What I find most depressing is that the plutocrats have used the Republican Party leaders to convince the Republican party voters to vote against their own best interests, time and time again. To get rid of the unions that protected them, to get rid of regulations that protected them, to lower their wages and reduce the safety requirements where they work.
And the trick they used, very successfully I must say, was to have their minions the Republican establishmeant go to their voters and say look: 'we are like you, we don't particularly like integration (Lee Atwater's Southern strategy), we don't like gays and we love God, and we don't like liberals.
And so the Republican voter cut off their nose to spite their face. The liberals were actually their best friends, but they couldn't recognize it. Thomas Frank wrote a book about it called: "what is wrong with Kansas?" In the 50s and 60s we had strong unions that protected the workers and made sure they had good wages. Then the plutocrats, first with Nixon and then with Reagan started disassembling the unions and boy were they successful.
Reagan started with the air traffic controllers and squashed them. I still remember almost 40 years ago thinking to myself when the unions confronted Reagan:" you are making a huge mistake, because he intends to make an example of you." That is a trick politicians have used forever, pick someone out and make an example of them. In the 40's, 50,and 60s 35% of all jobs were unionized, today it is 6%.
So now we have all the productive profits that have taken place in the last 40 years going to the top 10%, half the population living near the poverty level, 65th in the world in income inequality and we've seen the middle class steadily decline and wages stagnate. The plutocrats so far have been big winners and their army has been the same people that they have exploited. It is very sad. |
