"Is Democracy Worth Fighting For?...And Knowing Who To Fight Is Half the Battle!"

“News&Views”
The Armchair Curmudgeon
April 25, 2007



What does it take to make America work?

People look long and hard for a solution that will elevate the Middle Class, end our dependency on fossil fuels, provide affordable health care and put America back to
work.

The key is participation; the feeling that I have a proprietary interest in what happens to my country. For too long, the mantra has been “what’s in it for me…” Or for the middle class, doing the shuffle to put enough food on the table and get my kids through school before they fall through the cracks and become wards of the state.

This kind of detachment has brought us to the endgame.

We have no choice. We must become not only engaged, but activist. We must make the difference.

Review your history and civics books.. This country was not created to insulate the rich and oppress the poor; yet that’s exactly what’s happened under one Reagan and two Bushes.

Our founders thought more of us than our current administration; now, it is up to us to think more of ourselves.

Let me just cite a few examples of how the Middle Class has been poorly served under three republican administrations.

Under Reagan, we experienced the greatest redistribution of wealth ever recorded. The Philadelphia Enquirer did a bang up report in 84 on the redistribution of wealth under Reagan’s reign. More than sixty percent of the nation’s wealth gravitated to the top five percent of the population. It now required two people to make the same wage as one person did in 1970.

Whatever happened to all that leisure time we were promised in the sixties? Whatever happened to Information Age jobs that would allow us to live comfortably until old age.


We’ll you can thank the last two Bushes for that and I don’t want to give Clinton a free ride either because he bought into the Free Trade canard that’s only served to kill off the Middle Class and reduce the rest of us to poorly paid service jobs…

Want to jump out of your skin.

Consider that under Bush II, management is earning up to 400% more than the average factory worker on the floor.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Green cards are being expanded to 450,000 guest workers. HB 1 permits have increased by 75%. Why? Because foreign workers will work for 25% less than Americans and they don’t require benefits. And our legislators don’t want to alienate the Microsofts and other big employers or the lobbyists who represent them…

Add to this the fact that jobs have been fleeing our shores to lower production costs (i.e. read ‘lower labor costs’) and escape taxes.

Under Bush II, 43 million Americans do not have a health care program.
And those who are on fixed incomes with Medicare find that they have had to put off operations and extensive surgery. Pharmaceutical users find themselves facing soaring drug prices. And some seniors are faced with deciding whether they eat or take their medications.

It is an appalling picture of how
this country is caring for its Middle Class and its seniors.

Today, NAFTA agreements and Fast Track have conspired to move American industry into third world nations while simultaneously denying employment to American citizens.

Today, 11 million illegals are competing for the same jobs normally reserved for American citizens and little is being done to enforce the rules of law at the borders or elsewhere. Today, a foreign worker can work about one tenth the time an American worker works, return home and qualify for Social Security in the US—even if they were only guest workers here on a temporary visa.

Today, there is a new program being promoted by the US, Mexico and Canada that will serve to eventually cut the ties between workers and the law reducing America to simply a land mass and mainly irrelevant to the conduct of business that will simply flow around the laws of the land.

Altogether, these examples demonstrate a government that isn’t working for the people.

The only way these injustices can be made right is through a spate of legislation that spells out punishments for those who so cavalierly interpret the laws to their own advantage.
.
To date, nothing is happening to remediate these injustices and it won’t happen because the people have not demanded positive change.

The only thing that can be guaranteed in the current climate
Is that our leaders and representatives will do nothing until they know how angry we are about their continuing abuses of the people. Until this happens, expect nothing and you will not be disappointed.

We are at the tipping point.

It is time we stood up and did what is necessary to replace this government.

I don’t think I need to hammer on the urgency of reinstalling a new government that is responsible to the challenges we face and the needs of the American people.

Les Aaron
The Armchair Curmudgeon

www.lesaaron.blogspot.com

Read A BLUEPRINT FOR WINNING….This year’s big political book that shows how to change the landscape and spells out a way to win the White House back for Democrats and restore America to its former glory—including a twenty point program for making America number one again in the world!....

Available from Lulu.com.

LAACO publishing