How can a few oligarchies control the masses here in the U.S.? What they do is use the old playbook of the antiunion coal companies in which they would hire different ethnic and racial groups who cannot communicate with the other groups, and they had different religions whereupon a lack of trust was fostered among them.
Now, in a larger way, the oligarchies are using states with different laws within each of them to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, which the laws in many states allow businesses to stand on the necks of the poor, who have no power to change the laws punishing them disproportionately.
The oligarchies now have their own kingdoms in some states and they can get local governments to privatize all the government services to the detriment of their citizens. Look at Kansas, it not only has privatized a lot of their government services, but they enacted or adopted strict religious ideology in meting out “punishments” toward the poor that benefits the privatized agencies. From child protective services to private prisons to minor traffic violations, these entities penalize the poor the most because they have low-wage jobs, if they have employment, and they do not earn enough money to pay their bills and still be able to pay off their fines so the fines add up and the private companies’ income increases, taking money out of the local governments’ coffers.
We, as a nation, are starting to slip into what Ukraine is dealing with--50 of the richest individuals make up more than 40 percent of the country’s GDP (gross domestic product) compared with less than 20 percent in Russia and 10 percent in the USA. The 10 percent in the U.S. is increasing at a fast rate. If Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is elected, there will be a lot of resemblances to Ukraine. Trump’s presidential campaign manager is Paul Manafort, who was paid more than $12 million to return Viktor F. Yanukovych to power.
Manafort’s approach was to create fissures within the Ukrainian society and then use these divisions to score political points. He used the country’s geographic and linguistic divides against the citizens to put Yanukovych into power. Manafort has brought this strategy to the U.S. and Trump is using it.
Trump is using the states, the northern and southern issues, religious differences, race and ethnic differences, immigration and fear mongering to divide the electorate. Remember, Trump is all about making money and he will have lots of friends who think the same way, and the poor, the ones who lack critical thinking skills, who have debts will get poorer with more debt.
What can be done to combat the oligarchy rule? Maybe we should start comparing notes the world over and we’d see a lot of commonalities, which would lead to some solutions. We have the communication abilities and numerous social media sites to use to communicate. We are all in the same boat, we either figure out how to plug the holes or we all drown together.
The survival of American democracy requires the existence of a flourishing union work force. In a survey, 68 percent of Americans approve of labor unions. So, as an old sheet metal organizer, I say we need to go all out in organizing while the soldering iron is hot, to use a sheet metal workers tool. We should organize all workers no matter where or what kind of work they do. All workers have the right to belong to a union and all should support each other. If you, in your work place, do not know how to form a union, then do what Napoleon’s military adopted adage, ‘Jump into the battle and then figure it out.’ One of the best ways to organize is worker to worker and plan it out over a meal or coffee and talk to other union workers to see what would work best for you and also what unions are winning at this time. Just go for it. When things are in disarray, like the shit show in Washington, D.C., they might not even know what you are doing until it is too late for them to push back aga...
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