It wasn’t just the half-rabid, race-bating, gun-toting, union-bashing, Jesus-trashing, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, homophobic, xenophobic, right wing conspiracy theorists that are flooding the blogosphere with fear, vitriol, and just plain hate.
It wasn’t just the truly out-of-this-world zany, scary, shameful, side show, Houdini-like contortions of attention-starved, money-hungry, morally challenged clowns in the circus that calls itself the GOP presidential race.
It wasn’t just the Citizens United case, which has already allowed an unending barrage of secret corporately funded GOP campaign propaganda to virtually drown out the voices of reason or political compromise otherwise necessary for the betterment of the American people.
It wasn’t just the efforts of state and local corporate-backed GOP politicians to disenfranchise millions of young, old, poor, sick, and minority voters, strip women of the right to choose what happens to their own bodies, prevent gays and lesbians from having open legal relationships, and impose a political theocracy on an otherwise secular society.
It wasn’t just the millions of Americans who have no jobs, no health insurance, and no hope for the future because of a corporate economic strategy that has all but sacrificed them on the altars of vulture capitalism and currency manipulation.
It wasn’t any or even all of the above together that got me off my rump to join the President’s 2012, re-election campaign. I was pushed over the edge by a single article in last Sunday’s New York Times. (February 12, 2012, Page 1, Even Critics of Safety Net Increasingly Depend on It.)
You can read it for yourself, but I will give you the gist: in the last ten years, about twice as many proud, really hard working, formerly self-reliant, independent Americans have been forced to tap into government assistance to pay their bills, feed their families, or see to grandma’s operations.
Government programs are now paying out about $7,000 for every man, woman, and child in this country. These are not welfare payments. These are payments, subsidies, and tax breaks, for working or retired Americans who had this help coming to them in one legitimate way or another.
The idea that they both need and must take this money goes against the traditional values of the people interviewed and, I believe, the values of most working Americans reduced to accepting government help. And it must also stick in their collective craw that taking this money under present conditions will saddle their kids with a mountain of future debt.
But instead of demanding to know how the division of wealth got so skewed in the last ten years (that wealthy income earners scammed a 257% raise while the working class got a 17% pay cut), and which political party might better work to put them on a level playing field again, most of those interviewed seemed resolved to simply start living without the assistance and somehow try to forge ahead on their own.
These people appeared far from foolish, yet they were poised like lemmings on a cliff, ready to dive off into oblivion in support of the same folks who put them in the position of having to beg for help in the first place.
In what more resembles an uber-stoic scenario of the Samurai, they appear to be blaming themselves for a mess that may have happened on their watch but was clearly not their fault and to stand ready to fall on the sword for multi-national corporations and their surrogates in the GOP elite; better to die a poor, but honorable, death.
But I can’t just sit back and let these Americans take a fall without a fight. If they can't or won't fight for themselves, I can and will. This is still America. In this country, we look after our own. I already did my part once, but I guess it’s time to ante up again. And so I’ll make phone calls and knock on doors and talk to whoever will listen to me.
President Obama is not perfect, but he genuinely cares about and is working hard for all Americans, including the same hard-working Americans who compelled me to join his campaign. The other side only cares about how to line their own pockets with cash, and you ought to know that full well by now.
Maybe you need another reason(s) to finally say “I am an American too, and I just reached my limit.” You know you have many from which to choose. I already have mine.
J. Brandeis Sperandeo
p.s. To all of you, who get angry with me when I phone you during your favorite prime time T.V. show, please blame my wife. She ordered the Sunday Times for me!
The New York Times reported that "safety net" eligibility incomes for government assistance rose from < $26,997 in 1975, to < $49, 317, in 2010. Per capita income for the county containing the people interviewed had declined 13% in the last ten years.
The Times also reported that an average of all national income has declined at only about 3% over this same period, but I believe that the figures I cited in the body of my piece are accurate, as they reflect changes in upper class income v. working class income.
The New York Times reported that "safety net" eligibility incomes for government assistance rose from < $26,997 in 1975, to < $49, 317, in 2010. Per capita income for the county containing the people interviewed had declined 13% in the last ten years.
The Times also reported that an average of all national income has declined at only about 3% over this same period, but I believe that the figures I cited in the body of my piece are accurate, as they reflect changes in upper class income v. working class income.
