Shame on the Republican shills for big oil, big energy and big media! In all the coverage of our President's new economic recovery plan, the lap dogs of the ultra wealthy have once again dominated the airwaves. Whoever owns this country, or whoever thinks they do, keep telling us their corporate line BS and expecting us to swallow it hook line and sinker. Well my friends, the American public just isn't that hungry. Class warfare has been going on in our country for generations. Just look back at the early attempts unions made in bringing humanity to the workplace. The American worker is still not treated much better than slaves. In some cases they are treated worse. At least slaves got three hots and a cot. After a long day of work for most employees, their paltry wages are still dwindling down to nothing as the costs of food, transportation and housing continue to outpace wages. The same plutocratic minority is in charge, the same dangerous workplaces exist and the same rampant disregard for the lives of those who create the wealth of our nation are looked upon with disdain and suspicion.
I work in a place where the wealthy elite come to play. I see it routinely. From concerts with two tiered distinctions between VIP seating and VVIP seats to the ordinary and bizarre distinctions between "going to see the game and having luxury boxes. Now how can we say there is not class warfare when the extraction of capital is practiced against the impoverished while the amazing majority of that extraction flows to fewer and fewer hands? For instance, as with the luxury boxes at our local football stadium, the five thousand dollar price per game equates to 71.5 regular seats. Don't you think that the fellow buying that sky bow knows that he is worth 71.5 times as much as the peons who are seated down below? Just as we denigrate the poor in the media, blame them for our country's economic woes and for their own lack of "education" paired with sexual and drug induced immorality, we have the nerve to make sweeping judgements about the entire class of poor people, just as we used to do with Italians, Poles and yes even the Hungarians. you know, I have a friend who is poor, and he's not like the others...
The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that started when the news covered an ignorant and duplicitous agent of industry who has floated to the top of the shit heap of young Republicans in the House of Representatives continues to nag at my sensibilities. For one, I have been on the lower end of the income scale all of my life. I maxed out near the end of Clinton's time as President at 32K. From there, it has been a long slow fade out. I work at least as hard, at least as long and at least as often as I did back then, but the rewards are less because capitalists find ways through any rules one might put in place to protect them from their bosses. They know what they want, more money, and have the talent of being able to work around any attempt to secure a better livelihood for their workers.
That being said, I have to qualify the statement with information that is also true and to some extent growing in the minds of a sliver within the corporate world. Some employers take a different tack altogether. Some workplaces, and they are mostly in the small is beautiful movement, mostly made up of folks who were disillusioned with their own status when trying to climb the corporate ladder. They have turned to the marketplace as producers with conscience and are attempting to give their workers a better lifestyle as well as better wages and benefits. Frequently these companies realize that their workers represent whole people with needs and families that are important to them. One company here in Green Bay wanted their workforce to be educated and therefore paid tuition for up to three credits per semester for anyone employed full time. Sadly, when the company was purchased by a multinational corporation, that was one of their first cost cutting measures. small business has a chance to do the right thing, but once you get a chance to play with the big boys, your focus changes.
Of course there is class warfare going on in our country, it has been with us for centuries. to deny it is to fly in the face of fact, but it is not contained in the recovery plan which has so recently been targeted by the Speaker of the House, no, the President is trying to reign in the top dogs who have not only fared the best in our economic collapse, but who have consolidated their wealth beyond comprehension. Of course the agents that they hired to raise holy hell in Washington are squawking about it. That's their job. If they only realized how beholden to the super rich they are, perhaps they would rebel against them as surely as we all must. for without the stranglehold the wealthy have over the rest of us, change would not only be possible, but unstoppable. Through the systematic separation of goods and services from sources of capital and the estrangement of our population centers from sources of income, we have marginalized greater numbers of people than ever before. After 9-11, we had a brief moment to reassess our decisions to live further and further from where we work, where we play and from those who really matter to us. Having neglected the opportunity to make sound decisions for the future, we have mostly relegated ourselves to focusing more and more of our time and ever more effort to support the wealthy as opposed to the poor in our country, no, in fact, the world. We are being tormented by those who would use true words being applied to false subjects and subjecting truth to the ultimate crime, being rendered as falsehood in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In time, I hope we can all look back on this dark period in our history, see it for what it truly is, and guard against this sort of rhetoric and misunderstanding ever making their way into the minds of our leaders.
The top 10% of wage earners are still doing quite well and if they are not going to spend their money, then we need to find alternatives to getting the over 4 trillion dollars that they are holding hostage back into the economy. i understand that they are afraid of a black man being President, but taking their marbles and going home is simply not patriotic. Spouting lies and trying to scare the general public has been generally accepted as heinous enough to be considered terrorism. In this case, we need to seize their assets and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. I don't care if they hold public office or not, duly elected or not, those who inject fear and lies into public discourse are dangerous and need to be stopped. The media who claims to be even-handed in their coverage without even understanding the issues is even more dangerous and thanks to them, we have a situation in which truth or lies are less important than how stirred up we can get people. It is a sad day for democracy when the rich get whatever they want and the poor have to find their own way to cope, with little help for the government and none from their neighbors because they have fallen on hard times as well.
Corporate Welfare = Class Welfare
I work in a place where the wealthy elite come to play. I see it routinely. From concerts with two tiered distinctions between VIP seating and VVIP seats to the ordinary and bizarre distinctions between "going to see the game and having luxury boxes. Now how can we say there is not class warfare when the extraction of capital is practiced against the impoverished while the amazing majority of that extraction flows to fewer and fewer hands? For instance, as with the luxury boxes at our local football stadium, the five thousand dollar price per game equates to 71.5 regular seats. Don't you think that the fellow buying that sky bow knows that he is worth 71.5 times as much as the peons who are seated down below? Just as we denigrate the poor in the media, blame them for our country's economic woes and for their own lack of "education" paired with sexual and drug induced immorality, we have the nerve to make sweeping judgements about the entire class of poor people, just as we used to do with Italians, Poles and yes even the Hungarians. you know, I have a friend who is poor, and he's not like the others...
The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that started when the news covered an ignorant and duplicitous agent of industry who has floated to the top of the shit heap of young Republicans in the House of Representatives continues to nag at my sensibilities. For one, I have been on the lower end of the income scale all of my life. I maxed out near the end of Clinton's time as President at 32K. From there, it has been a long slow fade out. I work at least as hard, at least as long and at least as often as I did back then, but the rewards are less because capitalists find ways through any rules one might put in place to protect them from their bosses. They know what they want, more money, and have the talent of being able to work around any attempt to secure a better livelihood for their workers.
That being said, I have to qualify the statement with information that is also true and to some extent growing in the minds of a sliver within the corporate world. Some employers take a different tack altogether. Some workplaces, and they are mostly in the small is beautiful movement, mostly made up of folks who were disillusioned with their own status when trying to climb the corporate ladder. They have turned to the marketplace as producers with conscience and are attempting to give their workers a better lifestyle as well as better wages and benefits. Frequently these companies realize that their workers represent whole people with needs and families that are important to them. One company here in Green Bay wanted their workforce to be educated and therefore paid tuition for up to three credits per semester for anyone employed full time. Sadly, when the company was purchased by a multinational corporation, that was one of their first cost cutting measures. small business has a chance to do the right thing, but once you get a chance to play with the big boys, your focus changes.
Of course there is class warfare going on in our country, it has been with us for centuries. to deny it is to fly in the face of fact, but it is not contained in the recovery plan which has so recently been targeted by the Speaker of the House, no, the President is trying to reign in the top dogs who have not only fared the best in our economic collapse, but who have consolidated their wealth beyond comprehension. Of course the agents that they hired to raise holy hell in Washington are squawking about it. That's their job. If they only realized how beholden to the super rich they are, perhaps they would rebel against them as surely as we all must. for without the stranglehold the wealthy have over the rest of us, change would not only be possible, but unstoppable. Through the systematic separation of goods and services from sources of capital and the estrangement of our population centers from sources of income, we have marginalized greater numbers of people than ever before. After 9-11, we had a brief moment to reassess our decisions to live further and further from where we work, where we play and from those who really matter to us. Having neglected the opportunity to make sound decisions for the future, we have mostly relegated ourselves to focusing more and more of our time and ever more effort to support the wealthy as opposed to the poor in our country, no, in fact, the world. We are being tormented by those who would use true words being applied to false subjects and subjecting truth to the ultimate crime, being rendered as falsehood in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In time, I hope we can all look back on this dark period in our history, see it for what it truly is, and guard against this sort of rhetoric and misunderstanding ever making their way into the minds of our leaders.
The top 10% of wage earners are still doing quite well and if they are not going to spend their money, then we need to find alternatives to getting the over 4 trillion dollars that they are holding hostage back into the economy. i understand that they are afraid of a black man being President, but taking their marbles and going home is simply not patriotic. Spouting lies and trying to scare the general public has been generally accepted as heinous enough to be considered terrorism. In this case, we need to seize their assets and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. I don't care if they hold public office or not, duly elected or not, those who inject fear and lies into public discourse are dangerous and need to be stopped. The media who claims to be even-handed in their coverage without even understanding the issues is even more dangerous and thanks to them, we have a situation in which truth or lies are less important than how stirred up we can get people. It is a sad day for democracy when the rich get whatever they want and the poor have to find their own way to cope, with little help for the government and none from their neighbors because they have fallen on hard times as well.
Corporate Welfare = Class Welfare
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