Dear Sharra, I think we should talk about the state of our economy. How is it possible that TV pundits say the economy is good, when 70% of Americans say they live with constant economic anxiety? I guess it depends on who it's good for.
The main problem with the U.S. economy isn't even financial; the underlying problem is its philosophical foundations. Our economy doesn't exist in service to the American people so much as Americans live in service to the economy. Our economy has become disconnected from the web of life, when it should not be. It should be a wellspring that nourishes and supports the prosperity of everyone. |
Our goal should be that any American, if they work hard enough, should have the ability to prosper. And that should not just mean if someone is talented or brilliant enough. It means anyone. Anyone who is willing to work hard in this country should have the opportunity to work at one job, with dignity, and be able to support a family.
We are very far from that, however. Short term profit maximization for huge corporate interests has become the organizing principle for our economy, and in a real way for our society itself. Few people in America do not live under the burden of its dictates, whether they lack health care, higher education, housing, freedom from debt, or access to childcare. This has been a growing problem for the last fifty years, and it has had a devastating effect on the people of the United States.
TV pundits and politicians talk as though the economy is doing well, of course, although 39% of Americans now report regularly skipping meals in order to pay their rent. 600,000 have fallen through the cracks and have no place to live. Millions sell their blood plasma in order to make things work. Thousands of college students live out of their cars. Single mothers work more than one job, sometimes with special needs children and lacking any kind of support.
There is a sad river of despair in America today, and Democrats will win in November by addressing that despair, not ignoring it. People are tired of not being listened to. We are sickened by wars that have led to unnecessary horror and death, and climate catastrophes due to fossil fuel extraction that has been enabled for decades. The frustration among our citizenry is palpable to anyone who bothers to venture outside the borders of our elite safe havens.
People know they are being conned. A form of economic tyranny now lords over the American people, perpetrated by faceless, soulless, shadowy forces doing the bidding of big insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, big food companies, big chemical companies, big agriculture companies, big oil, gun manufacturers and defense contractors. They argue that they are "job creators," yet for most of them their business model is far from that. Their business model is job elimination, suppression of unions, exploitation of workers – all in service to their stockholders but often at the expense of the safety, health, and well-being of the American people.
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This is news to no one in America — on either the left or the right. The real dichotomy in this country is not between left and right but between the powerful and powerless — between those who have capital and ever-increasing access to more of it, versus those who live lives of constant economic anxiety, paycheck to paycheck, with little or no wiggle room should they make one mistake or have one stroke of bad luck.
Our economy no longer has a moral center, therefore in no way should it be called "good." For a majority of Americans, it would best be described as a rolling emergency, so disconnected has it become from accountability to the needs of the people.
The corporatists among us — "economic royalists," as FDR called them — have used the US economy as their personal piggy bank for far too long. It's time for We the People to set some firm and healthy boundaries now. We don't let people cross our personal boundaries, and we shouldn't let them cross our boundaries as citizens either.
It's time for change.
It's time for vigorous support of our unions, despite the dastardly union busting on the part of some of our most powerful corporate chieftains. It's time to repeal the absurd tax cuts that have bolstered the billionaire class while leeching resources that should belong to the average American citizen. It's time to provide the health care, higher education, and support for children which will enable millions of people who cannot now do so, live their dreams and begin to actualize their God-given potential.
If elected President, I will work day and night to end the era of economic serfdom that now defines the U.S. economy. Will I be called a Socialist? Of course I would be… as was Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson and any other American President who ever stood by the principle that ours is to be a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." I will not be a kinda-sorta-sometimes advocate for the working people of the United States. No one will doubt who this mother works for.
But let me be clear: some of the nicest people I have known in my life are very wealthy, and I celebrate their ability to create wealth for themselves and their families. The problem as I see it — and many of them agree — is that not enough people anymore have a real shot at joining their ranks. For millions of our citizens, opportunities to do so are cut off at a young age — giving them little or no chance of ever making it to a higher rung on the economic ladder.
This situation is not just immoral; it is dangerous to a free society. Over the last fifty years we have seen the collapse of America's middle class, and in its absence our society has become infected with hopelessness and cynicism that affect the well-being of almost everyone. Yet this will not change unless we change it.
Do today's economic royalists have the system all sewn up? Yes, they do — but so did slaveowners, and the purveyors of the Gilded Age, and the segregationists. We must not let that be an excuse for cowering before them. We must act now. We the People must politically intervene. We must end the policies of privilege that have led to economic anxiety for so many.
In the words of Franklin Roosevelt, "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."
There are forces in this country who have ground such words into oblivion over the last fifty years; it is our turn, and our time, to bring them back to life. |
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