Saturday, February 19, 2011

How do you band-aid a broken back?

I'll start with an open letter to the president, who, for whatever reason, follows me on twitter...

"I still support you, Mr. President, but, respectfully, your response to Scott Walker and the Koch Bros. sponsored tyranny in Wisconsin was rather weak. I realize you are trying not to ruffle feathers among the super corporations that control this country along with the big banks (which skated from prosecution I might add), but union busting will destroy not only the Democratic Party's chances at any future success in elections, but the working people of this country will be annihilated. We can no longer abide the vast division between rich and poor. HG Wells said it best in The Time Machine, we are becoming two distinct species. Please take a stand for workers, for without us, this country dies."

I have been in the media field as a journalist, music producer, sound specialist, filmmaker, voice artist, writer, screenwriter and just about everything else for over 35 years. In all that time, I have always been a strong supporter of the working class. Since the Reagan years, and no disrespect to Mr. Reagan, but the right wing agenda has brought collective bargaining, workers rights and just the general treatment of working people to an all time low.

The Grand Old Party has gone from a comparatively progressive stance during the Eisenhower years where they supported unions and collective bargaining, to a socially and intellectually bankrupt group of narrow minded individuals focused solely on lining their pockets on the backs of those least capable of defending themselves, the working poor and the unemployed. Under the Republican Party and their increasingly conservative and regressive economic policies, especially under George W. Bush's 8 year oligarchy, Wall Street Banks virtually raped this nation, caused hardship for working people on a grand scale never before seen in the history of this nation. As Matt Taibbi points out in his book, Griftopia, these Wall Street fat cats, unregulated and uncontrolled, brought this nation to its knees, all while lining their pockets with impunity.

Republicans and conservatives, especially those in the ultra-right Tea Party wing, financed by huge corporations and the billionaire Koch Brothers, have a rather simple, if somewhat surreptitious agenda to destroy the one political arm of the American worker and middle class, and that is the unions. Without the Culinary Union in Nevada, for example, the nutjob Sharron Angle, who wanted to roll back this country to the dark ages of the 19th century, would have trounced Harry Ried in the last Senate election.

Barack Obama, who was elected on a platform of bringing justice and change to a country in crisis, has, most likely out of fear and some identification with Wall Street, has become, I am sorry to say, Bush Lite. For all his good intentions, the rich got even richer, none of the criminals who stole billions from American workers and homeowners went to jail, and we are losing any progress made in the last 50 plus years, fast and furious.

Here are just some clear examples: Unions since Reagan have dropped from 35% of the work force represented to a mere 7%. The minimum wage, which is not even close to a living wage, is in jeopardy harder than Alex Trebec could possibly imagine; social programs are being destroyed, like Planned Parenthood and Female reproductive rights; and while the rich got their tax cuts, Grandma stands to be out in the street with Social Security and Medicare being placed under the GOP meat ax.

We are becoming a nation of serfs, with the average salary of a CEO 300 to 500 times the salary of an employee, at least those employees that are still working.

What needs to happen, and what always seems to happen when things get really bad, is for people to rise up against their masters, the tyrants, as they have in Egypt and the rest of the Middle East, and say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

The key is organization. Without a lot of money, the American people will have to use technology such as facebook and the internet to gather together and fight for their rights.

What we have to remember is that there is no difference between the people in control and the people controlled except what is in their hearts. Progressive thinking, which has become a dirty word in the mainstream media, it seems, is all we have left to save this nation. As I have said repeatedly, the undeniable truth is that UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL.

And we have fallen, hard...

I implore you, if you have any self respect, any sense of justice left and haven't totally devolved from watching too much Jersey Shore, FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHTS AND BRING DOWN THE TYRANTS!

Quantum Mechanic®

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