It looks like the American public, or some significant portion of it, is waking up. There is now a new populist uprising in the making. Long beaten into submission, the cowering lumps of disengaged despairing doormats have finally seen the writing on the wall, are breathing a new life, and getting ready to strike back at their oppressors — the 1% and the .1% and the .01% — who just about have it all, but want even the few remaining scraps.
The statistics have been clear for some time. Everyday Americans — the 99% — have been getting royally screwed. Government of the people, by the people, for the people has been turned into a hollow slogan, a fading recollection of a noble, now irrelevant, improbable, and ostensibly inoperable idea.
In spite of the best efforts by the media — always in service of the rich elite — to hide the rotten news mounting during this democratic devolution, people have grown increasingly aware of the problems and outcomes. They didn’t need to look at charts and statistics. They felt the pain personally. Individual wealth for everyday Americans is shrinking. Wages and purchasing power are in decline. People are in debt up to their eyebrows. Schools, roads, whole communities are falling apart. The water isn’t even fit to drink.
The Sanders/Trump populist uprising is the inevitable result. Eventually, the pain becomes unbearable and people understandably look for some way or some one to fix things. Sanders has some great ideas, Trump has a big mouth. They each in their own unique and characteristic ways represent a “savior” to the masses.
But neither of these men, or any presidential candidate for that matter, can get the job done. That is written in stone. Read the Constitution.
How does it get done?
We get it done. Sure, you can follow the campaign, go to your favorite candidate’s rallies, watch the battle for the presidency unfold on the boob tube. After all, it’s the best reality show in town. Better than Mud Wrestling With The Stars!
Then, when you want to actually do something for yourself, your family and friends, your community, your country, please tear yourself away from this insulting media circus and begin to actually change the world for the better.
Forget about the labels. Forget Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative, right wing, left wing, socialist, Green Party, Tea Party.
Americans actually agree on a lot of important things. Arguably most!
With all of the shouting, the cage fighting of the Republican debates, the far more civil and intelligent but still largely irrelevant Democratic debates, muddled by the sports-team-like coverage of all matters political by our entertainment-oriented media, you wouldn’t know this. But most Americans actually share a host of values and priorities, and even more surprisingly, specifically agree on much of what needs to be done and not done.
Here is a short list of things U.S. citizens by sizable majorities agree on:
75% of Americans want a federal minimum wage of $12.50 per hour.
63% of Americans want a federal minimum wage of $15.00 per hour.
75% of voters want fair trade agreements protecting jobs, workers, the environment.
76% of voters want a cut back on military spending.
76% of voters want the U.S. completely out of Afghanistan.
79% of voters want no reductions in Social Security, 70% support expanding it.
79% of voters want no reductions in Medicare.
80% of voters oppose the “Citizens United” U.S. Supreme Court decision.
68% of voters think taxes on the wealthy should be increased.
71% of voters support massive infrastructure renewal.
74% of American voters are for ending oil industry subsidies.
93% of voters want GMO labeling on their food.
These are huge majorities!
These astonishing and powerful consensuses get lost in the trivialization, marginalization, and other weapons of mass distraction and sheer propaganda we all endure just trying to find out and understand what’s going on. We are teased, taunted, cajoled, manipulated, titillated, dazzled, disturbed, and generally overwhelmed by the main stream media.
But we are not informed.
If anything we are confused, sometimes outright misinformed.
Thus we lose focus. We can’t keep our eye on the prize, because from watching television we have no idea what the prize even is.
Worst of all — and it almost appears to be intentional — we are divided.
We are set against one another, encouraged to vilify and blame others, the very people we actually agree with on a lot of things, the very people who are our natural allies as we fight for our survival in the class warfare the rich and powerful wage on us.
Turn off your TVs. Hide your smart phones under the mattress. Let the screensaver on your computer do whatever it does — swimming fish, go-go dancers, shooting stars — and don’t disturb it to watch the latest Trump riots or primary predictions. It’s mood lighting. Recycle your USA Today, your daily newspaper, your weekly and monthly magazines.
Then . . .
Go talk to someone. Anyone!
Your neighbor, your cousin, your kid’s teacher, that lady down the street who is always working in her garden, the guy who polishes his car three times a week, your ex-spouse, anyone in your community who you can approach without getting shot.
Maybe you could bake some cupcakes or buy some wonderful muffins from the bakery in town. Or make a trip to Costco, if all the bakeries in your area are now out of business.
Start out with something like this:
“Would you like a cupcake?”
In Part III of this series, I’ll suggest where you go from there, while you’re munching away on whatever treat you brought along with you.
