Revolution and Polarity

So it's all fine and good to bitch about this stuff but the real question is what to do about it? It's time to stage a bloodless coup. I thought about revolutions and what's required to make that happen. It's basically people getting so fed up that they have to change it. The will of the people en masse is what's lacking. Right now we have a lot of the middle class wanting to hang on to status quo as their benefits are slashed and their wages stagnate. How much longer will we buy the argument that worker exploitation is good for the economy? The middle class has to decide it's worth the gamble to shoot for a better deal. The wealthy like things the way they are because impingements on their profits are lessening all the time. Fortunately there is still a way built into the system that revolution can happen without any bloodshed. The good thing about the Bush administration is that it's driving us to that point much faster. As for those who pine for the Clinton years may I suggest that less broken does not mean fine. Free trade agreements, deregulation of media ownership and the rise of "news" designed to forward an agenda. And I know some of it had to do with the Republican Congress, such as shooting down universal healthcare and not signing Kyoto. It was a step in the right direction maybe but there can be no great change by degrees.

The whole thing needs a kick in the ass. We need to vote new people into every office. No incumbents, no career politicians. They're all tainted by the "system." The system has become an entity in and of itself, rather than functioning to serve the people. We are being exploited by our own creation. Most people think that Congress is corrupt but their particular representative is fine. Odds are you're wrong, whether your representative is Republican or Democrat. Check out Congress.org and see for yourself. This idea of paying Congress to represent us while they use their office to increase their personal fortunes in absurd. And they have the ability to vote themselves raises! They should make what we make. It should be tied to minimum wage. I'm not cruel enough to suggest that they actually make minimum wage because hey, NOBODY can live on that! It should be a percentage, like 500% or something.

If a small group has a lot of money and can use it to influence policy, that short circuits the idea of democracy because it's money and not majority that rules. When in history has anything good come of just having a wealthy ruling class and serfs? I totally agree with publicly funded elections. No more buying a representative. We are losing ground. Organized labor is being snuffed out by intimidation and legal tactics. Everyone says the free market, the free market. Guess what? Even Adam Smith said that there needs to be some morals imposed on the business owners or else it would lead to exploitation of the workforce. Oversight and regulation are not bad or anti- free market, they're essential. Benefits used to be standard but are now hard to come by. Corporations find all sorts of ways around that, such as hiring temps or moving factories overseas. International lack of basic worker rights is the problem, for us and for them. Any American company that operates overseas should have to comply with American worker protections. Knowingly employing immigrants with the intention of paying them crap and working them to death should be cracked down upon. Trade practices should reflect our values. It should be harder for sweatshop owners to sell their wares here. But all this will increase prices, you say. If we all have healthcare coverage and a decent wage, this is not a problem. That's pre-organized labor thinking. Don't you think all these arguments were made back then? That prices would increase? But it worked for a long time. Then you got some republican administrations in that started dismantling all we had worked for. Workers actually make the product. Why do they only get a pittance of a wage as compensation?

We are the only first world country that doesn't have universal healthcare. There are ways to fund it, and it would actually be good for big business because healthcare is becoming a major expense for them. Instituting a flat tax is one way. Why should the wealthy have all these loopholes and offshore banks so they pay no taxes? If everyone was assessed taxes at the same percentage with a higher poverty exemption, it would be fairer and there would be increased revenue and a decreased burden on the poor and middle class. Universal healthcare will also increase the availability of healthcare-related jobs. Slimming down the bureaucracy and eliminating pork barrel spending, and no need for such a bloated IRS system will save money. Committing to changing our energy infrastructure to greener processes such as building more CHP (combined heat and power) plants would create jobs and decrease the vulnerability of the power grid.

Decreasing military spending is another. We need to stop pissing people off so they stop targeting us. Do terrorists hit Switzerland? We should put efforts into a UN system that works, which means us playing by the same rules as everyone else. We all agree to a certain set of rules, such as no nukes and no acts of aggression against other people. We make the Holy Land no one's property so all can come. It will be managed by the UN. Right now agreements and sanctions are powerless because nothing happens if they are broken. And the biggest power (the U.S.) doesn't abide by it. But if a set of agreements could be hammered out think of how powerful that would be. If a country went against it, they would be going against a truly global force. It would be a more effective deterrent.

The universal message should be that no one will be exploited. What this brings me to is the only true polarity in politics. Do you stand together with everyone so we can all be raised up, or do you want to keep everything you can grab for yourself regardless of who you hurt? This is how we should line up. The former have numbers and the latter have money. Forget about the Republicans hijacking the moral values stance. I think it's becoming clear that apart from the "wedge" issues the Republicans are out to help themselves only. Democrats stand for the poor and middle class. The same goes for home and abroad because there should be no "us" and "them" for foreigners either. Workers being exploited in China cause you to lose your job, so you have no money and have to buy things as cheap as possible at Wal Mart (which is a larger trading partner with China than many countries). When people feel slighted or oppressed it's easier to blame a group that has no power. Usually one that looks different from you. The immigration issue is a prime example. Immigrants are being scapegoated instead of addressing the larger problem of global human rights. Immigrants have always been disparaged, and it was once said that the influx of Germans and Italians would cause wage decreases and job loss.

This is not socialism. This is a reversal to the way things were when the middle class came about. In the heyday of unions. It worked. Case in point: Exxon should not be making billions in profits while gouging us at the pump and not making good on what they owe from the Exxon-Valdez oil spill. (Do you know they have not paid a DIME fifteen years later? They're still fighting the settlement in court.) Who's going to stop them? The free market?

When I say there's only one true polarity in politics you will say to me, "What about abortion?" I hope that in addressing that question I will piss off both sides equally. You can not look at such an issue such as unwanted pregnancy and dilute it down to "pro-choice" or "pro-life." Abortion is a symptom of a problem, not the cause or the solution. Unwanted pregnancy is the core issue here. You can't change it by standing in the streets. There are a lot of social ills feeding into the problem. For pro-lifers: you're concerned about the children. What will happen if we one day outlaw abortion? You're proposing an easy fix to a hard problem. Where are all these unwanted children going to go? Will there be enough Child Protective Services workers to handle the increase in abuse cases? Basically, we will first need to dump a whole ton of money into child welfare organizations, foster care and orphanages. These are things that should be done regardless.

For pro-choicers- you're concerned about the moms. Given the circumstances that many underprivileged girls live in, do you think they truly have a free choice about anything? Poverty, lack of education, broken families. Girls seeing no other way for love and acceptance than to have sex. A culture that drills this into our heads. You're proposing an easy fix to a hard problem. Katha Politt once wrote that pro-choicers should not act to reduce unwanted pregnancy because it is de facto admission that abortion is wrong. As someone involved in healthcare I can tell you that attitude could not be more misguided. Needing to have a surgical procedure with all its attendant risks is not preferable to not needing it in the first place.

This kind of polarization causes a lot of people committed to what they see as a worthy cause to waste their energy. It's the Crossfire syndrome. Conflict gets ratings but it isn't productive. Find the common ground and work to change poverty, access to healthcare and the grossly inequitable education system. And I know many people passionate about these issues do just that. It's the extremists I'm talking to.

So I have a lot of opinions. What am I doing to fix it all? I have a lot more time to think than I have to do. I had to pick one thing. Everyone does because otherwise you spread yourself too thin. What I do is work to reduce pollution and global warming with the Sierra Club. It is an issue that disproportionately affects the poor and third world countries. It causes untold adverse health effects. And we're dealing with this because corporations make money polluting and don't care who it hurts. But I have to get the thoughts out of my head, so I put them down here. That's why I called it "Exorcism."