The War on the ...............Middle Class?

Assault on the Middle Class

In Philadelphia the news came out over the weekend of the closing of many city schools at the same time the state is looking to build a new $400 million prison. If there is a person on whom the irony in this action is lost please seek help immediately. It is a documented fact that a lack of educational opportunities and economic parity contributes mightily to crime and dependence on social programs. One has to wonder if, in this instance, Pennsylvania is also planning to privatize this prison so that the closing of schools will fill the pipeline to the prison.

Already the United States imprisons people at a higher rate than anyone else in the world and that includes China and Russia. A dismal statistic for the land of the free.

Today's news featured a report that the House of Representatives could not pass a farm bill even after slashing the Food Stamp Program by $2 Billion. The party of NO wants to slash this economic support program even more to help offset the generous increase in crop insurance benefits that largely benefit large farms and more than a few Congressmen. That's right. We want to give the corporate farms more money so that imported rice and sugar won't affect their bottom line. Why are we more concerned with their bottom line than we are the dinner tables of the people who have been left high and dry by the great theft perpetrated by Wall Street? The former middle class has been left without decent paying jobs, health insurance and, in far too many cases, food. To deal with this the party of NO wants to increase the profitability of the corporate farms presumably so they can create jobs that won't pay enough to keep a family from qualifying for food stamps. It's no wonder they say they need immigrant workers that will work for far less than a living wage.

Another item in the current news is the report from Brazil of tens of thousands of people rioting in the streets over the vast inequities in wealth between the rich and the poor. Brazil is scheduled to host the next Olympic Games and is spending billions on new infrastructure to meet the need for the world games. Already they have moved the poor from the slums of the city in order to present a glossier picture to the television viewers but the people of that country are enraged by the wealth that is shown to be available but not to them. This is a cautionary tale because that can happen here too. Already the United States is far down the list of countries in which economic and social mobility is probable. The inequities between the rich and the poor rank the United States near the top in that statistic of discrimination. Some have been warning for years that the United States is becoming a nation with a caste system based on economic standing. If you are wealthy you are in a very good place but if you are not your chances of becoming well off are minimal. The canard is still spread about that this is the land of opportunity but that is becoming an illusion. Just ask the thousands of college graduates that will not be able to find a job equal to paying down their student loan debt and what about those men and women who were in the last third of their working career that became unemployed during the Great Recession. They will never have a secure retirement nor will they ever hold a job equal to what they had before.

What is happening in Brazil, Greece and many other less wealthy places around the globe can happen here. The people will not forever watch the wealthiest nation in the world continue to shortchange the middle class that made it great. The American people only want to be able to raise their families in peace and be able to provide their children with a reasonable opportunity of a good future. Instead we are given need and want, non-existent health care with medical bills we have no chance of ever paying off, and an educational system that denies the middle class entry by costing what a middle class salary no longer will pay for. Yes, it can happen here.

Abraham Lincoln said, “you can fool all of the people some of the time” and that is a caution that you “cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” Our leaders have kept the middle class in line by introducing diversionary issues, many of which are genuine concerns, that cause us to take our attention from the issues that affect the middle class and are designed to subjugate the middle class until we are no longer relevant. These issues stir up passions that cause us to vote against our economic interests. Many say that they are important enough to impoverish the middle class over and they certainly have the right to do that but I would point out that without the blessings that economic parity brings those rights to have an opinion will vanish.

So, whatever you think about the free market, capitalism, socialism, abortion, gay rights or holding back the godless horde we need to make a priority out of repairing the economic status of the middle class. I won't pretend that there are not those who wouldn't work in a pie factory but there are many more who would do almost anything and for whom food stamps are a necessary bridge to a healthy family. I won't ask you to believe that government can do things better than anyone else but governments are who builds the bridges and roads and many other public projects that are withering from lack of funding. Just wise up. It can happen here and it has before.

Our country was born out of economic disparity when our Mother Country used policies that would funnel profits to England and deny the colonies the profit of their labor. Our revolution was when the people got tired of that and took to the streets. Most of the colonists really didn't want to break from England but it became inevitable that to achieve economic parity that would be necessary. Yes, it can happen here. During the Great Depression in 1932 it did happen here. There were riots in the streets over the lack of food and economic deprivation. You may recall that we elected a new type of President after that.

My take? Check this out. The heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune hold more wealth than the bottom 41.5% of our population COMBINED. Add in Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and a few others and you're talking real money. Now, ask yourself if anyone, yes anyone, has ever done anything to be worth that kind of money especially when we have people in want and need.