Our Elites Have Failed Us
Los Angeles
“After a public reading of the Declaration of Independence on 9 July, 1776, crowd pulls down statue of King George III to be melted into bullets.” |
The dirty report:
A weak labor market already has left half of young college graduates either jobless or underemployed in positions that don’t fully use their skills and knowledge.Young adults with bachelor’s degrees are increasingly scraping by in lower-wage jobs – waiter or waitress, bartender, retail clerk or receptionist, for example – and that’s confounding their hopes a degree would pay off despite higher tuition and mounting student loans.
There’s just not enough money these days. So our taxes are going up, our costs of education are being increased, and the cost of living will continue to inflate as every local and state government, as well as every private business, reaches to sew up their budget or make a profit. Workers need higher wages. Employers don’t want to pay more, so they charge more for their products or services, which keeps the average family in need of more money. Never enough money.
But where does this start? Why are we so bound to the money system? It’s failing us, so far. The report above is ominous. It should have everybody worried, college graduate or not. Fifty percent of graduating students can’t find a professional job, and maybe not even a minimum wage gig. That’s scary. And in a world where we need more and more money to get by. This is the time when we absolutely need higher wages and better jobs.
But to get a job, a young person today almost has to go to college. The prospects are even grimmer without a bachelor’s degree.
Within the university cycle, the same nasty cycle is occurring. Less state and federal funding. Universities and colleges need more. They run themselves like businesses. So they demand more money from the students. And there are many more students now than ever, because there’s not much use looking for a job without the degree. I’ve heard many students say they’re going to college for a few years to avoid the job market, and when they get out, they hope it’s better, and improved since they disappeared into the welcoming (but debt-laden) college setting.
But the economy isn’t recovering. It’s not enough to take a four year break. We’ve been in a hard slump for four years, and it’s going to continue. We’re actually happy to hear the unemployment rate is at 8.1 percent. That’s become good news in our twisted society.
But that’s really, terribly awful news. It’s not even accurate, because with real U6 calculations, our unemployment hangs around 14.5 percent. That’s millions of Americans without jobs, unable to pay bills, save for retirement, access healthcare, and so on. Those are real faces, real families, real households, and it’s incredibly traumatic in a society where money is God, and there is very little leeway for those without it. Our financial meltdown has caused suicides, homicides, robberies, and health problems, like heart attacks, from the stress of losing a home, or being unable to support a family.
As radio show host and writer Johnny Argent frequently says, We need to aim our anger and attention toward the top. I think he’s right. Why don’t we have money for elementary education, as well as for college students? Where is all the goddamned money in the richest nation on earth? It’s being pumped into the Pentagon. It’s being delivered on a golden platter to Wall Street, to multinational corporations, and to national and foreign banks.
Our Federal Reserve, from right beneath our sleeping eyes, printed over $16 trillion for our most corrupt private financial institutions, like Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and even McDonald’s. Thousands of filthy rich corporations received billions of zero-interest loans (your money, your tax dollars, some freshly printed and not collected from you yet).
Yet, imagine asking the federal government to get just a mere $100,000 from the Federal Reserve so you could get a great college education, and then start fresh in society without that financial burden hanging over your head. Imagine giving a family a zero-interest loan of $50,000 for their house. Imagine just a quarter of the $600 billion we give to the Pentagon, instead be planted into hiring more teachers, construction workers, artists, and other occupations and creative talents that build our society, rather than trade on its debt.
Who runs our country? Why are they doing such a terrible job? And why does our federal government always team up with corporate America, with Wall Street, with Goldman Sachs? Why don’t Americans aim their frustration and hatred at the top. Past Republicans and Democrats, but at the whole system of corruption, where only a million bucks gets you into the debate.
Why do we support Barack Obama, when he’s employed Goldman Sachs execs in his White House? When he’s appointed Jeffrey Immelt onto his jobs board, when Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, sent thousands of your jobs to China, and encouraged his high level managers to do the same? Why do we get behind Barack Obama? Unless we’re going to make him walk the plank for treason, we should be out in front of him, blocking him. Counteracting him.
Why do we support Mitt Romney? Because the economy’s bad under Obama? You think a man worth $400 plus million is going to do a great job for you? You think he knows what it’s like to see his last fifty dollars in the bank? You think he feels the pain of spending $10? He’s not on our level. He’s a moron, a hack, a piece of frozen cod fish in a suit, and he somehow won the lottery long ago, and now he wants to pretend he understands what your life is like.
Mitt is someone who thinks connecting with Nascar fans means talking about his friends who own some of the racing teams. What kind of fool thinks that’s a connection with the million plus working class race car fans? We don’t have his kind of money, and he is not a man that’s going to make conscious decisions on behalf of the working and middle class.
In conclusion, we’ve got to aim our distrust and anger at the top. At the White House for colluding with the world’s most notorious, and best-dressed criminals, Goldman Sachs. We’ve got to spread the word that it’s not about voting for Obama or Romney, because Obama is Romney, is Bush, is Clinton. We’ve been hijacked by major money institutions, and they’re going to buy our elections. They have been. If you’re voting Dem or Repub, you’re voting for Big Money.
It’s time to split off the main train, because we’re not invited anyway. We need to back people like Roseanne Barr and the Green Party. We need to back Ron Paul’s “end the wars” “end the Fed” mantras, but keep in mind we also need to support the worker, and the worker’s rights. We need to support Chris Hedges as he sues the Obama administration over the NDAA bill. We need to get behind Dylan Ratigan’s “Get Money Out” of politics campaign.
It’s our country. We are the majority. We don’t have to take poverty level wages. We don’t have to even participate in the mainstream debates. Just ten percent of this country could make an enormous statement by voting for a third party, and boycotting the Koch Brothers, and Walmart, and Bank of America. We have been suppressed and trodden, yet we hold the power. But we have to organize and respect each other, and together, aim that energy upward, to the top, to our elite class. At our kings and queens that think they’ve been appointed by God.
What they don’t know is that they’ve been appointed by us. Not God. We’re their God, or at least we should be. Our public officials and major corporations should be frightened to death of the public. We know about the bailouts. We know about the White House being funded by Wall Street. These people should be afraid for more than just their jobs.
It’s very hard to stop one million angry people from peacefully occupying a major space and making a declaration. It’s even more difficult to stop 30 million people. That’s just ten percent of us. Wake up. Stand up. Get educated. And remember, those in charge don’t deserve to be in that leadership role any longer. Our elites have failed us. They’ve destroyed our way of living, and now it’s time we take the power back.
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