Alms for the rich, Alms for the rich—that's money talking

I wrote this article last Thursday after reading the morning paper. It seems that there were several articles and columns that, although not intentionally, appeared to be related. I tied them all together and sent it off to the paper. Then I checked my email and learned they wished to publish “Here comes the sun, let’s use it,” which I had sent in several weeks earlier

Now I can understand why everyone likes a good dinosaur story. They're so cuddly as little plastic play toys. And if you can tie dinosaurs into global warming, they are almost irresistible.  

The problem is that this piece, because it refers to specific articles in the paper, has a shelf life of about three days. I'm posting the story on the blog because I firmly believe this story has to go somewhere, and there just aren't that many options for this one. The links should take the reader to the original articles.

 

The American Revolution is what you get when intelligent men and women are willing to risk everything they have to be free.

The French Revolution is what you get when the rich and powerful become so arrogant that the poor and weak are willing to risk everything just to get even.

There was no middle road in the days leading up to the French Revolution because there was no middle class. Too bad because a middle road, a road of compromise, could have prevented the revolution from happening and maybe saved some heads in the long run. But you need a middle class to have a middle road.

Middle class gives revolution a bad name. Its people are comfortable, have enough money to eat, dress and live well, and enough education to recognize how well off they are. They have enough morals to treat one another fairly and enough drive to try and get the better of one another. The last thing they want is a revolution. A long, hard fought revolution can knock someone right out of the middle class and into the bread lines.

While it’s hard to have a revolution with a strong middle class it’s pretty easy to have one without a middle class. In fact, the absence of a middle class is what usually causes a revolution, although no one wants to look too deeply into this fact.

Thursday Pilot contained a wealth of information about what’s going wrong in our country. Americans don’t like to hear about class warfare because it sounds so un-American, as well as something only the poor would promote. But class warfare is universal and as old as the Appalachians. Americans would do well to understand this. The same people who don't want to hear about class warfare probably don't want to hear about the French Revolution.

Kathleen Parker wrote in, “Signs of desperation among Democrats” that minimum wage is being promoted by Democrats only to embarrass Republicans—as if income is a political issue, not an economic issue. Republicans will and should be embarrassed by their stand on minimum wage but it’s not the Democrats fault.

Leonard Pitt’s column quotes Representative Paul Ryan, South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, and wealthy citizen Mitt Romney as suggesting that food stamps encourage laziness and dependency on government. Republicans say the same thing about unemployment insurance—as if eating and keeping your home is also a political issue and not a survival issue.

On page 3, we read that the middle class is vanishing. It’s safe to say it is not moving up. More and more middle class families are carrying tens of thousands of dollars of student loans. This includes doctors, lawyers, and teachers—in short the middle class. They carry high mortgages and face the same health risks we all do. A pink slip or major illness can knock anyone right out of the middle class. It would take a lottery win to put them among the wealthy.

The article about the Supreme Court on the front page tells us one way this is happening. As a result of its continuing fascination with money and speech, they have removed another roadblock that kept the wealthy from gaming elections. Here is what they don’t understand about money and free speech.

Speech is talking.

Money is a measure of wealth.

With free speech, power goes to the person with great ideas and anyone can come up with a great idea.

With money, power goes to the person with the most and while everyone can grow up to be a billionaire—just as everyone can grow up to be president—the truth is most don’t.

The wealthy minority get favorable laws passed by using their money to pit the middle class and poorer class against each other. With the Supreme Court’s help, they use their money to put politicians in office by turning social and religious issues into political issues. But social and religious issues can’t be solved through politics. They can only be kept alive—for the next election.

These politicians win election by pitting one social or economic group against another over social and religious issues that never go away, even as the middle class vanishes into the ever-growing poorer class. Their most significant legislation are tax laws and money policies that help the wealthy minority. 

But the middle class holds the trump card if they can start looking long term instead of short term. They have to be concerned about what really matters as well as caring for the poor, whose ranks they are filling each day. The rich can take care of themselves. They’re rich.

Last word on the French Revolution. Before it could begin, they had to storm the Bastille to get guns. We already have a few hundred millions guns floating around in the hands of angry people. That was another story in Thursday’s paper.