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Working Class Hero

By Michael Muehleisen

Throughout the past whenever a major threat to freedom and the American way of life got too powerful, or loomed to large to ignore, some person, or persons of character and strong moral fiber rose to the occasion to rally the American people to victory over the evil threat. We had George Washington to battle the British, F.D.R. and Eisenhower to battle the Nazis, and John Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan to battle the Communists in the Cold War. America, Land of the free, and home of the brave has survived for over 230 years because these people, and others like them, saw the threat, and chose to do something about it for the good of the American People.
The American way of life is slowly having the life choked out of it. This process has been going on for almost 30 years. The evil forces responsible for this are the global power elite, the banks, and Corporate Management. Slowly but surely the working class of America, and the whole free world, are being turned into a fudal class of indentured servants by the coordinated efforts of these evil, greedy forces.
The unions are powerless to fight these people because they have been declawed of the ability to strike. Striking workers are in danger of being replaced by Management thereby making it almost impossible to strike. With out the ability to shut a company down, unions no longer have the leverage needed to fairly bargain with Corporate Management over pay, health benefits, vacation time, sick days, and retirement funding. Since Ronald Reagan fired the striking air traffic controlers in 1983, vitually all workers have experienced the eroding of all of the amenities that they used to have. Wages have been slashed, health benefits modified, or totally done away with, and retirement funds confiscated by Management. 61% of workers polled have reported that they are surviving on a pay check to pay check basis. All of this on top of a 10.4% unemployment rate shows the sorry state of the American worker.
Mean while the rich keep getting richer. Top executives keep receiving huge bonuses, and compensation, while their employees are having their homes confiscated. When will the greed end? Is there an end to this greed?
American workers are grasping at straws looking for somebody, anybody to help them out of this morass. The workers have realized that they can't count on the government, or the politicians to help them because they are in bed with big money. Who will rise up to take on this evil?
America needs a working class hero, someone who is not swayed by greed, but who truly cares about America and it's people. We need some one who is a true patriot, willing to fight to keep America free from the banks, and the international power elite; some one the people can rally around to change the balance of power.
Who will this be?

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I just love American history - it has a home grown version that is, for want of a better word, xenophobic.

America fought the Nazis only when it was attacked. Until that point America had been milking the war cow for all it was worth, supplying both sides. Even when she did join the war, America made damn sure nobody else would benefit financially by cornering the markets in raw materials.

The cold war was very much an American invention to justify the massive over-production of atomic weapons. There was a stand-off but the fear around the world was that the American military would act in typical gung-ho fashion and end the world.

Only in America was being a communist seen as equating to being a baby-eating barbarian and American children were raised with comics and films that demonised Russia and communism. Only in America could people be brought in front of a star chamber simply for entertaining thoughts about communism.

America is teeming with working class heroes. They raise their families as best they can. They try to sort the fact from some of the ludicrous fiction that spews from public media. They pay enormous taxes in order to feed the military machine and go to fight in wars that have nothing to do with sovereignty and everything to do with presidential pride.
They tolerate living in a second class country that grants them less rights to freedom than some communist countries and, despite all that, they still sing the national anthem.

America has heroes, what it lacks is leadership of any kind that is not corporate.

Hi Coot, thanks for your perspective from a non-American point of view. You are correct that we need leadership, but I would strongly argue about us being a second class country.

Wow, Mike. It's hard for me to know what to say here. I can't even pretend to know all of the answers.

It's a vicious circle. Unions for example, have both a positive and negative influence in my mind. Positive, because they supposedly stand up for the rights of the worker. Negative -- many unions are corrupt. Also, I've seen union members who were floor sweepers earning more money than I did as a a Quality Control Inspector in a non-union shop.

Whether we like it or not -- and many of us don't -- we live in a global economy. That's the way it is. Businesses in America have to compete with companies in Europe and Asia.

Capitalism certainly is not a perfect system, but it's been established many times that Socialism does not work, for the simple fact that people are people.

What I think is happening here is a transition -- much like the industrial revolution was a transition. We have high tech on one side, and the manufacturing firms on the other. Even though these firms use high-tech, they still rely on the old-fashioned "lunch pail" work force. The world is seemingly transitioning away from that, and we don't know how to cope with that yet.

You are right Jim it is a circular thing, the unions were too strong in the 60's and 70's, and most were run by crooks. The last 30 years it has been the exact opposite, now the country the banks and corporations are run by crooks.

Thank you for sharing this thought provoking intel, Mike. I agree that the greed at the top is wrecking the free enterprise system in America. We grew as a country with local banks serving local people. Let's keep our jobs and the control of our banks in this country.
People building our cars in Mexico, Japan and Canada don't pay taxes to support our schools in America.
We built America by working and not by letting someone else make the wages.
Best to you.
Frederick

Hi Frederick, the international power elite set up NAFTA back in the early 90's to ship out all of the good paying jobs, or should I say out source them. Now the companies don't have anyone that can afford their products. Management has never learned that their best customer is a well paid work force.

We all need a different political process. He who has the most money rules at present. That money is no longer focused on one party it is spent supporting the major parties at once. Which ever of the parties is in power there is virtually no change in policy. Governments everywhere are being driven by the monied power brokers. We need change everywhere. Vote the power parties out of office all together. Make them realize that we need real change.

Reg Whelan Mar 6, 2010 05:21

Hi, Michael,
Second class might seem harsh but what else can you call a country that is controlled by a powerful private business that is run by a small board of unelected directors?
The Federal Reserve is a private company yet it wields enormous power because it controls ALL the purse strings in America.
Surely any country that allows itself to be run by a private dictatorship has to be second class?

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