We have a serious problem in this country. It is not hard to recognize or to understand. It is simple and it is ruining America. It could be solved with swift, violent action but, as we are a civilized society, we need to look to more civilized measures.
Here is the problem. A handful…about 500 or so…very roughly…super-wealthy individuals (lets call them the 500 Reactionary Rich ) who, unlike Buffett, the Rockefellers, Soros and Gates, live only for money and have bought up the national media, in particular the radio and television media.
They own the distribution of messaging and they bought and own the allegiance of radio and television commentators who deliver the messages on that media.
Almost every one of the thousands of AM and FM radio stations with any signal at all, Fox Broadcasting, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Channel, CNBC, and ABC broadcasting, and other media like the WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE NEW YORK POST and hundreds of other conservative newspapers, blogs and magazines deliver the message.
And what is the message? It is not an easy message to pin down because every single day new attacks are launched by the paid propagandists or by some who are merely deluded into thinking that most of the rich actually earned what they now have. In reality only about 25% of the currently multi-millionaires and billionaires started from scratch. And we have no way to reward these people differently from those who inherited wealth. Even then, some of those who inherited wealth worked tirelessly to expand it, and they also deserve our respect. Those new or expanded fortunes mean jobs for thousands of people. That does not give any of them the right to commandeer the economy or the government at the expense of everyone else.
We don’t live in either Communism or Socialism. We live in a Capitalist society. But so do the European countries and so do many other countries, many of which have passed us in quality of life for their citizens. Other governments who are now expanding and they are choosing to ignore the American model, which they see as destined to fail.
Why would it fail? These emerging countries have already had the experience of poverty among citizens, social upheaval, lack of real opportunity, lack of a social safety net, or a social network, as they would call it. They look at America with a handful of powerful men controlling society…and they are, indeed, all Caucasian and all men. These emerging countries see us going in the opposite direction from what they envision.
They see someone like Rush Limbaugh, for example, who is a mere radio commentator, who, in their country, would have been eliminated long ago during the revolutionary period. Revolutionaries who took over the government were themselves later forced out, some violently, by improving economic conditions that gave way to moderate governments and heavily regulated industries. Yes, they do have workforces that are catching up to American laws. Wages are still lower but those governments are looking around the world to find models that they can move to in the future.
They are not looking at the United States. They are looking at countries in Europe and some even in Latin America. The 500 Reactionary Rich are ruining this country. These emerging nations see it because they are not influenced by the Rush Limbaughs. They even laugh at the idea that a radio host, obviously fronting for Reactionary forces, whom they would simply put out of business with the stroke of a pen, can change the nature of a Party’s (Republican) politics. We are a laughing stock for the ignorance of our citizens.
What do you hear about every day?
Taxes. These very rich men are paying hundreds of thousands and millions each year in taxes. It is not that they have no influence. They have a voice in Washington the likes of which you could have only in your dreams. But these particular men, many of them who have nothing better to do, want more power and more money in their pockets.
Not all people are decent human beings. Look in any federal institution or talk to any law enforcement official and you will learn that some people are simply criminals and they always have been and they always will be. Some of those with a criminal mind set are people with millions and billions of dollars. And, in general, they are very smart and plan very far ahead.
Cutting entitlements. The 500 Rich Reactionaries don’t want to pay back the money they borrowed. That’s right. A man pays in $400,000 a year in taxes. George W. Bush comes into office. He says to Georgie W. “How about a little break on these taxes?” “Georgie, never having had a real job or been a real anything, says, “Sure. Let me see what I can do.” Cheney is all for tax cuts. He is all about Halliburton and all their clients, the big oil corporations…who often pay no taxes at all.
So, it turns out that we don’t have any extra money for tax cuts. We are losing money less than we were losing it, literally down from $500 billion deficit under Bush I, to $86 billion deficit under Clinton’s last budget…but moving towards solvency. But Georgie Boy and Cheney decide to just borrow the money from China and they give that guy and all his friends a check each year for an additional 4% or in this case, $80,000…every year for ten years!
Now…actually…there’s nothing wrong with that except for one thing. Georgie and Dick borrowed the money from China, gave it to their rich friends, and now want the Middle Class to lower their living standards to pay for it. They want to take our money, money we put into Social Security, and change the game. They want us to cut Social Security…whether it is “us” today, or “us” tomorrow, i.e. our kids…they want us to pay for the money they gave to millionaires and billionaires.
And now that the American people in various hicksvilles around the country have elected a huge number of moronic Tea Party House members…they, the Republican voters are so dumb they are going to let them try to do it again! What is it…fool me once…? Bush couldn’t even remember that but he could take care of his rich oil men friends. And the dopey American voters are trying to let them get away with it again. It is criminal.
Health Care Reform. Let’s make this as simple as possible. The rest of the world has non-profit or public health care. At least 16 countries have health care better than ours, even as the health care industry tries to tell you how wonderful it is.
But the reason that they spent $400 million was not altruistically that it would be “too expensive” and “government controlled” but because health industry CEOs and their top executives, CEOs averaging $14 million a year and top execs averaging over a million a year, will take huge pay cuts under the new health care reforms when they take place.
That is why you are paying more in premiums already. Almost the minute that health care reform was passed, premiums went up by 39% in California. Health care insurance is a monopoly, state by state, with only a certain number of companies in total and a certain number allowed to sell in each state. Health care reform will end all that. It will now be a wide-open bidding process. They are raising rates like crazy, dropping all pretense that there is any kind of free market. They don’t care because if health care reform stays, their premium prices will do down at least 30%…just from the regional pools, regional open markets that are being established.
That is why the Republicans have jumped on board with orders. What Anthony Weiner calls “a wholly owned subsidiary of the Health Care Industry,” the Republican members of Congress are loaded and ready to try to repeal Health Care Reform. It is the most sinister and evil and cynical thing any member of Congress has ever tried to do to the American people. Neocons have no more conscience than the Nazis who marched people off to concentration camps. Swift death or slow death…that is the only difference.
There is more. Halliburton still gets huge contracts and still cheats us. The wars seem endless, with no purpose, and do not wind down. Tea Party members have no experience in government and are liable to destroy the country before the hicks discover it and vote them out for Representatives who really care about the people…all the people. Blackwater is abroad in the land with military camps that they use to tie themselves to the local police, through training and joint efforts. What is that about? They are building more prisons and operating them privately. What is that about?
We are in a scary time. We are sitting precariously on the edge of a totalitarian state that is being made, by the same propagandists, to feel as though it is us, the Middle Class, not the huge billionaires paying the bills for the Cato Institute and Americans for Prosperity…who are at fault.
They want us to feel guilty? Guilty, because we don’t want to give more billionaires, plus the top 1% who own two thirds of all corporate stock in this country (wouldn’t you think that would be ENOUGH?) additional tax benefits and cut our own standards of living…after they put 15 million people…soon…on bread lines.
If you are thinking…it must be something else, something I don’t understand, no one can be that greedy or lack that much compassion or concerns for their fellow man…think again. It is happening whether you can imagine it or not. It is happening right now.
Food pantries around this country saw an increase of 35% in the last year and climbing.
Bankruptcies are at an all time high, even higher than they were during the Bush Administration. Bankruptcies were at record setting levels then, and now it’s worse, so what do you call it now? Three million more mortgages will go into foreclosure this year. Hundreds of thousands a month lose their health care insurance because they cannot afford premiums that continue to rise….in a depression.
Make no mistake about it. This was planned by people like Bush and Cheney and Rove and Norquist and accelerated by people like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and their boss, the Australian immigrant, Rupert Murdoch. It was a planned Depression that was only prevented barely by the bank bail out and the stimulus. Or we would have 25% unemployment…which they planned…right now.
Monopolies abound in every field. Bread that was a dollar six months ago is a dollar-and-a-half today. Eggs that were a dollar nineteen six months ago are a dollar and a half today. Food prices, controlled by huge monopolistic food corporations are turning up the screws on the poor. It’s getting really personal, and it’s coming from the top down.
That’s all. That’s the state of affairs today in America. You figure out what to do about it. Use your head and get off the couch. Shut off the television; call your friends; join Liberal or Green or Progressive organizations. Get involved before it’s too late, if it is not already.
