As happens every few decades, the empire is shaking at its foundations, the rot of popular will spreading from Egypt to other corners of America’s realm. In fact, nowhere does the grip of tyranny seem firmer than right here at home, where low-income people in the colder latitudes may soon be denied home heating assistance to preserve privileges for the very well-off. (My, what a good idea! ) This offered up by a Democratic president, the ink barely dry on his deal for the extension of Bush’s budget busting tax cuts, themselves passed in the same breath as Bush’s declaration of the criminally fraudulent Iraq War. Now everyone…. and I mean everyone … is all about the deficit and how we can compel poor, working class, and retired people to fill the gap left by war and the ravages of wealth.
Fundamental economic disenfranchisement is a large part of what lit a fire under the people of Tunisia and Egypt. Remember that Egypt has, in the past few years, undergone a neoliberal economic restructuring that has exacerbated inequality beyond the miserable point at which it was before. I am not suggesting that Americans are facing this level of privation or repression. But the same process that concentrates wealth at the top in places like Egypt is at work right here at home. It’s not hard to see. Each recession takes a larger bite out of the working class and poor. This most recent one has been the worst in that respect, putting people out of work for months, years, and in some cases the rest of their lives, at least in terms of a solid, remunerative job that can support a family. Meanwhile, the wealthiest are top of the mast, as always, their income swelling to obscene levels, and the very investment bankers that crashed our economy two years ago are raking in the bonuses like never before.
Part of this process is the assault on organized labor, most particularly public sector unions, which are under sustained attack across the nation. This goes far beyond wringing concessions on contracts. This is about the vilification of government workers and, in the most extreme cases, attempts to curtail hard-won collective bargaining rights. That’s what’s happening in Wisconsin right now. That’s why all those folks are walking like Egyptians up the steps of the state capitol. That fight has nothing to do with budget deficits – it’s a precalculated political attack on public sector unions, which is the nation’s last labor stronghold. Wisconsin’s governor is driving a truck through the hole opened by the likes of New Jersey’s execrable governor Christie and others.
We need to stand with these people. Like those folks in Cairo and Alexandria, their fight is very much ours as well.
luv u,
jp
