Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Post Labor Day thoughts

Should you, as a working person , be able to afford them, you are no longer allowed to wear white shoes for a while.
Lord knows that it's harder to buy some nice shoes of any kind for working folks in this country.
Even if they are made in China by a 4 year old.

Our wages continue to fall as the fattest in the land continue to try and shovel more in.
The work of the last 2 and a half decades by the rethugs (with a little help from Clinton as well) to completely erase all that was fought for in the labor movement as well as via the New Deal trudges on.
Class warfare? When more and more people are fighting to have just a little taste of that plutocracy pie, what the fuck else are you going to call it?

It's easy to get caught up in all Iraq all the time because it's right there (when and if the media lays off Suri Cruise or JonBenet or whatever next nothing story comes along) and our young people are dying and killing over there.
But on the home front, we have to remember that our voices need to be heard in other arenas as well.

The inroads made on behalf of and because of fighting working men and women post New Deal and post WW2 need to be strengthened again. For the sake of our country.
For the SURVIVAL of our country.
Never were we as strong as when we had a happy and well paid middle class in this country.
Now? You don't make any more in real dollars than a working person did when Nixon was president.
How long can we go down this road?
The only new jobs that are being created are in the service sector while good blue collar and white collar jobs are fleeing for a few cents extra per share in quarterly profits.
We can have (and all participate in) a strong stock market and earnings, but it shouldn't be at the cost of everyones real wages and jobs in this country.

When we go to the polls and we question those that we ask to "lead" us, we have to remember to fight for the working people here. That means all of us. People who are seeing their pensions stolen, their jobs shipped overseas or outsourced or their unions on the brink of busting.
Corporate productivity is up in the US, profits are up, but there has not been a trickle down to the ones that do the work. From the engineers to the welders.
CEO pay is up, though. WAY up.
Funny, that. Your pension gets stolen and the CEO sees his increase.

As we move closer and closer to election day, make the choice for the man or the woman that is on OUR side as working Americans.
In the "free market" we have to remember the human element as well.

5 comments:

Clay said...

I dont know if there is a politician with the guts to tackle the wage vs cost of living issue without alienating their financial backers. The gap seems to be getting wider and wider and the middle class is seemingly becoming non existent. Once that happens we'll be down to the proletariat and Bushwazee...........Somehow Carl Marx does not seem to be as crazy as everyone said he was.

Unknown said...

The pay increases for CEO's have far outpaced the growth of the economy or even the companies they oversee. Wages for the averge worker have stagnated and the economy has improved for only the people at the very top. As far as trickle down economics, on shit rolls down hill and that's what the average American is getting.

Steve Landis said...

I've only been back from the North Coast for a day but I've been busy contacting the usual hack politicians, ABC affiliates etc and getting my thoughts posted to blogs and newspapers who may print them. Now is the time for us to pick up the pace and run hard against these bastards, Mike!

Tom Harper said...

As Republicans like to say, a rising tide lifts all yachts. If you don't have a yacht, then what good are you?

Jon Edwards' "Two Americas" speech is even more relevant now than it was 2 years ago.

Mike V. said...

well, guys, I'm not going to hold my breath or anything, but we can and should fight for the middle class.