In 1797, Thomas Paine wrote, “Every individual is born with legitimate claims on natural property or its equivalent.“
With all that is going on in Washington, D.C., that has all our attention, we should not forget what is really important to the 99 percent, which is the economic inequality. What we need to do to fix it is a new bill of right or sorts that would include, such things as universal basic income (UBI), minimum wage of $15 to $24 an hour, universal healthcare, free education, more unions, and to rebuild the wealth of the 99 percent.
We need a housing plan like the old G.I.Bill, which paid G.I.s to go to school and made it easier to buy a house with very little costs upfront. We need to vote in people who will support this bill of rights for the 99 percent. We are never going to have enough jobs for everyone and even the jobs we have or will have will not pay enough to live on. Most jobs will be part time with no benefits and most people will have to work two to three jobs.
Again, think about who you are pulling the voting lever for. Are they the person who will do what you need for you and your family? If so, then support them and don’t be afraid to demand your undeniable rights. Also, think about how our Commons are being used by large corporations for free. We, the people, should be paid rent for the use of our Commons, which would pay for a UBI to makeup for the lack of jobs, since the tech companies have and will continue to eliminate.
We need to understand just what are our Commons are, like water, clean air, airwaves: internet, radio and television frequencies, gas, oil, minerals, patent protections, forests and national parks, roads, dams, clean air, and many others. These belong to all of us and we have a right to be reimbursed for corporations using these Commons for their own gain.
If we had a UBI, there would be more small businesses and most people receiving the UBI would still work to make more money, and businesses could have part-time workers or a gig type jobs available. All of us would do well and the capitalist system would be fueled with cash flowing and with the bill of rights as listed above, we could very well have a new middle class and the rich would still be rich. Taxes would be paid and the government would still function for the people.
All of this is really up to us, the people, who cast our votes. We have no one to blame but ourselves if we do the wrong thing. We must stand together just like a good union does.
Thomas Paine also wrote, “We all were born with a claim on natural property.” Why are we allowing corporations to rape and pillage our Commons and birthrights with no repercussions for the destruction or compensation to those of us who for the use of these Commons.
In 2012 more than a quarter of all political contributions came from just 30,000 people who represented the 1 percent of the 1 percent, 90 percent who spent the most won. Today, we are an experiment in either a democracy, which started in 1787 or an oligarchy, which is winning. The nonunion people, like Trump and Musk, have most all the tools in their pockets to destroy our unions. They have money, they have the courts, they have law enforcement, they have the media, and 50 percent of workers that don’t know this don’t know the history of the working class people. This is the perfect storm to lose all the gains workers have made whether they’re union or not, even our Social Security and Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act. So, now we will have to go way back to the late 1920s and ‘30s and dig up the old labor party books. One book, written in 1964, has the information, The Rebel Voices, an IWW Anthology by Joyce L. Kornbluh, educator, activist, and advocate. The history of our labor...
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