"Us" and "them", mind you, are loosely defined and can be user-interpreted by any group to mean anything. The "Conservative mindset" is generally rigid and inclined to fear. Therefore, once a fear-based idea ('they're coming to take our guns and our money', for instance) is successfully implanted, it becomes like a stubborn ketchup stain; forever dying the fabric of existence RED...
Prior to the Great Depression, there were no safety nets, no way for the American Public to feel protected from the slings and arrows of fortune. The country was wild with anticipation about the future, and no one worried too much about the increasing concentration of wealth (ever heard of the Robber Barons?)
Like our modern Corporations (and now Governors), the Robber Barons were anti-union. Workers were not given weekends, or pensions, or the right to overtime should their workload force them to bend to their tasks for more than 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week.
As the country emerged from the mire of the Great Depression, however, Unions gained strength, and the government stepped up, creating the social safety nets and infrastructure programs which built this country to it's high point in the 70's, when the country was riding so high on the adrenaline of its welth that the regularions put in place in the '30's suddenly didn't look so important. We began deregulating, beginning with Nixon. This deregulation continues today, slowly dismantling the means by which America became a superpower. It will continue with the destruction of the Unions. And our govenment is doing nothing to stop it. In fact, they are active particpants.
Noam Chomsky recently stated in an interview
I’m old enough to remember the Depression. My family was mostly unemployed working class. It was objectively worse than now, if you count, you know, objective standards. On the other hand, it was hopeful. There was a sense that something is going to happen. You had a government which was doing things that helped the population, because they were under pressure. In fact, Roosevelt famously talked to the labor leaders and said, "Make me do this. You know, so you go have sit-down strikes and you protest and so on, then we’ll push this legislation through." Well, it happened. So you had WPA. You had—Social Security was coming in. There was a sense that we’re going to get out of this somehow. There was hope for the future. Now there isn’t. The industrial workforce is living in the Depression. Unemployment is at Depression levels.
And the jobs aren’t coming back, because policy is designed, by the man in charge of jobs for the Obama administration and others like him, to send production abroad. It’s cheaper. It’s more profitable for the banks and the management. Or to move from investment in production to investment in finance, which does nothing for the economy, probably harms it, but it is very profitable and has the nice feature that when it crashes, as it’s going to do, the taxpayer will come in and bail you out. It’s a great system. It’s a real racket. We will—the regulations are such so that we can take very risky transactions, make a lot of money, it’s going to crash, but no problem, there’s that nice taxpayer. They will come in and bail us out. We’ll be richer than before. And each time it gets worse than it was the last time. Now, this one is really bad. So whatever the growth figures show, for the population, that’s not happening, except for a small sector. So the numbers could be right, but that’s not what it means for people’s lives.
Life is not about making money for the few. Life is about our freedoms, our inherent human rights. Someone is trying to take those away. Not our rights to guns, or to pay less taxes, or to buy whatever we want (as long as it's cheap and poorly constructed so you have to buy more- and soon! It's your duty as an American!)
The rights they are trying to take away are those most basic ones our forefathers described. The right to liberty, freedom from oppression, and the pursuit of happiness. The right to choose our own religion and the right to our own bodies.
Take from this what you will. From the annals of the American Revolution, however, came this bit of poetry from Phyllis Wheatly
No more, America, in mournful strain,
Of wrongs and grievance unredressed complain;
No longer shall thou dread the iron chain
Which wanton Tyranny, with lawless hand,
Had made, and with it meant t' enslave the land.
At least, my dear friend, we still have shows like "The Jersey Shore" and "The Housewives of Beverly Hills" that give us hope in a new generation of youngsters who obviously have the intelligence to correct all the wrongs of our country :).
ReplyDeleteIndeed, sweetie.
ReplyDeleteI have to say, the current crisis will lead us either to an American Renaissance or the Dark Ages of U.S. In my tin-foil topped state of mind, I've settled on the darker view, but it doesn't necessarily have to be so.
Your generation will be in charge of the renaissance, sorry. Mine has failed to follow through on our ideas of the 60's. Many became yuppies, got rich and are trying to put down the rest now, unfortunately. All you have to do is believe that you can force these trends back the other way, but to do that you will have to band together and form real unions, whether they be dealing with companies and corporations, or just supporting each other, and beating back the bastards. Sorry we didn't do more.
ReplyDelete