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It seems that we are in a never ending downward spiral as the states are the next stage in the inevitable economic collapse of the capitalist system. This article explains very clearly what is happening and why. The rich don't need public services, they don't need health care reform, they don't need foreclosure relief, they don't need public education. They don't care.
The middle class is dying. Poverty is increasing. It is time for the 'working class' to fight, at the ballot box, and if that don't work, in the streets. I think it is high time for a mass marches on Washington and the all the State capitals to demand government by the people, for the people, and not for the banks and corporations.
We want our vote to count, to see limits placed on political spending, for real election reform, and for true ethics reform in politics. If a politician takes one dollar from a lobbyist, he should have to abstain on any vote concerning issues related to the lobbyist.
I doubt if I will see change in my lifetime. The wealthy have the power and they are not going to let go of it willingly. If the people were to rise up, it would be a bloody battle as repression would be the order of the day. The rich don't care about 'us', they care about their own self interests. They have never had a bit of compassion in the character. They never will. Sure, some have given lip service to those less fortunate, but they are the exception, not the norm.
We need working class heroes. We need a new movement. Maybe we could start by letting everyone know we exist by having a general strike, nationwide, on or near Labor Day 2009. For one day, a few days after Labor Day, everyone goes on strike. No trucks run, no workers work, no people shopping, no teachers, no nurses, no public employees, no one works. Time to send a message to the politicians and the oligarchs that the workers want a voice.
The middle class is dying. Poverty is increasing. It is time for the 'working class' to fight, at the ballot box, and if that don't work, in the streets. I think it is high time for a mass marches on Washington and the all the State capitals to demand government by the people, for the people, and not for the banks and corporations.
We want our vote to count, to see limits placed on political spending, for real election reform, and for true ethics reform in politics. If a politician takes one dollar from a lobbyist, he should have to abstain on any vote concerning issues related to the lobbyist.
I doubt if I will see change in my lifetime. The wealthy have the power and they are not going to let go of it willingly. If the people were to rise up, it would be a bloody battle as repression would be the order of the day. The rich don't care about 'us', they care about their own self interests. They have never had a bit of compassion in the character. They never will. Sure, some have given lip service to those less fortunate, but they are the exception, not the norm.
We need working class heroes. We need a new movement. Maybe we could start by letting everyone know we exist by having a general strike, nationwide, on or near Labor Day 2009. For one day, a few days after Labor Day, everyone goes on strike. No trucks run, no workers work, no people shopping, no teachers, no nurses, no public employees, no one works. Time to send a message to the politicians and the oligarchs that the workers want a voice.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-07 02:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-07 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-07 07:57 pm (UTC)I keep thinking of the ending of the movie Dr. Zhivago, and the meeting with the young girl. So much is lost in social upheaval or so it seems to me and perhaps that is the only way and again, I find myself with a "No, No, No," so perhaps I need to deal with the fear of rebellion in myself.
'We are poor little lambs who have lost our way....'
"The Whiffenpoof Song" aside, we - the collective "we" - have become a nation of sheep. This can be blamed on corporations, of course; and rightly so. I don't, however, lament the supposed demise of the middle class: I grieve instead for the fatal weakening of the working class.
All that's been written before me here in Alan's Web-log entry is well taken. Indeed, the upper class has all the power in its corner; yet the middle class serves as missionaries for the upper class, showing off its material acquisitions and voting for every right-wing nutter who comes along.
The middle class put Hitler in power; the middle class, since its inception as a by-product of capitalism, has supported every totalitarian regime worldwide; and it continues to do so. These assertions of mine are obviously generalities, but let it be known not every person who struggles to survive on a fixed and/or low income aspires to become middle class - the boss class, the landlord class, the shopkeeper class - because that requires abandonment of ethics and morality.
Voters in middle-class suburbia had better wise up and begin supporting more humane and just candidates for political office, or else they'll end up out in the snow with nothing but the clothes they're wearing - like the Russian middle class of the early 20th century, or the Cambodian middle class of more recent times (minus the snow). I'd prefer there be a peaceful revolution; but a revolution is needed and history shows such phenomena are rarely peaceful.
=^..^=