Rich was an auto worker. He was in a union. He has been laid off. He is probably in the bottom half of the 98% right now. This is the kind of man who should be supporting the protesters in Madison right now. This is the kind of man who should be calling out Governor Walker for what he is-an errand boy for big business. But he's not. He's siding with Governor Walker. Why?
He says he still believes in unions, but thinks those in the public sector lead to wasteful spending because of what he sees as lavish benefits and endless negotiations.
"Something needs to be done," he said, "and quickly."
And this echoes what another Wisconsin resident, Cindy Kuehn had to say:
"Everyone else needs to pinch pennies and give more money to health insurance companies and pay for their own retirement," said Cindy Kuehn as she left Jim and Judy's Food Market in Palmyra. "It's about time the buck stops."
According to the Times, you see this sentiment echoed again and again. The feeling basically is that "away from Madison, many people said that public workers needed to share in the sacrifice that their own families have been forced to make. "
This is divide and conquer at its worst. Trick the people you are trying to oppress into oppressing themselves by having them turn on one another. It's been going on for years. Trying to drive a wedge between private and public sector employees is just its latest guise. Playing racial and ethnic groups against one another is another favorite of the American upper classes. Then there's the immigrant scare tactic. It's those damned Irish-Germans-Poles-Italians-Chinese-Slavs-Mexicans that done took yer jobs! This has been going on since America was founded!
Use racism to and fear of foreigners to keep workers down. Heck, use a planted "troublemaker" to make things turn violent and turn the public against them! Well if we could overcome it in the 20's in West Virginia we ought to be able to overcome it in the 21st.
Yes, when times are tough, the top 2% asks you to blame everyone but them. Why do we fall for it so often? I said above that it's a problem of imagination, and here is what I mean.
The Riches and Cindys of the world don't see very many of those top 2% around them on a daily basis. In fact, for many people in this country right now, the lifestyles of rich and famous people are something that you only see on TV. You don't actually see those people in line at the grocery store or the unemployment office with you. You have no idea how they get their money so you think they must have "earned it." You aren't aware of the intricate ways they scam the government and rig the game to take home millions and millions of dollars in taxpayer money.
You are very aware that this guy Bob down the street gets a small disability check even though his leg is now fine. You know that you were downsized and now have a meager paycheck and no benefits but see that your neighbor Julie works at the County building and still has health insurance and benefits and days off now and then. You know your step-sister just took out a couple thousand in government loans because she claims to be a "student" at the local community college but actually used the money to buy a big screen TV. And you sit there and you think, "How dare they! They're the reason my taxes are so high! I'm out busting my ass and I've had to make do with a shitty life so they should to!"
It's much easier to get you to turn on the people you actually bump into now and then. The people all around you. The ones you can imagine because you don't have to imagine. You see them. You know them. You might even have lunch with them sometimes. And it's no fair that you've had to make sacrifices and they don't!
I've had this conversation with friends somewhat recently. A friend of mine ranted and raved about people on welfare or disability or with nice government jobs saying "that must be nice!" And I even granted for the moment, that despite how meager the resources are that are available to these people, I just said, "Okay, let's say that's a bad thing. Why do you get so worked up about those people and not, say, the MILLIONS of dollars our county has given away to Cabela's to build a store hear? Or the millions of dollars that go to private companies to build sports stadiums without demanding a share of those companies' profits? Or why don't you get mad that most millionaires pay less in taxes because of all the loopholes than the guy working at the county building you're so pissed off about?"
I don't think she had an answer. It may have been something like, "Well I don't know those people!"
And that's why this is an imagination problem. If you could hold in your mind just how good things are for the wealthy right now in this country, if you could see them benefiting in every materially conceivable way off the decisions they've made to ship your jobs overseas or the decision to hire an illegal immigrant at way below minimum wage or to raise insurance premiums again so there's more money for bonuses at the end of the year-if you could see that clearly in your mind, wouldn't you be outraged?
If you could see clearly the way these people, who already had millions of dollars, made a cool calculation that your suffering, your job loss, your layoff, your benefit cuts, your being left to foot the tax bill because they have paid-for politicians write them exemptions for everything, that these things they inflict on all the rest of us would have the effect of making them even richer, would you not be revolted? Would you not be ready to revolt?
If you could see that yacht sailing down the coast was paid for by ten workers losing their jobs, would you not seethe? Would you not be pissed at them instead of at your brother and sister living on the same street? Wouldn't you demand that these top 2% make some shared sacrifice knowing that all of the other sacrifices were made to make them wealthier in the first place?
And wouldn't it make you the angriest that not only have they been forcing you to sacrifice more and more for their riches, but that they have intentionally played you all one against the other to make it happen?
Well that's what's going on. The Walker tapes are just the latest piece of evidence. The worst part of these tapes is that Walker doesn't even seem surprised. He doesn't miss a beat when a rich billionaire says "let's plant some trouble makers." Let's rig the game. Let's divide them. Let's get them going after one another. Let's manipulate and fool and trick those poor dumb masses into giving us even more concessions! The governor of the state of Wisconsin says "Yeah, we thought about doing that..."
People don't like to admit when they're wrong. They don't like to think they've been fooled or tricked or duped. But if you don't admit that you've been suckered, you're just going to get taken again and again.
It's time to quit being fools. It's time to quit being suckers. It's time we quit barking at whatever latest threat our corporate masters point us toward to keep the attention away from them. It's time for the advertisers and professionals who make a little bit more than the rest of us to stop being collaborators at the master's table, doing the dirty work of the corporations for the first shot at table scraps. Don't do their dirty work for them no matter what the benefits package. Don't be a collaborator. Don't be a scab. Don't bow down to corporate interests. Don't bow down to divide and conquer schemes.
Stand in unity with your brothers and sisters. Stand together with the immigrants whose lives are way worse than yours. Stand together with the person with physical or mental illness who can't work the same long hours that you do. Stand together with your public and private sector fellow workers who actually make this country go. Stand together with people of every race and religion who are being held down by the top 2% just like you are.
Stand together, stand proud and stand strong. And we, the people, will have a more perfect union. |
