I was born here in the US, grew up and went to school here. Like everyone else, I was taught that I was fortunate because I lived in the greatest, most democratic country in the world. We are such a good people that we voluntarily intercede in other countries to ensure that the people’s freedom is maintained.
As I grew older and wiser, I began to realize that I, along with millions of my fellow Americans have been conned. Not only are we Americans not the peace loving, freedom loving, democratic folks we pretend to be, but we are a primitive, violent people.
We have, and continue to engage in several wars in the Middle East with countries that pose no threat to us; we are threatening to expand our war efforts to include Iran, a country that has abided by the nuclear treaty it signed and offers no threat to the US; we are involved in the coup attempt in Venezuela where the US is sponsoring the overthrow of the Maduro socialist government. The US has a history of undermining and overthrowing any government that attempts to take care of the working class and have them share in their country’s wealth.
But, what has motivated me to write this article is what is occurring on the Mexican, US border. Tens of thousands of immigrants, seeking asylum from their home countries or escaping from poverty and starvation, seeking a new life with more opportunities in the US, have been imprisoned in concentration camps. This includes children who have been separated from their families, have been placed in facilities without sufficient medical services, food, clothing, etc. and have had to sleep on concrete floors.
It is time for us to realize and act on the fact that our ruling class considers us, the working class, expendable. We are here to serve them and it is no accident that it is the sons and daughters of the working class that are called to fight, kill or be killed, in the many imperialistic wars we have been pursuing.
It is the ruling class that are the CEO’s and bosses we rely on for jobs and income. These are the capitalists who control not only our economic lives but our political lives as well. One may ask, why is there so much poverty in a country that is the richest country in the world? Why is there joblessness, homelessness, hunger in this wealthy country? Poverty and workers without jobs is necessary for the success of the capitalist class. Their responsibility is to market their product or service as cheaply as possible and gather the largest profit the market will bear. That means cheap labor. What better way to guarantee cheap labor than to have a hungry poverty class willing to work at low wages.
Capitalism has not been and will never be kind to the working class no matter how many reforms we impose on it. It encourages men and women to compete with and exploit their neighbors. It is a predatory system that we must destroy.
Dave Alpert has masters degrees in social work, educational administration, and psychology. He spent his career working with troubled inner city adolescents.
There was a time when the ‘ordinary’ person stood a better chance to pursue ‘happiness’ – that is, a decent, secure life, with a good job that could support a family, afford a good home, and look forward to a retirement that would make it possible to continue that life for many years. But that depended, of course, on organized labor, defended by labor laws, that were stoutly defended by the Departments of Labor, Justice, and the Supreme Court.
What happened? I believe it began when the dollar was taken off the gold standard by President Nixon in 1971, ostensibly to allow the government to borrow more money to pay for the Viet Nam war, followed by the passage of the Interstate Banking Act, in 1978, which made it possible for banks to open branches outside their original chartered state. That lead to the growth of enormous, truly ‘national’ banks some five of which constitute the Federal Reserve System, along with one European Bank, the Warburg Bank. This constitutes the ‘Banks’ bank’, or bank of last resort, when smaller banks need more money to meet their obligations.
This hearkens back to the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, in 1913, recently re-chartered by Congress, in 2013, with hardly a negative vote. That removed the management of the nation’s currency from the Treasury Department, and put it into private hands. But it needed more freedom – and 1971 and 1978 gave the Fed just that. It almost immediately lead to the inflationary 80′s, which very few benefitted from, and began the unequal distribution of wealth, based largely in a growing clique of warmongers and war profiteers – largely one and the same
It will require a major internal overhaul to imagine a solution and to implement it. But for the future health of democracy, the American people, and quite possibly the nation itself, it must be done.
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Boy, Dave, this is heavy propaganda that you’re peddling here. “Concentration camps”? Dave, do you even know what you’re referring to? Are you suggesting that economic illegal migrants bringing young children with them when they unlawfully breach a national border are responsible adults who shouldn’t be detained? I guess you are, Dave. I suppose you think a border is just a line on a map imposed by the ruling classes. Your assertion that capitalism hasn’t done anything for the working class is laughable. Why do you think Mexicans and Central Americans are coming in illegally? It’s because they want to make as much money as possible. Their own countries are full of corruption and they make less in one day than they can make in one hour in the US. Their kids can go to school for free here. They can start businesses and not pay taxes. They can send money home and go back in 15 years as the rich guys in their villages. This is the way it goes, and you, with your foolish, ignorant assertions that people who ignore an international border are somehow equal to war prisoners who were worked to death, you, Dave, are an embarrassment. Do you really believe your own rhetoric? Do you think the Mexican villagers aren’t capitalists? Do you think that they’re not coming for the money? Oh you think they’re fleeing oppression? Drug lords? Let’s think about that, Dave. If you’re fleeing oppression or drug lords in Nebraska would you go to another country or would you move to another state within your own country? Why leave your country? They’re leaving for the money, Dave. The capitalist money. They want it. They’ll break international law to get it. And they’ll count on fools like you, Dave, to write a bunch of propaganda defending them and advocating “sanctuary.”
Wake up, Dave.
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