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Showing Original Post only (View all)Social Justice is the ONLY Path to Economic Prosperity for Workers in This Country [View all]
I am truly dismayed at the number of folks posting today who dismiss "social issues" as if they are extras. Gravy. A cherry on the sundae but not something that we need to be concerned about right now, when so many people are unemployed, uninsured, homeless. So many white people. So many men. So many adults.
How do you think we got into this financial mess? Why is our minimum wage so low? Why do so few people belong to unions? Why do most folks in Western Europe have health care but we don't? Why don't working mothers get maternity leave? It's because the bosses, the capitalists who employee us can undercut wages and deny benefits by hiring the scapegoat du jour. Once upon a time, it was the Irish. Then the Italians. And the Blacks. Now it is women and Latinos.
Say you are an unwed mother, 18, no college degree with a small mouth to feed. You got pregnant because the Koch Brothers lobbied to deny you sex ed and birth control. That's because the Koch Brothers want you slaving in their Dixie Cup plant until the day you die. The Koch Brothers tell the world that you are a drain on the economy. Because you could not keep your legs together, now you have a baby you can not support. They make sure than everyone hates you---and your baby--and that they feel no sympathy at all for you---and your baby---as you struggle to get by. As you make the already insanely rich Koch Brothers even richer through your labor, which they are getting for a bargain price, because you do not dare go on strike or ask for more---your baby could die!
Worse yet, the Koch Brothers tell their "responsible" employees "I'm gonna have to cut your wages, because all those unwed mother sluts will work for less." And so, the workers who should be hating the Koch Brothers end up hating the unwed slut mothers and their undeserving bastards instead. They begrudge them health care and education. And so we raise another generation of underfed, undereducated, low income low expectation workers to drive down wages for all.
If we really did act like a village, if we demanded that all children get a decent start in life, there would be no one on the bottom to be exploited. There would be no hopeless, despairing, self hating demographic to work for less than a living wage.
Anyone who thinks that a few demographic groups can rise out of this depression while leaving the rest to wallow is deluding him or herself. When some workers get left at the bottom, everyone else is pulled down.
Wanna know the real reason why right winger hate and fear Hillary Clinton? It's because Divide and Conquer is the way they keep themselves rich and us poor. Their worst nightmare is that the 99% will look around at each other and say "We're not different! We're the same. We're united. We all have value. We all have worth. I have your back and you have mine. We're a Village---one big family--- and we aren't going to be pushed around anymore."
Angela Davis writes about this issue eloquently in "Women, Race and Class."
Oh, and before anyone gets any ideas about tombstoning this thread by saying "unwed slut mothers" and "bastards" are inflammatory words, those are what the Koch Brothers call us. I call us "mothers" and "children." I mention this, because Divide and Conquer really is the capitalist's best money making tool, and they will go to any lengths to keep us divided and conquered. It is that important to them.