Skip to main content

Eighty-five vs 3.5 Billion People

How do 85 people in the world control the same amount of the wealth as one half of the world’s population or 3.5 billion people? Another way to look at this is each of the 85 richest people has access to the same resources as do 42 million of the world’s “have nots” and last year 210 people joined the ranks of billionaires. So at this time the wealth of the 1 percent is $110 trillion. Now, how do the 99 percent pry away some of this money? One way is to make the oligarchies pay a living wage of at least $15 to $16 an hour and, yes, there is a huge inequality between the 1 percent and the 99 percent, and the old worn out playbook of the GOP anti-union plays will not hold water any more. You know the old sayings like, “pull yourself up by your own boot straps.” I would like to see someone do this. I think it is literally and physically impossible to do. Another ignorant position is only young wage slaves just starting their work experience are the workers at fast food, low wage jobs. This is wrong. The average age of these workers is 29 up to their 60s. So it is 1,400 billionaires against the rest of the world’s population. I think the “have nots” can win this wage war. Tax time is fast approaching so as you’re filling out your forms remember one in four corporations do not pay federal income tax. The GOP would rather you make up the difference by cutting benefits, such as unemployment and food stamps. With corporate profits at a 50 year high and unemployment at a record high, how is it the rich are job creators? At this time there is movement and wages are slowly going up or being slow walked, but we must keep the goal of $15 to $16 an hour in 2015. We can’t buy into jobs being lost for their will always be someone to take over the hamburger stand or car wash. If one business closes, the jobs will stay if there is a need. In fact, with higher wages there will be many more jobs, which will lower county, state and federal government costs and even be more money all around. Now is the time for the 99 percent to wake up to the reality of our inequality and think what is best for themselves and fight and vote for their families’ best interests and not listen to what Fox news, Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, O’Rielly, Palin, Cruz, or Paul. People who listen to these con artists are products of our dumbed down educational system that no longer teaches students critical thinking skills. These corporate whores and the GOP scream about government overspending, but fail to tell you that President Obama has literally cut President W. Bush’s deficit in half. People need to wake up and stand up and just maybe your grandkids will someday be proud of you and what you did for their futures, and if not maybe you could reserve a shopping cart for them now for they could very well have a master’s degree and still be on the streets unemployed. It is up to us, the 99 percent, to do the right thing and now is the time and we are the ones to do it.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Time for an Offense

There are three phases of a general strike and unions must plan for one. Those three phases are: 1. general strike in an industry 2. general strike in a community 3. general national strike We need to move away from being on the defensive and move toward a good offensive. The American Federal of Labor (AFL) could not have held a general strike if it wanted to because they had thousands of different contracts that expired at different times of the year. This was done deliberately so that there is no consolidation of power for a general strike. Also, nowadays, there is no law agency that will support labor, except the National Labor Relations Board (NLBR), which has been under attack and in decline for years. This leaves the burden of change up to unions, and unless unions work together, little will change. We essentially have a combination of job trusts, which are not as strong as contracts, and the courts can break easily because the NLBR will be further weakened and essentially elim...

If Gompers Could Do It, We Can Do It

Labor must vote for the person who will support and vote for labor’s best interests. And in turn, labor members have to support those who are running for office who support labor unions and vote down ballots. Voting down ballot gives the person at the top more power to do what’s best for us. This includes elections for city, county and state positions, as well. If you think a four day work week is wishful thinking, remember workers had to fight for an eight-hour work day and a five-day work week. We, labor members and supporters, need to find people who can fight and win. We need to clean the Congress and Senate of the old Democratic guard who have voted repeatedly to hold the working class back while enriching themselves. This would rebuild solidarity in a magnitude greater than anything either party has seen or offered in the last fifty years. If we can bring about the change in the ruling class we can improve all of our lives. This would be the start of the end of the tyranny of the...

Shock Troops

Gerrymandering is the only legal form of voter theft. Workers, our long range plans should involve 1. crushing Citizens United; and 2. getting rid of the Electoral College. We have been trying to get rid of the electoral college since 1876, and we are still waiting for the revolt. Our unions need to start training some members to be our shock troops and if all unions would do this and work with our local Labor Councils, it would be a good start. Our members need to know our labor laws, local laws, and learn how to protest in the streets if necessary. The antiunion people like Trump, Musk and his billionaire friends work together to crush the working people and convince workers they’re doing them a favor and then use them as shock troops against unions and their workers. All union and nonunion working people must come together and work together to protect what we have now. Labor Councils have retired union members and they could work together to prepare to bring the movement forward....