[personal profile] curmugeon
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.

Date: 2009-07-07 02:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cathy-edgett.livejournal.com
It is true that our politicians are bought and the lobbyists are in control. Yes, one working class hero might make the difference, and yet isn't that what Sarah Palin is trying to market herself as? How do we find the real thing? Certainly Obama might fit the category of a self-made man and yet he is balancing a great deal on his plate right now, and Bush purposely left him this mess and so now what can be done. I'm with you on what you say and the logistics are challenging to put in place. This have been coming for eight years. Can it be turned around? Does one of us want to be out in front leading the revolution. I must admit that, in this moment, I'm too tired to do that.

Date: 2009-07-07 06:38 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] n6vfp.livejournal.com
No, it will take a movement, not just one person. I hearken back to the times of Pete Seeger, Woodie Guthrie, etc. It will be pro worker, and made up of all those who live below the six figure salary range. The target will be those in the top 10%, they will be seen as the enemy. Obama has become more of an Oreo, brown outside but white to the core. Sure, he's a self made man, but he has bought into the system or has come to the realization that if he is to survive he has to dance the dance and his dance card is full of special (wealthy) interests. It all started the quick descent after 9/11, when the core of the wealthy was attacked and they felt threatened. They then started their transfer of wealth and control, and except for the bump in the road called Obama, they were on their way to their vision of a new world where they controlled everything including the necessities of life like food and water. They are still working to control the people, killing when necessary to gain control of resources. It is now a global battle, a scramble for the last drop of oil, the last vestige of arable land, the last drop of unpolluted water. The next wars will be for food, water, land and the ability to live. The next victims will be the poor, the impoverished, the weak. We are dying as the Roman Empire did, by depleting the vital resources, by making the gap between rich and poor so wide as to be in different worlds. That is why I see the only solution as a bloody revolution.

Date: 2009-07-07 07:57 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cathy-edgett.livejournal.com
I agree we may need a revolution, though even as I type the words, I find myself going, "No, No, No."

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.
From: [identity profile] flyvapnet.livejournal.com

"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.

=^..^=
Edited Date: 2009-07-07 07:57 pm (UTC)

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