"Are we not the whores of big business, selling our product for their commercial lust?"
---Arthur Erickson
When George Bush spoke at a maritime training center in Piney Point, MD on Labor Day, 2006, ostensibly he was a respected leader paying tribute to the hard-working men and women forming the backbone of the nation's economy.
Consider this excerpt from Bush's laudatory speech (even a whore needs to have their ass kissed once in a while):
"Today, on Labor Day, we honor those who work, and we honor those who work because, in so doing, we recognize that one of the reasons why we're the economic leader in the world is because of our work force. And the fundamental question facing the country is, how do we continue to be the economic leader in the world? What do we do to make sure that, when people look around the world next year, and 10 years from now, they say, the United States is still the most powerful economy in the world? I think that's an important goal to have, because when we're the most powerful economy in the world, it means our people benefit. It means there's job opportunities. That's what we want. We want people working. We want people to realize their dreams."
Bush wants to keep the "people working" so he and "his base" can continue to "realize their dreams". Wage slaves in the United States who still believe they can achieve the American Dream are chasing a one in a million shot. Not unlike a gambling casino, the odds they face are tremendous and the house almost always wins. Almost no one successfully scales the craggy peaks separating the poor fro the rich in the United States. Yet like those who run the gaming industry, the aristocrats atop the economic order need that occasional "big winner" to "prove" that the system is still a meritocracy.
"One of the reasons why we're the economic leader in the world is because of our work force."
In an exceedingly rare moment, truth actually slipped out when George Bush opened his mouth. As he stated, our work force in the United States is indeed one of the principal reasons that this nation is the economic leader in the world. Bush and his people know that if the work force acted in unison and ceased performing for its paymasters, the merciless machinery of corporatism and predatory capitalism would quickly grind to a halt. And the parasitic three to four million who comprise the "uber-class" would realize their worst fear. Stripped of their tools of domination, they would experience the quiet desperation members of the working class perpetually endure as they scramble to satisfy their families' basic needs.
If the man had an ounce of integrity, instead of delivering his disingenuous monologue trumpeting opportunities that barely exist and dreams principally reserved for "his base", George Bush would have been begging forgiveness for his numerous serious transgressions against We the People and laying out a plan for wholesale changes in domestic economic policies. Our socioeconomic and political systems are almost hopelessly awash in corruption. If the United States has a prayer of avoiding a cataclysmic upheaval, the powers that be need to make significant changes in their exploitative and rapacious laws, policies, and behaviors. In other words, major corporations, wealthy elitists, and their proxies in DC need to start giving the Proletariat healthy doses of Aretha's R-E-S-P-E-C-T and economic justice.
What are some of the specific factors driving the need for significant changes in the prevailing socioeconomic paradigm in the United States?
Let's dissect and analyze:
While New Zealand enacted the first minimum wage law in 1894, it took the "land of opportunity" until 1938 to permanently establish a minimum wage. In 1968, the purchasing power of the United States minimum wage was $9.12 per hour. Since 1997 the real amount of the minimum wage has remained frozen at $5.15 per hour. An employee working full time at minimum wage earns less than $11,000.00 per year. That is $8,000 below the federal government defined poverty level. France, Australia, and New Zealand each require employers to pay their employees at least $10 per hour. Obviously, they lack the heartlessness to be "the economic leader in the world."
While the United States' predacious form of capitalism inflicts horrific damage on people of other nations, many people in the United States are not exactly "sitting pretty". Thirty million people working full time live below the poverty level. That is almost 10% of the US population. Both the US Census Bureau and the Department of Health and Human Services have agreed that a family of four living on less than $18,000.00 per year is impoverished.
[Note concerning the federally-determined poverty level: "In 1964 the government's poverty level was arbitrarily set at three times the estimated cost of modest food purchase requirements for a family. The official rate is now below the amount required for basic necessities, and far below what is needed to function adequately in society." World Socialist Website]
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