The Pendulum
by
Jack Wade
One of the most frustrating aspects of attempting to stand up for the bottom 99% is when I run into the many political false prophets that are constantly raising the noise level of virtually all the social media. They are very quick to shout down anyone who doesn't support THEIR candidate or THEIR party! One person went as far as to call me an idiot, just because I said that the Occupy movement should run and support its own candidate for President. She hit me with the stock implication that any candidate from the left who runs against the President will guarantee a Republican victory.
Let's cut through the political rhetoric of the brainwashed who are playing out a modern-day version of The Emperor's New Clothes with a factual, historical discussion of how the bottom 99% wound up losing The American Dream. The first seeds of the corporate destruction of The American dream were actually planted on June 23, 1947 when Congress and the Senate enacted the Taft-Hartley Act, a law that severely weakened unions, with bi-partisan votes over the veto of President Harry S. Truman. Democrat Harry Truman, the man who ostensibly “objected” to the bill used Taft-Hartley against unions a total of twelve times during his presidency. As we shall see, President Truman pioneered the Democratic technique of praising unions with words and damning unions with actions, a theme that repeats itself again and again in subsequent years.
Let's flash forward to the Reagan years when America's corporatocracy began to make major inroads in its quest to make working people totally subservient. Republican Ronald Reagan fired the opening round when he fired striking members of PATCO, the Air Traffic Controllers Union. Corporations took that act as an object lesson and an official go ahead to become much more aggressive in the way they dealt with their unions. Equally harming to America's working people, Reagan also lowered many trade tariffs on imports, opening America's doors to a flood of goods from places like China. This also gave U.S. Manufacturers the ability to make their products overseas without worrying about costly tariffs when they bring them into the U.S.A. The cumulative effect of this was to wreck America's manufacturing infrastructure. It's also worth noting that Reagan's people deregulated the FCC, eliminating the Fairness Doctrine, among other things, putting us a step closer to the political distortion machine that today's mainstream media has become.
The George H. W. Bush Presidency was essentially an extension of the Reagan Presidency and for the purpose of this article could be considered a continuation of that regime. One notable thing to keep in mind is that negotiations for NAFTA started during the Bush administration. The effect of the Bush/Reagan years was to push the American agenda sharply to the right and severely weaken the quality, quantity and stability of jobs available to America's working people.
When Bill Clinton became President, one would have expected him as a Democrat to push the political pendulum to the left to correct the sharp swing to the right that America took under Reagan and his Republican successor, no such luck! Much to the dismay of the AFL-CIO, “free” trader Bill Clinton championed job killing NAFTA and signed the U.S. China Relations Act. Of 2000, giving China permanent normal trade relations status with the U.S.A. He claimed that “free” trade will bring democratic reform to China. Obviously, it didn't do that, but it sure accelerated the offshoring of OUR jobs! The Telecommunications Act of 1996 that passed under Clinton just about guaranteed that media mega conglomerates would gobble up local stations in most markets and concentrate media ownership in the hands of a few corporations, severely restricting the diverse flow of information. Here's the kicker, the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, signed into law by Clinton, partially repealed the Glass Steagal Act of 1933 that was put into place to prevent the Depression from reoccurring. Can you say, “too big to fail?" I'll be charitable and say that Bill Clinton didn't swing the pendulum back from the right and kept the Oval Office chair warm for George Bush, so he can move our country further to the right.
Now on to George W. Bush! I'm not going to insult your intelligence by enumerating the many things that he did to hurt the bottom 99%. Here is where you get to fill in the blanks. Keep everything that you know about George Bush in mind when you read the next part of this article.
When our votes put President Obama in the White House in 2008, we were ecstatic. It felt as if we won a hard-fought war. The Bush nightmare was over! Surprisingly, he squandered the opening months of his presidency, a time when he actually had a clear legislative majority and the momentum of a new Presidency on his side with conciliatory calls for “bipartisanship.” He was fond of saying that he was “everybody's” president. Everybody didn't put him in office, we did! I started to get the feeling that something strange was going on.
At this point, I'm going to hit you with a couple of Obama's most significant broken campaign promises. We have bigger fish to fry, so let's just get them out of the way. Obama made healthcare a major campaign issue. After hearing some of his fiery campaign rhetoric, many of us were looking forward to a healthcare system that covers everyone and doesn't put a price on life. As the months of his Presidency rolled by, he ratcheted things down to the point where his health care plan was a shadow of itself.
In its present state, there are still many people who cannot see a doctor and have NO medical care! Many of his supporters were upset and said so on the social media, but were shouted down by his apologists. One O-pologist couldn't come up with a better justification for Obama's compromise of the health care issue than “Think about all the people in the insurance industry that would lose their jobs if we have European style national health care.” My reply was, that a person's life trumps another person's lively-hood any day! The second broken promise was his dwindling support of the Employee Free Choice Act. That law would have helped unions bring decent working conditions and salaries to more working people. The President quietly put it on the back burner then turned the flame off.
I have a saying that I like to use to describe today's “two” party system. These days, you can't expect the guy you voted for to do anything for you, the best you can hope for is that he doesn't do anything to you! When President Obama seemingly offered up Social; Security and Medicare as a bargaining chip, he crossed that line. He walked that back, but we now have a “Democratic" component of the Super Committee that has it very much on the table! Speaking of doing things to us and by us, I mean the bottom 99%. Thank you , Mr. President for supporting the three recently passed NAFTA like “free” trade agreements! That's in keeping with the Democratic tradition of praising unions in words and damning unions with action. The circle is indeed unbroken!
Ever since the Reagan regime, every succeeding Republican administration pushes the American pendulum further and further to the right. We needed Democratic Presidents that would bring the American agenda back to normal by giving that pendulum a sharp corrective shove to the left. Thus far, NEITHER Democratic President was or is up to the job. BOTH presidents served their place it the corporatocracy by being place holder Presidents. The American pendulum sits undisturbed in its rightmost position waiting for the next shove to the right that could just make it snap.
The sad thing is that during his 2008 campaign, President Obama pointed out almost ALL of the injustices that the previous administrations heaped on the bottom 99%. By pointing them out, he created a thirst for change that swept him into office. Sadly, he couldn't or wouldn't quench that thirst. Many of the same people who hit the streets to get Obama elected are now part of the occupy movement, hitting the streets for fairness and economic justice for the bottom 99%. As the song says, “We Won't Get Fooled Again!"
Remember NO party or person owns our votes! If we truly are in a free society, our destiny doesn't depend on the empty promises of a column A or Column B politician. WE can select our own electeds from our own ranks because WE are our own destiny!
Let's cut through the political rhetoric of the brainwashed who are playing out a modern-day version of The Emperor's New Clothes with a factual, historical discussion of how the bottom 99% wound up losing The American Dream. The first seeds of the corporate destruction of The American dream were actually planted on June 23, 1947 when Congress and the Senate enacted the Taft-Hartley Act, a law that severely weakened unions, with bi-partisan votes over the veto of President Harry S. Truman. Democrat Harry Truman, the man who ostensibly “objected” to the bill used Taft-Hartley against unions a total of twelve times during his presidency. As we shall see, President Truman pioneered the Democratic technique of praising unions with words and damning unions with actions, a theme that repeats itself again and again in subsequent years.
Let's flash forward to the Reagan years when America's corporatocracy began to make major inroads in its quest to make working people totally subservient. Republican Ronald Reagan fired the opening round when he fired striking members of PATCO, the Air Traffic Controllers Union. Corporations took that act as an object lesson and an official go ahead to become much more aggressive in the way they dealt with their unions. Equally harming to America's working people, Reagan also lowered many trade tariffs on imports, opening America's doors to a flood of goods from places like China. This also gave U.S. Manufacturers the ability to make their products overseas without worrying about costly tariffs when they bring them into the U.S.A. The cumulative effect of this was to wreck America's manufacturing infrastructure. It's also worth noting that Reagan's people deregulated the FCC, eliminating the Fairness Doctrine, among other things, putting us a step closer to the political distortion machine that today's mainstream media has become.
The George H. W. Bush Presidency was essentially an extension of the Reagan Presidency and for the purpose of this article could be considered a continuation of that regime. One notable thing to keep in mind is that negotiations for NAFTA started during the Bush administration. The effect of the Bush/Reagan years was to push the American agenda sharply to the right and severely weaken the quality, quantity and stability of jobs available to America's working people.
When Bill Clinton became President, one would have expected him as a Democrat to push the political pendulum to the left to correct the sharp swing to the right that America took under Reagan and his Republican successor, no such luck! Much to the dismay of the AFL-CIO, “free” trader Bill Clinton championed job killing NAFTA and signed the U.S. China Relations Act. Of 2000, giving China permanent normal trade relations status with the U.S.A. He claimed that “free” trade will bring democratic reform to China. Obviously, it didn't do that, but it sure accelerated the offshoring of OUR jobs! The Telecommunications Act of 1996 that passed under Clinton just about guaranteed that media mega conglomerates would gobble up local stations in most markets and concentrate media ownership in the hands of a few corporations, severely restricting the diverse flow of information. Here's the kicker, the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, signed into law by Clinton, partially repealed the Glass Steagal Act of 1933 that was put into place to prevent the Depression from reoccurring. Can you say, “too big to fail?" I'll be charitable and say that Bill Clinton didn't swing the pendulum back from the right and kept the Oval Office chair warm for George Bush, so he can move our country further to the right.
Now on to George W. Bush! I'm not going to insult your intelligence by enumerating the many things that he did to hurt the bottom 99%. Here is where you get to fill in the blanks. Keep everything that you know about George Bush in mind when you read the next part of this article.
When our votes put President Obama in the White House in 2008, we were ecstatic. It felt as if we won a hard-fought war. The Bush nightmare was over! Surprisingly, he squandered the opening months of his presidency, a time when he actually had a clear legislative majority and the momentum of a new Presidency on his side with conciliatory calls for “bipartisanship.” He was fond of saying that he was “everybody's” president. Everybody didn't put him in office, we did! I started to get the feeling that something strange was going on.
At this point, I'm going to hit you with a couple of Obama's most significant broken campaign promises. We have bigger fish to fry, so let's just get them out of the way. Obama made healthcare a major campaign issue. After hearing some of his fiery campaign rhetoric, many of us were looking forward to a healthcare system that covers everyone and doesn't put a price on life. As the months of his Presidency rolled by, he ratcheted things down to the point where his health care plan was a shadow of itself.
In its present state, there are still many people who cannot see a doctor and have NO medical care! Many of his supporters were upset and said so on the social media, but were shouted down by his apologists. One O-pologist couldn't come up with a better justification for Obama's compromise of the health care issue than “Think about all the people in the insurance industry that would lose their jobs if we have European style national health care.” My reply was, that a person's life trumps another person's lively-hood any day! The second broken promise was his dwindling support of the Employee Free Choice Act. That law would have helped unions bring decent working conditions and salaries to more working people. The President quietly put it on the back burner then turned the flame off.
I have a saying that I like to use to describe today's “two” party system. These days, you can't expect the guy you voted for to do anything for you, the best you can hope for is that he doesn't do anything to you! When President Obama seemingly offered up Social; Security and Medicare as a bargaining chip, he crossed that line. He walked that back, but we now have a “Democratic" component of the Super Committee that has it very much on the table! Speaking of doing things to us and by us, I mean the bottom 99%. Thank you , Mr. President for supporting the three recently passed NAFTA like “free” trade agreements! That's in keeping with the Democratic tradition of praising unions in words and damning unions with action. The circle is indeed unbroken!
Ever since the Reagan regime, every succeeding Republican administration pushes the American pendulum further and further to the right. We needed Democratic Presidents that would bring the American agenda back to normal by giving that pendulum a sharp corrective shove to the left. Thus far, NEITHER Democratic President was or is up to the job. BOTH presidents served their place it the corporatocracy by being place holder Presidents. The American pendulum sits undisturbed in its rightmost position waiting for the next shove to the right that could just make it snap.
The sad thing is that during his 2008 campaign, President Obama pointed out almost ALL of the injustices that the previous administrations heaped on the bottom 99%. By pointing them out, he created a thirst for change that swept him into office. Sadly, he couldn't or wouldn't quench that thirst. Many of the same people who hit the streets to get Obama elected are now part of the occupy movement, hitting the streets for fairness and economic justice for the bottom 99%. As the song says, “We Won't Get Fooled Again!"
Remember NO party or person owns our votes! If we truly are in a free society, our destiny doesn't depend on the empty promises of a column A or Column B politician. WE can select our own electeds from our own ranks because WE are our own destiny!