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The Nation | Blog | Editor's Cut | It's Class, Stupid! | Katrina vanden Heuvel: "As Sylvia Allegretto wrote in the Economic Policy Institute's The State of Working America 2004/2005, which she co-authored: 'The costs of basic necessities like health care, housing, and college keep rising, and many working families' incomes are not keeping pace.'"
See this is what I'm talking about. Who is looking out for the working families of America? Who is looking out for the poor and middle class? According to The Nation's editor if we stand to do no better than those 35 years ago then our economy is failing us. This country is going to become polarized to the point where you'll have the very wealthy and the very poor and there will be no middle class at all. Education is getting harder for people other than the wealthy to obtain. Education is the key to move up, and the wealthy know this so they keep it from the entire population making it unaffordable. Make no mistake about it, this is a class warfare.
As Paul Krugman noted, commenting on his paper's series in his column, "Since 1980 in particular, US government policies have consistently favored the wealthy at the expense of working families--and under the current administration, that favoritism has become extreme and relentless."
To all you kids in school throughout Westchester listen up, seriously there is nothing more important now than the education you are getting. It will be the only thing that will give you the chance to fight. You are behind the eight ball right now as we speak. I'm behind the eight ball. If I have to start preaching in schools I'll do it. The stakes are too high and I'm tired of seeing working families, the poor, minorities, women and children suffering. We need good schools, good jobs, good education, good healthcare and good government. Equal opportunity for everyone must be our motto.
As Vermont Senate candidate Bernie Sanders says, the corporate-owned media tend to ignore the economic problems that face millions of people on a daily basis. The press doesn't cover, he argues, things like the fact that Americans are "working longer hours for lower wages," living standards have declined, and "we have the most unequal distribution of wealth of any major country on earth and we are the only industrialized country in the world without a national health care system." One result of people not seeing their lives reflected in the media, Sanders argues, is that they think their problems are unique to them, and are not social or political problems that we as a nation can solve by working together.
Where's the new Karl Marx? that's what I want to know. Labor has to organize it must be strong once again. The labor movement must rise once again Mr. Andy Stern unleash the dogs! We have let the right wing demonize unions for too long. Of course there were some corrupt practices with unions in the past but that's a risk with everything just look at Enron! We let them bust up the unions, we stood by and did nothing.
That's why the future of the progressive movement lies more in the unions than with party politics. That's why I joined the Working Families Party. If both major parties are not doing enough to help the working families of this state and this country, then something has to be done.
What do families need?
1. Good jobs
2. Good education to allow for career advancement
3. If not national then affordable healthcare
4. Clean and safe neighborhoods
5. Affordable housing
6. Active civic communities
The working class is America, that's what built this country. Minorities helped build it too and it's time they realize that they have a stake in it's future. We can't get by with only 78,000 jobs created last May. There is no job creation, where is the current crop of college grads going to work McDonalds, A & P, the movie theater? You people want to waste your time attacking Howard Dean? You can't be serious with all the needs of the working families and the poor have in this country, this is what you choose to indulge in? Get off your high horse otherwise i'll have to knock you down.
When will you people undserstand there is a class warfare out there. You can't pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you don't have them to begin with. Rugged individualism is a sham in the context of the Reganites, Thatcherities, and the rest of neo-conservatism/neo-liberalism within the New Right. Free markets aren't really free they are loosley regulated and they can hurt billions if not reuglated once again. Why do you think Roosevelt put all those restrictions into place after The Great Depression? To stop the rich, the wealthy, the egotistical, and the robber barons from destroying the rest of the population. There was a reason they called it The Gilded Age.
Why do we allow ourselves to buy into the corpratist message? Through their media tentacles , when we talk about health care they bring up Michael Jackson. When we talk about education they bring up The Apprentice. When we talk about job creation they want to privatize social secuirty. When we talk about any of these things they'll bring up 9/11 and the war on terror they'll use fear against us. Obviously there's a reason for having an entire empire's wealth concentrated only in the hands of the few. Do you think they really care about us? It's a hidden aristocracy they even breed amonst themselves to keep the lines connected. Who do you think Paris Hilton's parents are going to allow her to marry? Not some bum i'll tell you that much, he'll be some blue blood Yalie.
We have more in common than you think, why do we allow them to divide us? They'll throw all these wedges of race, gender and sex at us to keep the working class divided. The empire will take us to war, and whose fighting that war? Not them it's the poor minorities and middle class lining up to defend their empire. It's their empire it's not yours, get it through your thick skull people.
I'll tell you who my brothers and sisters are it's more than who's from the same racial background that i'm from. I don't care what race, sex, gender, or age you are. If you're part of the working class and the poor then we need to stick together. They know that and they'll do what they have to keep us divided.
What's really important to you America? You say you don't care about politics, you say that they are all corrupt. Do you not realize that's what they want you to think? Do you think they want you involved? Because that's the way you change things. They want you apathetic. Do you think they want you getting a good education? Why do you think slaves were not taught to read?
For crying out loud wake up! Someone help me wake myself up, for there are still many other illusions that I must see through.
I'm done ranting.. but i'm not done being angry and i'm not done, i've only begun.p>
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