Patterns of History ...

The patterns of history ...


1) the Ruling Class creates within itself an attitude of disrespect toward the poor - it's the only way the Ruling Class can live with its unjust behavior toward The Poor.

2) It's unjust behavior always is wage suppression and denial of rights, and terrible working conditions, without any support for injury or illness.

3) For a time, The Poor accept their lot in life - this has always been one of the functions of religion.

4) Sooner or later, The Poor awaken ... and suddenly The Rich begin to fear The Poor rather than simply despise them.

5) Meager morsels are tossed to The Poor: better working conditions, the right to vote, etc..

6) This works to mollify The Poor.

7) But The Poor continue to agitate for more ... for themselves and their children. Sometimes religion assists with a progressive interpretation of the Gospel.

8) And, then, some form of revolution - perhaps peaceful, but more likely, with violence, since The Ruling Class has never allowed any society to "vote away their privilege" ... an adjustment that narrows the gap between The Ruling Class and The Poor, creating The Middle Class and wide-spread prosperity.

9) The Ruling Class continue to despise everyone not born with silver spoon and possessing their good looks and love of ease. I mean, who doesn't enjoy a good Fox Hunt now and then?

10) Sooner or later, wage suppression and denial of rights becomes once again the tool of The Ruling Class to retake what was given, what "belongs to them by right of birth and divinity, and the Middle Class begins to shrink.

GOP Madness and Taxes

As for me and my house, I can't understand why the GOP would be wiling to put Medicare and SS on the chopping block, raising taxes on the Middle Class, but refuse to raise taxes on those who can well afford more, many of whom, real patriots, have made it clear to Congress that the health of this nation rests upon those who can pay more in taxes and should - not in killing the safety net for the Middle Class.

We are not out of money - those in charge of the GOP are just too damn selfish to pay their fair share, hiding behind the nonsense of being "job creators" - not true; most have inherited their money and live off of what mom and dad gave to them, and what the bankers can create through manipulation bordering on criminal.

We've got plenty of money in this land, and we can do it, and do it in style, and there will be plenty left over for big boats and fancy cars; in fact, there will be more. Money funneled through the Middle Class grows; money through taxation on the wealthy provides the means for roads, schools, national parks, and a million other things.

Those to whom much has been given, much is required.

All Economies Behave the Same

All economies behave in much the same way - like the game of Risk: sooner or later, there's only one player left, and they have it all. Without regulation to sustain good wages and jobs for the middle class, money migrates to the top - the wealth concentrated in the hands of the few and the rest of the society struggling to make ends meet.

The genius of FDR was to provide the "artificial" constraints that allowed the development of the Middle Class. Yes, WW2 was a huge boost, along with strong unions and Social Security, both of which are deeply hated by the wealthy who see unions and SS as an affront to their initiative and rights.

It's a sad, sad, day for America. We are witnessing the unravelling of our greatness, and the GOP is cheering it on for reasons that make no sense, not to even then - hence all of their strained rationales and bizarre grandstanding, while hiding behind "their love of the newborn," "their regard for motherhood and marriage," "their faith in American," and "their desire to restore our greatness."

The American Fairy Tale

Written to a Facebook "friend" who doesn't like unions and who believes that anyone can find and keep the job they want, and never fear dismissal, as long as they work hard.

Here's what I wrote:

For the last 3 1/2 years, I have been involved in union organizing for LAX hotel workers. Good and decent human beings, employed for years, never missing a day, but living on a less than living wage, with shoddy benefits, and maybe no benefits at all. You and I couldn't come close to living on their wages, dealing with insults and humiliation every day, fired if they get sick, fired if they complain, fired if they support a union, fired at will, and they have no recourse. This story is repeated across the Unites States, and would be far worse were it not for unions helping this nation build a strong and prosperous middle class, the backbone of democracy.

Your comments about choice simply don't wash in the world that I see here for thousands of LAX hotel workers and millions around the nation.

Much of what you say feels more like the American fairy tale nourished by sentimental writers and religionists, and, of course, the wealthy and the privileged who have bamboozled millions of Americans into believing that their middle class life is threatened by the very forces that created the middle class life in the first place.

American biz has been dedicated to union-busting. It's a terrible story, to be sure.

I lived in West Virginia and learned there the stories of the mines.

I lived in Pittsburgh, and learned there the stories of the steel mills.

I lived in Detroit, and learned there the stories of the big factories.

Without unions, there would be no middle class, and no choice, and no fairy tales - we would be an oligarchy, not a great nation.

But our greatness has come under attack, not from unions and the middle class, but from the giant corps and the privileged and right-wing religious reactionaries who despise democracy and who hate the middle class for taking too much money out of the system.

I'd like to know more about your values, and how they came to be. You sound like a lone-ranger kind of person - everyone for themselves, and to the winner, goes the spoils. I guess if you're a winner, it's a good world.

Proud to be a Liberal

A good FB friend asked me what I mean by the world liberal ... in terms of the root meaning, as in liberal education or in terms of the progressive agenda these days in politics.

Here's my response - quick and dirty:

Hi John ... I think both ... a freedom to think broadly, experimentally - but clearly, for me, the term represents the best in America's political story - that which gave us the National Parks and child labor laws; that which abolished slavery and established civil rights for people of color and women. The liberal spirit busted the trusts under Teddy Roosevelt, gave us Social Security under FDR and promoted unions to protect the working class and build the middle class. John, you ask good questions: For the church, a place of free inquiry because of a solid faith, not in spite of it, with less emphasis on "winning souls" and a lot more emphasis on living the faith, and letting God do the winning through our witness (my Calvinism is showing!). I think the struggle today for Gay Rights is akin to the struggle for civil rights and women's suffrage and ordination. Why the church tends to be last in line on so many of these things astounds me. We talk of heaven, but seemingly close our eyes to the hell in which so many millions are forced to live their days. Socially, a safe society - where aliens have an easier time of it, where employers are penalized for illegal hiring rather than gathering up these poor families late at night and deporting them. We have to recover our manufacturing basis - if there were a crisis and the shipping lanes disrupted, we couldn't make our own refrigerators anymore. We need to sever the link between employment and health care and put it where it belongs - in government. We need a major public transportation effort to curb our fuel usage and rebuild our cities around it rather than freeways (and I live in LA) We have to learn how to curb our spending, learn to live with less, pay more for what we have to support our middle class and keep jobs here in America. Our corporations have to be leashed; and super-wealth taxed! Junk food and corn syrup banned! Feed McDonald's executives their own crap three times a day for a month, take away their cars and make them use public transportation. Oh well, you asked ... a lot of random thoughts. John, tell me more about your vision, for the church and for our society.

Labor Unions for the Wealthy?

The economic news is shameful ... no, I'm talking about the crisis at hand, although that's a part of the picture - I'm talking about the rape of America: yes, a brutal word, for sure, but that's exactly what has happened in the last 40 years, as the wealthy have sucked the nation dry, draining off tons of money for their foolish life styles, extravagant investment schemes, furthering their strangle-hold on politics, the economy and even religion.

This fascist-like rape of the economy has resulted in the greatest transfer of wealth ever seen: from the pockets of the many to the pockets of the few.

America has suffered the downsizing of the means of production in our nation - starting with seamless pipe in Pittsburgh - in the mid-70s, when we were building the Alaska pipeline, America had already lost the capacity to manufacture 60-inch seamless pipe, and I ask why?

The sad mantra of big biz has been to blame the unions. This is just a bald-faced lie! Their greed is fault! And with the take-over of big biz by Wall Street, the pace of greed has accelerated to the speed of light, I'm afraid.

And along the way, our titans of business have feathered their own nests at the expense of The People. Yes, the People. What a quaint idea - The People. Of the people, by the people, for the people. Yeah, and the moon is made of cheese. Big biz and its government toadies have been at war with The People ever since FDR won a few rounds The People. Big Biz and its government goons set about dismantling the middle class for no other reason than Haman's decision to kill Mordecai and eliminate all the Jews in Persia. Why? Because Haman didn't bow and scrape before Haman, so Haman's pride was injured. Big Biz has always hated the unions, and it's a matter of foolish pride driven by a distorted sense of entitlement and greed.

The assault on the middle class is nearly complete, and America is more vulnerable than ever!

I write as a religious person, specifically a Christian.

And from the perspective of faith as I see it, all of this is shameful.

And now the latest news from the Census Department - the income gap widens even further.

This is a crime, and if it were committed by some little sleazeball on the street, we'd haul 'em off the hole and lock the door.

But these criminals are lionized and admired, although they've taken a few hits lately.

But they're well-protected; they sit on one another's boards and take care of each other. Talk about unions. THE WEALTHY HAVE THE MOST POWERFUL LABOR UNION IN THE WORLD, and they have a huge chunk of Congress and the Courts coming to their defense - check out how FedEx had laws passed to protect FedEx from organized labor.

The American economy will never recover until we bring justice to the table.

And what's justice, you ask?

The Apostle Paul had it all figured two millennia ago:

The one who had much did not have too much,
and the one who had little did not have too little.

There's always going to be gaps, but it doesn't have to be this wide. Indeed, it shouldn't be this wide.

An economy so badly divided against itself is fractured, and it's failing, and until we address this shameful injustice, the economy will continue to deteriorate overall and we'll witness the further decline, if not the disappearance, of the middle class.

We can do it.

We must do it.

Justice calls for it!

Detroit

Detroit ... DE-troit city ...

I used to live there, 16-years worth ... have a good many friends there ... always said, "Our reputation is worse than the reality," but the nation seemingly has singled out Detroit, like a dysfunctional family settles on one of its own, to bear the burden of family shame and failure.

Problems?

You bet, but here's a small piece of what Mitch Albom recently wrote ...

Enough. We're not gum on the bottom of America's shoe. We're not grime to be wiped off with a towel. Detroit and Michigan are part of the backbone of this country, the manufacturing spine, the heart of the middle class -- heck, we invented the middle class, we invented the idea that a factory worker can put in 40 hours a week and actually buy a house and send a kid to college. What? You have a problem with that? You think only lawyers and hedge-fund kings deserve to live decently?

Click HERE for the rest of this fine article?

Guns or Religion - Obama

Obama's remark about hard times and desperate people turning to guns or religion may have been expressed more sensitively, but the point he makes is accurate. Anger hides in the off-beaten corners of our society, even as it stalks us on our streets. Hard pressed and up against the wall, folks can turn to extreme private rights - such as guns, and it's only a breath away from right-wing religion - all of it, a champion of the down-and-out, channeling their sorrow into often destructive pathways.

I surely hope folks of intelligence and compassion will see in these remarks an accurate description of desperate people longing for meaning and power.

For those with power and wealth, for those with the means to effect positive change in their status, it's difficult to imagine what powerlessness feels like; how maddening it is to see your life's saving slip away, an ill child suffer for want of medical care because the family has no insurance, to see the future as a looming darkness and to live with unpaid bills, humiliating letters and late-night phone calls threatening suit and foreclosure, or whatever else is needed to intimidate those who live on the margins.

Obama is right, and I hope that Senator Clinton, herself a champion of the poor and the struggling middle class, refrains from attack, and helps call the nation's attention to the plight of millions, marshaling our resources and resolve to rebuild the middle class, rescue millions from the edge of poverty, rebuild our economic engines and thereby lessen the temptation to dysfunctional expressions of power and religion.

Obama is right!