Screed 4-5-11

SCREED

Think of the sacrifices that our ancestors went through to make our country free. 

Think of the men who gave their lives to the cause, 

All the hardships and heartaches their families went through while they fought.

The revolutionaries that decided that our country would no longer be used to line the coffers of powerful outside interests.

They made the decision to cut the ties that bound us to our oppressors and set about to construct a better way for us to live.

They did not have the power to foresee all the future would bring, 

But they set about to try a form of government that would be more about one's ability, 

rather than one's lineage.

When I speak of lineage, I mean the concentrated wealth and the ensuing power that belonged to the very few elites.

They succeeded in freeing us from the government of England, 

They did not succeed in freeing us from the moneyed elite.

Thomas Jefferson knew the danger we face from them and said in 1816:

"I hope we shall… crush in it's birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country"

Well, he may have hoped the good of the people would prevail, 

but our country has fallen victim to the power of money.

Because corporations are designed to last for generations, 

they have longer term plans than the average person. 

They also have the resources to hire people that work exclusively to remake the laws of our country to better serve their own long term agendas. 

We citizens have no such resources.

They have been so successful at this that we now have virtually no control over our economy.

Wall Street lobbied successfully to get themselves de-regulated and then in the absence of regulation they; 

Sold average America on a real estate Ponzi scheme, 

Reaped obscene profits, 

Crashed the economy,

Told us we had to bail them out or the entire world economy would disintegrate, 

Took billions of our tax money without so much as a thank you, 

Used some of that money to sway midterm elections with expensive and totally misleading tea party propaganda, 

Got their puppets elected,

Bought themselves out of any guilt for their crimes

Made sure no real regulations got passed to actually hamper them in the future,

Reaped world record breaking profits while accepting millions in tax payer funded "incentives" 

And to put the cherry on top,

They exploit the laws they bought so that they wind up paying no US taxes at all.

All this while shipping our jobs out of the country, 

Leaving downsized survivors to bear even more of the burden to make bigger profits for the owners

Cutting workers salaries while raising taxes to pay for all the havoc that was wrought by Wall Street.

So that their CEO's can raise their 14 million dollar pay and major shareholders can make more profits

While our teachers, police and firefighters are being laid off, 

Our libraries are closing, our kids arts, music and sports programs are being cut

To pay for the greed of Wall Street while they make more and more and more.

Our roads are falling apart, our bridges are collapsing, our water lines are bursting, our levees are breaking, our gas lines are exploding

And yet some major corporations now pay less than 2% of their profits in taxes 

Even Ronald Reagan enacted a 33% corporate tax rate

They hide the money they "make" in offshore accounts, 

Unabashedly telling us it's wealth's prerogative not to bother with that pesky pay-my-taxes thing

Let us peons give half our earning to pay for the country.

Any talk of making them contribute to society like the rest of us leads them to holler Socialists! Communists!

It bewilders me how 1950's anti-red propaganda has made any attempt to better our lot as a people into an anti-American affront all these many years later

Maybe it's because most of us don't remember the American labor movement, 

Before the USSR, 

We The People Stood Up to the mine owners, the rail road owners, the steel mill owners, the factory owners

We The People said NO to fatal working conditions, poverty wages, child labor, 12 hour shifts, six day work weeks with no sick leave, arbitrary terminations, blatant discrimination

We did this by striking, by boycotting, by unionizing

Again our ancestors fought for our freedom

Think of the labor movements of the early 20th century, 

The harassment, beatings and company sponsored murders they endured to break the iron grip that the "Owners" of those companies had over them.

The concentrated effort to get laws enacted that protected our rights as free Americans, 

Not a nation of indentured servants 

To quote Founding Father Jefferson again,

"The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs,

Nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them"

It is time to once again rise up against our moneyed oppressors and wrest control of our nation back from those who exploit us.

We must be as strong as our forbearers and stand together as a nation of people who will no longer tolerate corporate control.