[img]583|left|||no_popup[/img]People all over the world are fighting to regain their right to self-determination. Their efforts are bolstered by American tax dollars and the precious blood of our youth in many cases.
Here in the United States our right to self-determination, along with our standard of living, is slipping away, not by accident.
Across America, the GOP is engaged in an aggressive campaign to implement policies specifically designed to limit our right to vote, chip away at the middle class standard of living and suppress our right to self-determination.
Voter Suppression
Joan McCarter points out in her Daily Kos article “Republicans Step up Voter Suppression Efforts in Run up to 2012”:
“This year, more than 30 states debated changes to their voting laws. A dozen passed more restrictive rules requiring voters to present state-issued photo IDs, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, although Democratic governors in four states vetoed them. Florida and Ohio will cut nearly in half the number of days for early voting [Black voters are more apt to take advantage of early voting for various reasons, including job considerations], and Florida lawmakers reversed rules that had made it easier for former felons to vote.”
McCarter goes on to point out: “Twenty-five percent of African American voters do not have a valid government-issued photo ID, compared with 8 percent of whites, according to a study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School. The report also found that 15 percent of voters earning less than $35,000 per year do not have such an ID.”
In spite of Republican claims of standing steadfast in defense of the Constitution, the rights of the individuals and protecting our personal freedoms, when it comes to their campaign to regain power, their efforts to subvert those ideals are limitless.
Attack on the Middle Class
The business community no longer is a friend of the American people. At one time business and labor were partners in a symbiotic relationship. Business provided employees a secure lifetime of employment at a livable wage. In return, employees supported the business community by spending their money on goods and services. This arrangement promoted economic stability. Middle class consumers felt secure enough in their lives to invest in homes and cars. They purchased the goods and services the business community produced. The relationship provided the government with a stable tax base from which to draw its operational revenue.
In the new global economy, what were previously considered American corporations have become international conglomerates. They have no sense of patriotism toward any country, no vested interest in either the United States as a country, or the middle class as a people.
Since they now have to compete with countries who pay their workers slave wages, the middle-class standard of living has made us a liability. The only time corporations give the people a second thought is when they gamble on the world market and lose. Then they fall back on us as their piggy bank.
That’s what we saw in the 2008 Wall Street meltdown. The corporate community was robbing the people, with no sense of patriotism or responsibility for the country.
When they shot snake eyes in the global market, they came running back to us, saying, “Remember us? We’re American companies. We belong to you. You can’t let us fail. For God’s sake! Where’s your sense of pride?”
We not only went for that nonsense and dug deep to save these corporations, but thanks to “our representatives,” whom the corporations have in their pocket, we bailed them out without putting any provisos in effect regarding their future conduct.
Once they regained their stability, they thumbed their noses at us, slapped each other on the back with outrageous bonuses, and went back to business as usual.
This is why we find ourselves in this situation. After nearly bankrupting the country to bailout corporations now doing better than ever, they’re sitting on trillions of dollars. They refuse to hire in order to extort still further concessions. Ironically, their most valuable ally is our representatives.
The Republican Party is making certain people remain miserable, hungry, and divided until after the 2012 election.
They hope that by keeping us in this condition it will help them to regain power. If successful, they and their corporate partners intend to lower the standard of living of the middle class in order to make these corporations more globally competitive.
Part of that plan means abolishing Social Security, and Medicare, destroying both our unions and our educational system. That will drag the nation back to a time prior to the Great Depression, and create a permanent underclass.
Not only will every family have to pay for the care of their sick and elderly family members, but if they’re fired from they’re job, they’d have nothing to fall back on. That gives the business community a tremendous amount of leverage.
We have allowed ourselves to become distracted, apathetic hedonists by the mainstream media. They’re using MTV, BET, ESPN and “reality shows” to keep us so focused on dreams of what life could be.
The media has turned our politicians into celebrities. We have lost sight of the fact that these people are our employees not our leaders.
One of the most contentious political arguments is which one we should support. The argument should be, which one is supporting us?
They have successfully turned our political thinking on its head.
While many of us are suffering and trying to hang onto our homes, jobs, and put food on the table, the lowliest representative in Congress makes $174,000 a year plus perks. During the depth of the recession, they voted themselves an additional $93,000 in what they called “petty cash.” The people didn’t say a word. While many of us complain, the system is not the problem. We are. We are failing to control the system. We are knee-deep in a class war. The people we’re depending on to protect us are a part of the class we are fighting.
No wonder we keep coming up short. How can we expect to be represented effectively by people who identify more closely with the people who seek to enslave us?
We can’t. If we fail to pay attention, we will find ourselves constantly being told to tighten our belts by politicians who think they are wearing suspenders.
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
Religious bigotry: It’s not that I hate everyone who doesn’t look, think, and act like me – it’s just that God does.
