A few years ago In Wisconsin and in two major cities in California, voters (made up mostly of working folks) chose to restrict the benefit packages and wage increases for public service, a.k.a. government, employees. Some say that since most of the workers in these places, and throughout America, are employed by the private sector, the attitude became one of resentment.
The private sector and non union (in most cases) workers were fed up at seeing their public sector counterparts getting better benefit packages and wage increases. I call it Interclass warfare. Sad, isn’t it, when the less than 1% of our nation can create such divisions within the labor force. Yet, that was only part of the problem that this voting revealed.
In Wisconsin, the voters chose to side with a right-wing governor who was candid about his goal to eliminate collective bargaining within the public service sector. This device cuts the legs off of the union movement . . . first with government workers and then copied by the private sector.
Why has all this been happening? Well, the answer is so obvious, yet our mainstream media and even many union leaders refuse to recognize it. Former president Eisenhower labeled it the Military Industrial Complex, and it has all but bankrupted our economy. Within 13 years our military spending has just about doubled!
In 2011, under Mr. Hope and Change, taxpayers were charged 56 cents of every dollar we sent to Uncle Sam for military spending. Never before in the history of our nation has it ever approached such an amount. We have close to one thousand permanent military bases in over 100 different countries. We illegally invaded and occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, to the tune of over 100 billion tax dollars a year. It costs us 1.2 million dollars to keep one soldier in Afghanistan for a year. That would pay the salaries of 30 teachers, police officers or firemen at $40k a year each. Where is the outrage?
Historically, our Congress was able to send money to the states for their budgets and their cities’ budget problems. This was called Revenue Sharing. The money was sent to the states in the form of block grants, meaning it did not have to be paid back. Pretty good, right? Well, that all ended with our devotion to invading countries and occupying them. That all ended with the fear button being pushed down the throats of the public . . . as we now have with this ISIL, who , by the way, are made up of many who were left homeless or devastated by the Bush gang’s illegal and shameful attacks on their native land.
Both the Republican and the Democratic parties have enabled the Pentagon and the Military Industrial Complex to get more and more of our hard earned tax dollars. Under the Democratic President Obama, military spending soared to over 600 billion dollars, and that did not include what many cite as the black budget, or money funneled into military programs which have no congressional oversight. It does not matter who occupies the White House, they all dance to the Pentagon piper. The Congress and the presidency has for the most part been owned not only by Wall Street, but by this War Empire.
If only the hard working American labor force would take a moment to ponder. If the CEOs of our Fortune 100 companies are earning in excess of 400 times that of their lowest paid full time employee . . . shouldn’t we have a society where ALL working stiffs have good benefit packages and wage increases? Let’s extend that conversation and say that shouldn’t ALL Americans have the same medical and dental coverage that those CEOS have? I could go on and on but let us leave it at that.
If you work for a living ANYWHERE you should be allied with ALL your fellow working stiffs for fair wages and benefits. Isn’t it time for what the Wobblies envisioned over 100 years ago: One big union?
The bottom line is this: If we cut the military spending by 25% and sent the savings back to the states, etc., there would be NO budget crisis in any state or city!! Period!! And for all my right-wing neighbors who bitch and moan about high property taxes, well, if more Revenue Sharing came back to our cities perhaps then the property taxes needn’t be so high. Stop supporting political parties and candidates who oppose such an idea.
Philip A Farruggio is son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC longshoremen. He is a free lance columnist (found on Nation of Change Blog, Truthout.org, TheSleuthJournal.com, Worldnewstrust.com, Intrepid Report , The Peoples Voice, Information Clearing house, Dandelion Salad, Activist Post, Dissident Voice and many other sites worldwide). Philip works as an environmental products sales rep and has been an activist leader since 2000. In 2010 he became a local spokesperson for the 25% Solution Movement to Save Our Cities by cutting military spending 25%. Philip can be reached at PAF1222@bellsouth.net.
I’m always amazed at how easy it is to persuade people to vote democratically against their own best interests by stirring resentment and jealousy against amongst them towards their own kind. And why stop at 25%? Why not 60% or 90%? Why not abolish the army of the USA altogether and just get by with the state’s own militias – a self defence force in its truest meaning?
RIGHT YOU ARE! I KEPT IT AT 25% SO AS TO ALLOW PEOPLE TO AT LEAST AGREE A BIT. TO GO FOR THE GUSTO , KNOWING HOW OUR AMERICAN PUBLIC IS BRAINWASHED ABOUT ‘ SECURITY ‘ ETC, WILL ONLY TURN THEM OFF.
THANK FOR THE COMMENTS
Great article! I received an excellent education from the nuns- aside from their gestapo tactics, my Dad- may he rest in peace and the Daily Racing Form. As a former educator I can attest that an entire curriculum can be produced by handicapping a single race. Fractions, lengths off the pace, variants-including breeding and diminishing genomes.Now, I digress. My spouse is a first grade educator in the southwestern part of the U.S.-which used to be Mexico. Some of her students arrive at school with a slice of bread and a soda in their “lunchboxes.”Parents or whatever come to school with sagging pants [some women with protruding thongs]Our graduation rate is an”astounding” 67% . My point-unless the social fabric of our society- parents, business and government take a vested interest in our children the situation will only exacerbate! The unions are political entities that collect dues for their own benefit. The American worker feels fortunate to have employment. Corporations will exploit this as time goes on. Our hope is in an educated, literate public. A public that can problem solve, voice dissent and take an active role in the workplace.
Good article. Everything around us in the corporate-dominated popular culture is infested with nationalist, and often racist, brainwash propaganda aimed at maintaining and expanding the Empire. This is the empire that protects the immoral Wall St banksters, and is fed by them in a rapacious symbiotic relationship that screws all of us.
Forget elections. Their integrity has been destroyed by a biased media and by rigged vote counting. Now is the time for grass roots organizing and networking to inspire and support more grass roots organizing. Militants inside the remaining unions must find each other and organize to throw out the bums at the top.