Long Term Unemployment Has Become a Civil Rights Issue

[paulbern77]

The Plight of American Workers

The circumstances and situations that the middle and working classes in the US find themselves in today are a series of gross social injustices that demands a sharply focused and well-coordinated response from the entire populace, a rebuttal and decisive counterattack designed and intended to right, correct and re-balance US political and economic power back into the hands of the overwhelming majority of American citizens to whom it rightfully belongs. There can be no doubt that class warfare has been declared in the US, perpetrated by the wealthy against the middle and working classes while simultaneously crushing the poor, minorities, the marginalized, the elderly and the disabled – for the sole express purpose of eliminating from society the constitutional majority of working Americans, with the end result being the complete and merciless liquidation of middle and working class wealth, general prosperity, and even our health and our access to education. This has been accomplished by the largest transfer of wealth in all of human history, and it has been manifested in four different ways. Today I will write about the first phase of the illegal confiscation of US wealth, that of unemployment. The employment of working Americans, particularly of the US working class, has been decimated by closing down manufacturing facilities and shipping jobs overseas to the third world for pennies on the dollar. The result of this has been mass unemployment of many millions of better qualified American workers.


I am an IT professional by trade with nearly a quarter century of experience dating back to the 1980's. Due to a stroke followed by a series of other illnesses, combined with the absolutely pathetic state of the US job market, I found myself forced into early retirement even though I wanted to return to work and be productive again. There are tens of millions of formerly middle class people just like me all across the country who find themselves in similar circumstances to mine to varying degrees of severity. Many have not been as fortunate as me. They have lost jobs like I have, been forced out into the street due to the epidemic of foreclosures throughout the land and become homeless like I once was after becoming too sick to work, had their cars repossessed leaving them with no way to get to work assuming that they are lucky enough to still have jobs, and are hounded by collection agencies for debts great and small. They have no access to health care except to show up an the local emergency room with no way to pay the bill, putting them even deeper into debt than they already are. They have watched their pensions and their retirement savings evaporate due to market manipulations by unscrupulous “financial managers” who earn obscene bonuses whether they succeed or fail, and all at the expense of their clients. Either that or they have spent their savings during interminably lengthy periods of unemployment after their jobs were downsized or out-sourced overseas to the third world, never to return again. I have first-hand experience with all of the above, which inspired me to write this book.

Today the USA finds itself in the midst of an economic crisis that is divided up into three parts of equal importance. The first is rampant unemployment, the second is the housing crisis, and the third is the crisis in inequality. Conditions in the U.S. labor markets are awful and worsening. While the official unemployment rate is already 9 percent, when you include discouraged workers and partially employed workers the figure is a whopping 18.5 percent. This is what a broken economic model looks like: record profits for corporate America, Wall Street paying out fat bonuses to its execs and the wealthy doing well enough to create a surge in demand for luxury items, while most of the rest of us struggle just to make ends meet in a devastated economic landscape. The problem of rampant unemployment in America is far more than just an economic issue or a social issue. It is rapidly becoming a civil rights issue. As many people as there are hurting across middle America, including those who are having difficulty feeding themselves and their families as well as those who have lost homes and vehicles because their source of income has been cut off, I would not be surprised to see social unrest and civil disobedience across the American social and political landscape, beginning in the spring of 2012.

People everywhere are angry, and rightfully so, and yet there doesn't seem to be much protesting in the streets, or at least not yet. The Occupy Movement is one big step in the right direction, but much more is needed. Since the government is unwilling or unable to solve the economic problems of middle America, we are going to have to take the initiative and do it ourselves. It is my sincere hope that working Americans from all professions will begin to do so exactly that after reading this posting. My primary argument is that everyone has the right to a livelihood, to a living wage, to the repeal of the federal income tax and to the elimination of the federal withholding tax from our paychecks so that working Americans will be able to earn enough money for the necessities of life. To deny any person such inalienable rights is a human rights violation and therefore by extension a civil rights violation because it amounts to economic discrimination. And so the first premise of my book is that unemployment as we have known it must come to an end forever, meaning that the system is broken, out of date, and needs to be replaced.

1 in 7 Americans rely on food stamps. What does it say about the richest country in the world when 1 in 7 of its citizens require government assistance so they can eat? We live in a nation that is the most prosperous of any other in human history. We have the largest per-capita income and the largest gross national product of any nation on earth. In spite of this, there are many developing countries such as Russia, China, India and South Africa, not to mention developed countries such as those in western Europe or Japan or Canada, where hunger is not as prevalent as it is in the US. This is a national disgrace and a civil rights issue, and our current government is not doing nearly enough about it. Everyone has the right to good nutrition.

The foundation of the problem with mass unemployment, then, is that it breeds inequality because it has thrown millions of working professionals into poverty, creating an ever-growing underclass of people who are comprising an ever-larger segment of society. This vicious circle of growing despair will become a festering and malignant political and economic problem as time goes on, and it threatens to destroy the US economy if something isn't done.


This is only the first example of class warfare in the form of confiscation of jobs. All of this activity by the governmental and financial sectors amounts to an illegal declaration of civil war, or more accurately class war. This new civil war (or class war, take your pick) has been declared by the rich, powerful and politically well connected, and it is being waged against the rest of middle America. This has resulted in a systemic liquidation of the middle class while crushing the poor, minorities, the disabled and other vulnerable individuals. There can be no doubt that this ongoing crisis threatens to turn into a storm of protest, public demonstrations and civil disobedience on a level not seen since the 1960's.

I think it is high time for these protests, demonstrations, strikes, boycotts and civil uprisings to commence, because the fact of the matter is that if we working Americans don't start fighting back, we will wind up being financially and politically obliterated. Anyone who does not fight back against an aggressor or a bully deserves their fate. As for me, I choose to fight back, and it is my hope that as many of you as possible will join with me today.


The fundamental change that is coming must have its beginnings with the hearts and minds of the American people. The level of anger and mistrust directed against the federal government by the US working and middle classes – and particularly by the poor and vulnerable – is at a level not seen in this country since the civil rights marches and anti-war protests of the 1960's, which I still remember quite clearly. With stubbornly high unemployment, record numbers of foreclosures and newly homeless people, governmental mass intrusion into our private lives including the violation of certain freedoms guaranteed by the US Constitution, endless wars overseas while America is crumbling, and exorbitant costs for higher education and medical care that are so outrageous they would be considered a human rights violation – even a criminal act – in other developed countries, Americans of all backgrounds and colors regardless of social, religious, marital or economic status have a right to be angry and dissatisfied about the current sorry state of US affairs both domestically and abroad. Therefore, it is our patriotic responsibility to do something about it, to force the system to change. The top 1% will not surrender their power, so it will have to be taken away.

Economic or social problems, in turn, are caused by economic barriers erected by the same criminal minority that have hijacked America and its economy to the detriment of all but the top 1% income bracket. So we can conclude from this data that America's current crop of pressing economic issues such as stubbornly high unemployment can be solved by bringing back the civil rights movement of the 1960's. Instead of racial oppression as was the case a generation or more ago, the civil rights issues of today have to do with economic oppression that knows no racial boundaries. But because this is the case, untold multitudes of oppressed, besieged, disenfranchised, disillusioned and exasperated Americans will rise up together as if on cue against the incurably corrupt, basically unfair and irreparably polluted US government.

The right to earn a living wage, to better economic opportunities through free higher education, to low-cost universal health insurance and to home ownership, and to have a life free from hunger, homelessness, violence and crime, are no longer privileges reserved for the most affluent neighborhoods and families, they are basic human rights that can be denied to no one. In fact the entire governmental system, especially at the federal level, has become so decrepit due to crushing debt from without and from deep-seated corruption from within that trying to get anything done within the existing system is a waste of the American people's time. So a little civil disobedience, organized protesting, sit-ins and demonstrating, with a tasty touch of peaceful revolution conducted primarily online and in the streets is our responsibility as patriotic Americans.

The USA isn't going away, we just need to remove the rich from the driver's seat and put the US middle class into their place. That will be easy since there are over ninety-nine of us for every one of them. Remember that the future and the financial liquidity of the US middle and working classes are at stake, so this is going to be very serious business indeed. Let's come together in unity and take back our country from those who have shamelessly stolen it.

You have just read excerpts from "The Middle and Working Class Manifesto" chapter one. To get your copy go to www.2ndar.org/book_sales_and_speeches, or get the e-book from Nook or Kindle.

[E6-B]

1. No racial boundaries?

Your going to have a hard time proving civil rights case in court.

[Jason Explains]

2. What are our unions doing? Why are they for flooding country with cheap labor?

Why are unions for open borders and amnesty? It makes no sense, we are losing all our leverage. It times they act like shills for the big corporations (the private sector unions). What gives?

[TBF]

3. Where is your cite to support that outrageous assertion and please be specific. nt

[dkar]

4. still need

i have been on food stamps for almost 11 years and i makes me mad people want to cut them. if they want no food stamps then they should create more jobs so i can get some work. and not 40 hr jobs but maybe 30 cause i am busy taking care of my kids and daughters kids and working 40 hrs is more than i can handle. i think Mr. Obama will create more jobs like i need and still get food stamps to help out my daughters kids.

[Vic Vinegar]

7. I wish you could tell that to libertarians

It is sad when charlatans like Ron Paul want to cut food stamps by 64%. That would kill millions. Good thing he is out of Congress. We can not trust solely in Obama though, he may be working hard but he is not surrounded by progressives; instead he is given financial policy from Wall Street shills like Bernanke and Lew.

If we look back Lew helped in the dismantling of Banking Regulation in the past. Clinton was pressured to abolish traditional welfare with AFDC and replace it with TANF. We have to assume that Obama is just as susceptible to these pressures.

Therefore, we have to make demands and not ones that come out of the mouths of these politicians. What we need is a less humiliating version of AFDC; a form of welfare that never runs out. We also need to stop worrying about the deficit and pay for it with a 1% Wall Street Sales tax which can produce at least ten trillion dollars a year in revenue for the Federal Government.

[dkar]

5. what does nt mean

why do people put NT when they post a reply. what does NT mean? i am thinking 'no thanks' or 'nice try' but that does not seem to make sense.

[jtuck004]

6. Typically that theres "no/text" in the box below. n/t