I'm posting this again because it is just as true now as when I wrote it two years ago.

[Skidmore]

They took your jobs and gave you toys....that is the message I want someone to have the courage to stand up and say. They took your jobs and told you that you could make a living by just sitting at a phone and selling things...the jobs of the future. After you bought the biggest house you could get and double or triple mortgaged it, put a van and a sedan in the garage with a boat and a pickup to haul it (on credit), filled the house will the right furniture and sleek appliances, bought all the electronic gadgetry so you could keep up with your friends, filled your closets with designer clothing and shoes, and acquired all the knowledge of upper crust culture you could. You learned the lifestyle of the rich and famous and you bought the bill of goods they sold you that you could live it for free while they picked your pocket clean and emptied your bank accounts and retirement plans. They laughed at your gullibility and got you to elect handpicked accomplices to write the rules to allow the theft. And now that you look around you in the devastation they left in their wake you find that your schools will take a generation to rebuild and your children are being educated to curriculums shrilled into existence by people who would have better living in the 5th century to get dead end jobs that pay minimum wage. Your manufacturing jobs were sent overseas under the guise of supporting "free markets" and streamlining operations. You are no longer self-sufficient as a nation and so hooked into other failing systems that all drop like a stone in disaster.


Rolled out with the media seasons and on cue, they sold you out. Yes, they gave you toys while they took away your financial security, your personal wellbeing, and your rights. Now what are you going to do to get them back?

[Thunderstruck]

1. Ask the protesters in WI and OH and MI and in other place what they're going to do about it.

[Skidmore]

2. There are 47 other states out there we need to hear from.

[Thunderstruck]

3. I meant to add to my post above that your post was presient then.

Those 47 other states will be heard from sooner or later. I am hopeful that was has begun will grow as more people find they have nothing left to lose.

I have said often and since NAFTA that the idea is to reduce the American standard of living. But I didn't realize until a couple of years ago that what we were seeing was a class war waged by the wealthy to reduce us to virtual slaves, willing to accept whatever we're offered in order to eat. They are sick of us. They no longer want us to continue maintaining our way of life because the profit potential demands they redirect dwindling resources toward more profitable areas. So, as you said then, they give us shiny things to play with and which allow us to get busy interacting with each other, while simultaneously, oddly, pushing us further apart, dividing us. Meanwhile, they loot the treasures, deregulate industry, and strip us of our rights.

They are quite literally engineering us from a First World, middle-class juggernaut to a Third World cheap-labor pool. The new middle class will be nurtured for its profit potential in places like China and India. The American Era is over.

ETA (as if on cue): http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x796823

[Skidmore]

6. We're not even going to be a cheap labor pool for real goods, just

schlepping digital materials from one computer to another, retail, and hospitality.

[Thunderstruck]

8. Yes, low wage service economy, with abject poverty around the factories of the future and

corporations free to exploit people and the environment.

[JDPriestly]

25. You heard from California in November. We elected a clean

slate of Democrats. That's the best we could do for the time being. We shall see how they proceed and what we can do to make sure they don't veer to far from the straight and narrow.

[Chris_Texas]

10. Yeah. About that....

Let's be honest here. These teachers and what not make solid pay and have epic benefits. If Wisconsin is like the rest of America, 25% of the kids they instruct come from homes with a median household income of less tan 22,000 per year. They are often going to bed without food. In America today, nine out of ten families earn less than 35,000 combined. Nine out of ten. These are the people being asked to pay for our government employees.

In America today we have more people on the government payroll than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have TWICE as many government employees as we have in the entire manufacturing sector. ( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...867182108.html )

So where do they work?

Over half the workers in America today work in retail jobs, the best of which are at places like Walmart. Prior to Clinton signing the GOP / DNC free trade agreements, America's largest employer was GM, the top ten all paid solid middle-class teacher level salaries and benefits. Today the top employer is Walmart. Number two, I believe, is Target. We replaced tens of millions of middle class jobs with Walmart greeters. This is who you are asking to pay for your government employee salary and benefits. The teachers in Wisconsin might as well be shouting:

"We won't take it anymore-- You keep less so we can have MORE! We won't take in anymor-- you keep less so we can have MORE!"

The only reason the 'people' are supporting these protesters at all is because: 1. Walker has revealed himself to be a complete flaming douchebag; 2. Police and Firemen are also involved and everyone (except teabaggers) still loves them.

Where was all this public employee passion when Obamacare was being considered? I didn't see you all hitting the steets in support of healthcare for all. But public employees and their unions don't care about that... they HAVE healthcare already, and when Obama decided that the solution to the cost crisis was to stick a gun, not in the faces of the insurance companies, but in the faces of America's poor-- demanding that they BUY insurance at whatever price the insurance companies demanded -- did you march then? or did you make excuses. Did you say it was three-dimentional chess, and fuck the peasants let them eat cake.

It was the later, sadly.

[davidthegnome]

19. I haven't worked for Wallmart yet

I have though, worked for telemarketing companies, I've washed dishes for restaurants, I've worked in construction and lawn care. Of course, all of this was years ago when I could still find those jobs.

I'll tell you what though - if I have to keep less to support unions of teachers, firefighters, police and other public employees, then I will gladly do so. Why? Because these people protect our streets and homes, educate our children - they save and nurture life every day. As I'm unemployed right now, perhaps my opinion on this issue is not as valid as others... nonetheless, I see an attack on unions as an attack on some of the greatest people in our Nation. I will do what little I can to defend them.

That said, I'm not fond of Obama's idea of HCR, at all. I object to your analogy though, there's no guns being pointed in our faces, at least not yet. I was not one of those making excuses - and would have marched if I could have. Unfortunately I'm broke, not in great health and pretty much lacking that option. Even if I don't have health care myself, I'll do everything I can to support others having access to it, especially those who work so hard for our society.

I also think that it would be a great idea (as another thread suggested earlier) to promote unions for all. The government isn't going to do it for us, but if enough people fought for and demanded the right to form more unions - even a National union for all workers, I think we could accomplish a great deal.

[Skidmore]

20. Hear! Hear!

Well said.

[JDPriestly]

26. You point to the biggest weakness in our union system, Chris_Texas.

Originally, when people were fighting for the right to have unions, they fought for their rights in their own workplaces but, most important, for general workers' rights.

In the 80s, union members focused more and more on their own, personal well being and forgot about fighting for the general welfare of working people.

That is, of course, how we got into this mess.

The Wisconsin movement transcends the differences between unionized and non-unionized, public and private sector workers. It is not yet concrete, but what is developing is an across-the-board awareness that the top 1-10% of high-rollers have declared war on everyone else.

Remember, the Wisconsin public employees agreed to the pay cuts. So, pay was not the big issue. Nor were perks. The Wisconsin public employees agreed to pay a larger share of their health insurance costs.

The Wisconsin public employees objected to having no say in the structure and working conditions on the job. Now, that is something that all employees need and want.

Even out here in California, ordinary people are excited about what Wisconsin represents. Say the word, "Wisconsin" and eyes light up. People are excited. So "Wisconsin" is not a matter of how exorbitantly rich public employees are. It is a question of justice. That lights up the poorest of the poor. This is not a question of economic envy. It is a question of having respect in the world, the right to associate and the right to express yourself. The Koch Brothers do not seem to understand that they have met their nemesis.

People are just fed up with the greed of the super-rich.

[ipaint]

28. +1

The only way the middle class can save itself is to save the least of us first. There is no other way.

As long as a massive poverty hole exists the middle class will be shoved down into it. That's what it's there for.

The middle class has dropped the ball for three decades while the poor have been the victims of increasing violence and abuse from the government. They seem to have bought reagan's trickle down bullshit thinking if the middle class prospers so will those below them on the economic ladder. Didn't happen.

Now it's their turn.

[PeaceNikki]

30. You think the protests here are JUST about public sector employees?

It' also about cuts to the state's Medicaid programs and huge cuts to education that not only hurt teachers, but ALL of the students - especially those in poor districts. Schools will close, classroom sizes increase, programs cut.

This isn't just about unions/public sector employees. That's only the most discussed component of it.

[rzemanfl]

4. "Reposting this again" is redundant. K & R, K&R n/t eom

[Skidmore]

9. Corrected. Thanks.

[rzemanfl]

22. I really was just teasing you. I've done worse many times. n/t

[Skidmore]

23. No problem. Overly tired from yard work and

having problems rubbing brain cells together right now.

[midnight]

5. Joe Biden essentially told an audience at the UW-Milwaukee last

spring that this was a jobless recovery... I was at this event... And this clip shows a little bit about what was said.... But not that statement... But what it does show is the fact that govt. is not about jobs.. It is the private sectors job to create jobs... I'm not sure why it matters who creates jobs... I think it matters more on preventing our jobs from leaving this country.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7drkz5mMseE

[EFerrari]

7. It's really irritating when working people get bashed for using credit

which is all they had after wages went flat and there were no more hours that could be worked to make ends meet.

[Skidmore]

11. Depends on what that credit is used for. I'm of the old school where the

common sense approach to maintaining your business was that you didn't put stuff on credit that you could not afford. We are not talking about essentials here.

[EFerrari]

12. The truth of the situation is American workers have had to rely on credit

since about the mid 70s. They couldn't work any more hours or days and prices kept rising.

We are in fact talking about essentials here.

My parents generation didn't have to carry debt or use credit to buy basics. People who started working during or after the mid 70s had little choice in the matter. They didn't have less common sense. They had lower wages and increasing prices to deal with.

[Skidmore]

14. Essentials are food, shelter, clothing, water, heat/cooling (depending where

you live). Essentials are NOT the things I listed in my original post. We have a lot of people who opted for huge homes with big walk in closets, fancy bathrooms, state of the art kitchens, windows which took remote controls to operate, vehicles with endless features, etc. and on and on. These are not essentials. I am among the group that started working in the mid 70s. Not one of us started having it all. It takes years to establish a household. What I have seen happen in the space of a generation is that people have bought into the idea that they need to have it all and they need to have it now. Prudence and thrift have not been values of this nation for quite a while.

[EFerrari]

17. There is no use in cultivating thrift if you have little or no hope of saving anything.

And when the entire economy is based on bubbles, prudence has no meaning, really.

This bashing of working people for a walk in closet is wrong headed because it ignores the bigger picture. The Go Shopping government has aided and abetted the financial sector in ripping off American consumers for our whole working life. Blaming people who try to make a life in that context is like blaming a cat for not swimming well enough in a flood.

[Skidmore]

18. So what did you say that I didn't???

Except for the issue of walk in closets, that is. We said essentially the same thing, and there was a whole lot of Go Shopping models adopted by the business sector too.

[EFerrari]

24. Our society was drowned in the Go Shopping ethic, wasn't it?

Remember when "going to the mall" was a weekend hobby?

I just don't see how working people could have done anything to change that, Skidmore. Even had they spent a little less, the bubbles would have continued to burst over their heads, one after the other, while our economy was hollowed out by the banksters and globalization.

[JDPriestly]

27. The bashing of working people for using credit is especially

disgusting if you look at the list of big businesses that had to get loans from the Fed during the bail-out -- the Bernie Sanders list.

What have we learned so far from the disclosure of more than 21,000 transactions? We have learned that the $700 billion Wall Street bailout signed into law by President George W. Bush turned out to be pocket change compared to the trillions and trillions of dollars in near-zero interest loans and other financial arrangements the Federal Reserve doled out to every major financial institution in this country. Among those are Goldman Sachs, which received nearly $600 billion; Morgan Stanley, which received nearly $2 trillion; Citigroup, which received $1.8 trillion; Bear Stearns, which received nearly $1 trillion, and Merrill Lynch, which received some $1.5 trillion in short term loans from the Fed.

We also learned that the Fed’s multi-trillion bailout was not limited to Wall Street and big banks, but that some of the largest corporations in this country also received a very substantial bailout. Among those are General Electric, McDonald’s, Caterpillar, Harley Davidson, Toyota, and Verizon.

http://contraryinvesting.com/federal-reserve/us-senator-fed-bailed-out-ge-mcdonalds-harley-verizon-too/

[Egnever]

13. Yes everyones a victim

No one has responsibility for their own actions its all big brothers fault you had to buy a house you couldnt afford and a toys you couldnt afford and damn them for making you go so far into debt!

:crazy:

[Skidmore]

15. There was a considerable amount of effort and money that went

into pushing the idea that you needed to cultivate a lifestyle rather than live your life. It came as a package from television programs touting the lifestyles of the wealthy to how you could achieve something similar on your own. Low interest rates and free credit to all. Luxury features pushed. After all you need to be paying attention to how many threads are in your sheets and where the cotton came from. Clothes with designer labels and designer prices, never mind the retail versions were usually poor quality. Keeping up with the Joneses became the economic model.

[Quantess]

16. How about me?

I never bought a house, but I did get an education I can't afford. That was my big mistake, believing that I could be middle class someday, with a college degree. I didn't pay much for my education compared to most people, but at the wage I make, it'll take a loooong time to pay it back.

There just aren't many good jobs out there anymore.

[PufPuf23]

21. People of many histories have been damaged and frustrated.

The violent -- gangs to military -- and non-Believers in economic justice need to be stomped metaphorically by those that trust in heart by life, liberty, and fraternity for all.

No one asks to be born. The essense of humanity is recognizing this fact and that we are genetically species physically and mentally but born into different historical narratives and situations. Our talents and abilities given by Nature's God may vary, but no one deserves hell on Earth for being born.

I have been anti-war and violence since I became aware of the seriousness of the issue back in the 60s in early adolescense.

[MichiganVote]

29. Beautiful. And now, those of us w/anthing left b/c we did not buy the BS

are being demanded to pay-- again-- for those who did or for those who started this societal heist in the first place.

NADA. Revolt first. Ask questions second.