most notably Thomas Paine.

And Thomas was not the only one of our 'founding fathers' who considered liberal and progressive ideas to curb the kind of profiteering that was too much positioned against the public good, contrary to what the present group of Neo-cons (and tea partiers) try to tell us.

I believe it would help the Obama administration a lot to make this distinction amongst the wealthier:

We can work with the well-meaning capitalist, who wants to see others benefit and prosper from his enterprises, along with his own healthy profit, and wants to keep his taxes down for that purpose.

It's the 'undeserving rich' who are out only for themselves at the detriment of others who need to pay the higher taxes.

Besides tax cuts and the defense budget, the militiary industrial complex, there is another issue that has to be confronted: foreign trade.

Yes, we have gone 'global', and who really doesn't want a world where there aren't barriers between people and nations?

Who doesn't really want 'one world' that is able to work together?

The problem is that besides the more traditional forms of Conservative activisms (tax cuts for the rich and unbridled defense spending), the Conservative 'mainstream' has also figured out how to manipulate global trade to their purposes.

Perhaps the worst thing to come out of the Reagan-era was the NAFTA deal; a union-busting exploitation of cheap labor that has cost the U.S. economy millions of jobs and lowered the standard of living for those still working.

Yes, the liberal sentiments of great Americans such as Thomas Paine, who proclaimed himself a 'citizen of the world', and foresaw the United States (the title he invented, btw) as a bellwhether for progressive activism worldwide, are still valid: We should want a world with as few barriers between people and nations as possible.

But (big, big but here), it is superfluous for liberals and progressives to oppose the Conservatives on tax cuts and defense expenditure while, at the same time, giving the lies told by Reagan, Bush, Karl Rove, so on, a free pass as to their versions of 'free trade' and global economics.

Liberal and progressive activists need to take back the issue of the foreign trade from the Conservatives; block the CAFTA deal expanding NAFTA, and demand a total rehauling of the NAFTA deal itself.

This should be the number one issue for liberals and progressives: Democratic 'fair trade', not Republican 'free trade' at any cost no matter how many people get hurt!

Ms. Streisand, I appreciate you including blogs here from both Michael Moore and Robert Reich, but from a liberal point-of-view one of them is wrong and one is right:

Mr. Reich and Mr. Clinton should never have tolerated the NAFTA deal.

Mr. Moore though was right (is right) about this from his very first documentary movie, which I still highly recommend.