Friday, February 25, 2011

The Rich Always Blame the Poor for the Working-Class's Woes

When I used to live in NYC in 1980 my friend and room-mate Charlie Taylor was an actor and belonged to SAG (the Screen Actors Guild)...a union. Before we went our own ways he was doing extra work for CBS's "One Life to Live".

Charlie also belonged to AFTRA (the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists)...another union.

And then I got the idea...could Glenn Beck (the union hater and radio broadcaster) also belong to this union?

So just now I googled "aftra glenn beck" and found this blog post...and guess what? YES! Glenn Beck is a union man! (Or at the very least, most likely was in his early years.) Please make sure Ed Schultz knows about this !!!

My friend Charlie also did summer stock work, off-Broadway shows, and modeled - and he read all the trade magazines...so he was very up on all this. He told me you HAD to belong to these unions if you were ever serious about getting any real work in New York City. And Glenn Beck, being a young and up-and-coming radio broadcaster in the "old days", would more than likely have had to belong to AFTRA at one time or another.

The rich in America (people like Glenn Beck) always blame the poor for the working-class's woes, but also blame the working men and women (such as union members) for our budget crisis.

It's pretty much common knowledge these days that the rich bankers and greedy corporations created most of our poor in the first place. But instead of paying more in taxes for the upkeep of our infrastructure and our American society as a whole (including paying more in unemployment compensation for the jobs that the bankers and CEOs killed), the rich want the working people to believe that it's the unemployed and the poor that are the sole cause of our budget crisis.

Then, when politicians raise the age and cut services such as Social Security, the working  people will blame the unemployed and poor for putting the budget in such dire straits - rather than blaming the rich. The rich need to convince the working people that it is the poor people's fault because the working people are a majority - - - and do most of the voting. (Of the total workforce, only 60% are employed full-time, 25% are employed part-time, and 15% don't work at all.) The rich need that 60% to blame the other 40% for the budget crisis (and have them turn on that 40%) - - - rather than blame the richest 3% and raise THEIR taxes. So rather than cut something such as military spending (which also enriches the few), the rich (using the GOP) will threaten cuts that they know will affect that 60%. The strategy is well known and has been used by the rich since usury was first practiced - it's called "Divide and Conquer".

These two articles that came out yesterday in the Huffington Post remind me of why working people always have to take the cuts (and make all the sacrifices) when the rich people never have to.

* The Incredible Shrinking Budget Debate: Why the Only Choice We're Being Offered Is Between Bad and Worse

* Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker Warns Of 'Dire Consequences' If Budget Bill Fails To Pass

Instead having the rich pay more in taxes (and always having them accusing the poor of wanting to redistribute the wealth from the rich to the poor), the GOP always wants the working people to pay for the services that only the working people, the unemployed, and the poor need...services that the rich don't need (except for maybe firefighters) and don't want to pay for. They don't even need teachers, police, nurses, or sanitation workers...they can hire their own.

The rich don't need Social Security, unemployment benefits, homeless shelters, daycare centers, or food stamps. They only need infrastructure (roads, bridges, and airports). But they don't want to pay for that either. How can they make a profit building a highway or hiring commercial air traffic controllers? But the rich need them too.

The rich have always passed on the responsibility (and the blame) for any lack of government services in a budget crises, then wants the working-class to collectively pay for all those services that only the working-class, the poor, and unemployed need - and then they accuse the poor of being the enemy of the working-class...to keep the those (who still have jobs) from turning on the rich, and instead, make the poor and unemployed the enemy of the working-class.

The Republican Shakedown (Exerpted from the Huffington Post) - "If the super-rich paid their fair share of taxes, government wouldn't be broke. If Governor Scott Walker hadn't handed out tax breaks to corporations and the well-off, Wisconsin wouldn't be in a budget crisis. If Washington hadn't extended the Bush tax cuts for the rich, eviscerated the estate tax, and created loopholes for private-equity and hedge-fund managers, the federal budget wouldn't look nearly as bad.

And if America had higher marginal tax rates and more tax brackets at the top -- for those raking in $1 million, $5 million, $15 million a year -- the budget would look even better. We wouldn't be firing teachers or slashing Medicaid or hurting the most vulnerable members of our society. We wouldn't be in a tizzy over Social Security. We'd slow the rise in health care costs but we wouldn't cut Medicare. We'd cut defense spending and lop off subsidies to giant agribusinesses but we wouldn't view the government as our national nemesis.

The final truth is as income and wealth have risen to the top, so has political power. The reason all of this is proving so difficult to get across is the super-rich, such as the Koch brothers, have been using their billions to corrupt politics, hoodwink the public, and enlarge and entrench their outsized fortunes. They're bankrolling Republicans who are mounting showdowns and threatening shutdowns, and who want the public to believe government spending is the problem. They are behind the Republican shakedown."

When will the people of both political parties - and all independents - WITH jobs today (who may not tomorrow), wake up and realize that just because they're working now, it doesn't mean that just THEY should always have to pay for the poor and unemployed...the rich should pay more as well. The rich will ALWAYS make the working class pay more, then blame those that can't find work (or can't work at all), for being the sole reason we have so much debt. Yet the rich never blame themselves for lack of GDP after outsourcing all the jobs.

Why don't those who still have jobs, instead, blame the rich for sending jobs to China, thereby creating the poor and unemployed that the working people are eventually forced to pay for? The rich have been getting away with this for years. First they cut and outsource jobs, then they get fat bonuses for doing so, then they bribe politicians to keep their taxes low, then they ask that the budget be cut (because those that they laid off can no longer pay the taxes needed to pay off the debt), then they ask that the debt be cut on things like Social Security, just to enrage the working people against those who lost their jobs and need unemployment benefits.

The rich have always had the best of all world's - - - getting cheaper labor for higher profits and salaries, and forcing those still working to make all the sacrifices - and to pay for those who aren't working any longer.

For years it's been the rich who have been redistributing the wealth...from the working people (who then become unemployed people) to the rich people - just to make rich people richer. The rich have always blamed the poor for the working people's woes, when it has always been the rich that created the working people's woes.

8 Charts to make my point:
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

The rich have always blamed homeless people for their living in the cold, all while at the same time flaunting their warm and opulent mansions in the faces of the working-class, then blaming the homeless people as the reason why the working-class don't also live in big beautiful mansions as well.

Click on the photo below to enlarge NOTE: These aren't universities, museums, or government office buildings...these are single family homes that rich Americans live in. Many rich people own several of these  palaces - - - across this nation, and elsewhere around the world.

Half your wages go to pay for the roof over your head. Most rich people pay cash-in-full for their roof, they don't struggle every day trying to bust a monthly nut for 50 years so they that can "retire" on meager Social Security checks. Do you REALLY think that if it were not for the unemployed and homeless, YOU TOO could also live in one of these beautiful mansions?


I think not, but we need the people who DO live in these homes to hire us so that we can pay our share of taxes. We don't need the richest among us to send our jobs to China any more. If they continue to do so, then it's only you who'll have to work harder and longer just to pay more in taxes...because the GOP will always makes sure that the richest don't have to.

If you have a nice middle-class job, don't blame the unemployed and the poor if you get stuck like a pig with higher taxes or reduced government services. Put the blame squarely where it belongs - on the incredibility rich (and their GOP servants). It is the filthy rich who would rather not pay you ANY wages at all - and have you pay ALL the taxes too. Their greedy greasy fingers grub for every single penny in savings they can aquire for themselves...many even collecting unemployment and Social Security benefit themselves if they can - - - money that they certainly don't need. But yet they would deny all that they could from you.

No wonder the union-man Glenn Beck always bashes the poor and wanted all those tax breaks extended for the dirty rich. Because NOW he's dirty too! Beck now makes $34 million a year at Fox News (not like the old days when he was a drunk), so I wonder how much HIS boss makes. And does everyone else at Fox News also belong to the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and still bash the unions?

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