More than any race in history, this one pits those who have
wealth against the rest of America. Romney says 47% of Americans are parasites.
He’s got it backwards. The plumbers, the waitresses/waiters, chefs, mechanics
and assemblers of America and those who need their help because they are either
handicapped or are benefitting from a lifetime of paying into such wonderful
American inventions as the Social Security program or Medicare are the BACKBONE
of America’s moral fiber AND it’s economy. Romney’s pyramid scheme Bain
Capital, along with his ‘financier’ cronies such as Bernie Madoff, the Koch
Brothers, Leman Brothers, Citibank and other such con scheme individuals and
groups produce nothing of benefit to the nation or to the economy! Romney and
his cohorts have succeeded during the George W. Bush presidency and at the
state/local level in recent decades, starting with their hero, Ronald Ray-gun’s
busting of the PATCO union when air traffic controllers struck for airline
safety pre-9/11 in decimating our union’s powers and centralizing wealth in the
nation and the world like never before.
Ray-gun did it the old fashioned and obscenely heavy-handed
way by overpowering PATCO, and forcing the rehiring of all new traffic
controllers without regard for the safety of the American public. His policies,
those of his successor, George H.W. Bush and those of Bush’s son have enabled
the states to do individually what they could not succeed at by trying to shut
down the labor movement at the national level. And please let’s not forget that
it was while we had a strong union movement in this nation, during the
Eisenhower through to the beginning of the George the Second’s administration
that we enjoyed a strong middle class, a non-depression or “Great Recessionary”
economy, and the opportunity for workers to exercise bargaining rights which
strengthened our industries and made us the manufacturing capitol of the world.
One state at a time, one regulation and one piece of
legislation at a time, conservatives have been able to ‘privatize’ major state
services which were previously performed by highly qualified, trained and
competent state employees. For example by appealing to the compassion of
people, they used the horrendous conditions at institutions for those with
mental disabilities to rally for the cause of ‘deinstitutionalization,’ which
was a needed change in some ways, however they were able to ,very quietly here
in Connecticut and throughout the nation, turn these handicapped folks over to
private not-for-profit agencies which are non-union, have less qualified
workers and the incompetency of these agencies is now the stuff of legend,
unfortunately. These agencies, like their profit making counterparts, seek to
get bigger and bigger so they have co-opted many other than their original program
areas of expertise. One with which I am familiar now runs group homes, drug and
alcohol programs, work programs, and even a nursing agency which is staffed by
part time nurses who don’t receive benefits. And all of these previously
state-run programs are now being run by the not-for-profits at higher cost
because of the decentralized and massive overhead costs, and by not-qualified
non-union personell.
This trend is NOT accidental on the part of state and
national politicians—their intent has been to bust the unions. They have also
succeeded in the private sector, by various means. One is that private
employers, thanks to their buddies in the state and national capitols, have been
able to render formerly full-time benefitted quality jobs into part-time
unbenefitted jobs—resulting in the absolute necessity for Barack Obama’s
first-step Health Care Reform Act.
The impact of these right wing extremists’ policies
including and since the Ray-gun administration has been the centralization of
wealth into the hands of super-rich folks as unheard of in global history—the likes
of the Wal-Mart family dynasty-the Walton billionaires, the Koch Brothers, and
now quarter-billionaire and tool of these folks, Willard Mitt Romney. They now
seek to have the presidency in their pockets in order to finally consolidate their
wealth and power. They have no scruples in sending American manufacturing jobs,
characterized by good full-time pay with benefits and reasonable working conditions,
over to abusive totalitarian regimes such as Communist China!
Once we win back the government again this November, we need
to take a look at some serious reforms in the nation’s labor laws, and begin to
strengthen the rights of the formerly Great American Middle Class and restore
our nation’s economy. Union = Good. Not Bad. We need to tear the unfair
advantages the billionaires have developed at the expense of every single
moderate and low income American! Go President Obama, Go! YES WE CAN!!!
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