Skip to main content

Inequality is Ruining America

In America today, we have the Haves and the Have Nots, which is the very rich and the poor. What is missing is the middle, which is the group that makes it all work. They are the spenders who pay taxes, raise families. They are the supporters of the very rich and the supporters of the poor. This support system has worked very well until the very rich gets greedier and begins hoarding all the cash and cutting out the middle class with inequality. Inequality is done in many ways. Some is through laws enacted that shut down unions. This defund unions, but also stops worker training apprenticeship programs the unions provide. Shutting down these programs helps to turn our country into a wasteland of poverty. With the power concentrated at the top, democracy cannot thrive. This happened in the Guilded Age at the end of the 19th century. Now it is happening today. America cannot ever be great again until there is a large middle class with good wages, healthcare, free education, and good pensions. If we keep the extreme inequality, it will be the breeding ground of demagogues. Our country, at this time, has become a billionaires republic. Just look at who our president is and most of his cabinet are, and if they are not billionaires, they are retired generals. This is a perfect storm for disaster. It didn’t just start with Trump, this has been a long time in the making and both political parties are responsible. We are at the cusp of the GOP finally destroying Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, Social Security, and with the help of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, which has cleared the path for long-term de-unionization. Then a new aggressive business lobby worked in the 1970s and ‘80s to break unions and drive down tax rates for themselves. Then the Democrats built alliances with Wall Street. Unequal economic is the enemy of political democracy so inequality must change or the class struggle can turn into a political or military conflict and law enforcement are and will be the same as the military. We’ve seen this before and they will have the reserve National Guard. Cops are already dressing like the military and have a lot of the same equipment. How will this end? At this time, I would say the very rich oligarchs are winning. We must understand where we have been, how we got here, the whos and the whys. There are good books to read that can educate you on these topics. One such book is, Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-first Century.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Now is the Time to Prepare

I hope that I am wrong, but what I see at this time is our unions are going to be in the fight of their existence. This is the most perilous time of our life. The life we had is threatened like never before. Unions are the largest organized group of people who can save our country if things keep going the way they are heading at this time. We need to all stand together for power, but we each must prepare and plan to take care of ourselves and our families. We can fight the big fight and not be distracted by worry about things that can and should already be taken care of. For instance, stashing at least one month’s pay and at least a month or even a year’s worth of food, whether the food is staples (pasta, rice, canned goods) and meat or chicken in the freezer. Keep your vehicles' tanks full and if possible a gas can full. It’s in your best interest to also save money for house or rent payments plus extra. This is not new thinking for us old trade workers who had to prepare when...
Post a Comment
Read more

They'll Be Coming For All Of Us

Yes, they are coming for us. Workers need to have one another’s backs because no one else will. Neither the broader labor movement nor the Democratic party are prepared to meet the urgency of this moment. So it’s going to fall upon the rest of us to mount a real resistance against Trump’s authoritarian takeover. We’re going to have to get our hands dirty. I don’t care if you have a good, well-paying union job and you are in the middle class now—if you see a worker being dragged out of his workplace regardless of how skilled the job and potentially taken to another country, you should be ready to be there for that worker. When I.C.E. shows up, gather around and shame them into leaving. It has worked in other places. America is sleep walking into authoritarianism, and if there’s anyone out there who is a member of a labor union that is safe—at this point— and doesn’t think this applies to them. Understand that they just haven’t gotten to you yet. They’re coming for all of us. There are ...
Post a Comment
Read more

We Are the Power

Looks like there is hope for the union workers and our country for the union people who believed Trump’s lies, who now know that he was just full of bullshitting all of you. He said the he would bring more work to this country, but took away money from job projects, and the ones that were too late to stop, Trump put his name on it and is taking credit for the work done. Trump is not a union supporter and the people who work for him do not support unions either because they all get their money from big corporations, who are notoriously anti-union. The entire GOP is bought and paid for by large corporations, such as Home Depot, Walmart, Chamber of Commerce and many other nonunion selfish companies. We all have a chance to change things and take it all back if we dare by voting blue in the mid-term elections. If we vote for things that are what we really need like healthcare, good pensions, living wages, voting rights, more affordable housing, and rent control. In other words, let’s get a...
Post a Comment
Read more