[img]583|left|||no_popup[/img]We thought it would be instructive if we reprised part of a December 2009 essay when we wrote a series pointing out that the U. S. Postal Service was a microcosm of America. To ignore the plight of its employees would be a slap at middle class workers.
Last week, Ohio voters voted overwhelmingly to repeal a draconian assault on middle class workers by Gov. John Kasich and his Republican legislature. One of many such votes across the country, they became necessary because American workers refused to realize the only way to fight for their own justice was to fight for the justice of others.
Ohio voters wouldn’t have had the problem if they had confronted the threat the GOP posed to workers when they elected Kasich. But workers thought he only was a threat to others.
The last time the Tea Party was heard from came when the GOP was talking about attacking Social Security, Medicare, and the programs that have a direct impact on their lives. Funny, isn’t it, how fast people see the light when the quality of their lives is under attack?
From two years ago:
Role of Poor, Minorities and Middle Class
The phrase New World Order says it clearly. In our blind naivete, the belief it can't happen here, the vast majority of American people believe New World Order refers to the reshuffling of nations around the world. The change is much more profound. New World Order also applies to the reshuffling of the internal economic structure within nations.
As the world moves from many separate national economies to one global economy, the class structure of nations must be adjusted to accommodate the new state of affairs.
The high standard of living enjoyed by the American middle class since World War II no longer can be sustained when competitors are paying their workers less per week than we spend on a lunch.
This is why American jobs are being outsourced to other countries, and why Wal-mart, one of the largest retail corporations in the world, has based its business model on purchasing most of its merchandise from China.
Wal-mart is a microcosm of the revised American business strategy under the New World Order. Study the socioeconomic profile of Wal-mart employees to see where our society is headed.
Wal-mart's business strategy is to hire easily replaceable, low-skilled employees. They take advantage of their precarious economic condition to squeezes every dime of profit out of the company's operation . They aggressively fight organized labor to hold down employee wages and benefits. They deny their employees anything approaching affordable healthcare.
The new wrinkle is the government has embraced this anti-middle class business model. In the past the government was dedicated to enhancing the standard of living of workers all over the world to conform to the standard of living of U.S. workers.
Now, however, as evidenced by the abusive employment practices of the U.S. Postal Service, the second largest employer of middle class workers in the country, the government has embraced the corporatist philosophy that it is easier to lower the standard of living of workers to conform to of Third World countries.
On a Life Raft All Alone
American workers are on their own. Neither business nor government is on our side. Where business was once our partner in a symbiotic relationship, it is a predator. When our parents pulled into a gas station, a guy in white shirt and bow tie would run out to check their oil and water, and put air in their tires as he pumped twenty-two-cents-a-gallon gas into their tanks.
Even if gas no longer is cheap, what happened to service?
The reason for the change is greed. When the U. S. had a thriving industrial economy, one class complemented the other. Labor was well-paid. Workers enjoyed the security of knowing they had a job for life. They had the confidence to purchase goods the corporations produced, which allowed the companies that sold the goods to prosper, to the benefit of the investor class.
To remain competitive now in a global market, corporations must gain concessions out of the labor class. Since the heads of corporations must make huge profits to justify their unconscionably oversized bonuses, they prey on their workers by undercutting their benefits and outsourcing the jobs that the economy is dependent upon to sustain the corporation and the nation. They only think about themselves, they never considering the impact of their irresponsible behavior.
When Wall Street or the Fed announces the economy is thriving, the are not talking about the American economy as a whole, only the investor class.
A robust economy means they're successfully forcing the worker to the limit, gouging the consumer. That kind of greed led to the 2008 economic disaster. Nothing has changed.
Corporations no longer need the American worker to sustain their profits. They can outsource their labor, purchase and sell their goods overseas. The American worker no longer is a partner in the corporation's viability, having been relegated to the status of field hand.
An article in Wikipedia points out that the AIG Financial Products Division, headed by Joseph Cassano in London, had entered into credit default swaps to insure $441 billion worth of securities originally rated AAA. Of those securities, $57.8 billion were structured debt securities backed by subprime loans. Not only did the American taxpayer pay off this insurance company's debt, but one we that originated in another country.
Your money is being taken again, but this time, they're taking your money to pay your representative to block an attempt by President Obama to stop them from cutting your throat in a time of crisis, just as they did to the corporations on Wall Street.
The difference is, – you and you're family are not too big to fail. Without a job-creation program, like the one proposed by President Obama but blocked by the GOP, youj will not succeed.
Think about that, and urge President Obama to emancipate postal workers, because they represent the middle class.
Eric L. Wattree is a writer, poet and musician, born in Los Angeles. A columnist for the Los Angeles Sentinel, the Black Star News, a staff writer for Veterans Today, he is a contributing writer to Your Black World, the Huffington Post, ePluribus Media and other online sites and publications. He also is the author of “A Message From the Hood.”
Mr. Wattree may be contacted at wattree.blogspot.com or Ewattree@Gmail.com
