Believe In America.com

butterbean · Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 2271

A message from the middle class
Wednesday, August 2, 2006

Umm. Oh, hi. It's Middle Class America. You don't hear from us too often, because we're too preoccupied with making a living. And when we're not doing that, we usually can be found out buying stuff. Or watching TV, which is a clever invention with pretty colors and sounds that somehow persuades us to buy more stuff.
There's a commercial on right now, so we have a few minutes to talk.

Normally, we'd watch the commercial so we could be seduced into buying another product or service that we probably don't need. But the commercial on right now is in Spanish, so we can tear ourselves away for a minute. At least until "Desperate Housewives" comes back on. Gotta watch those housewives. Whoa.

But I digress ...

We are the people who keep the country running, the regular Joes and Joans who punch a clock five times or more a week. We're white, black, brown and yellow. Sometimes, our collars are white, sometimes blue.

It's by our toil and sweat that CEOs earn millions each year. It's by our tax payments that government services and entitlements continue to be doled out to those on the opposite end of the economic spectrum.

We envy the rich, for obvious reasons, and fear the poor, primarily because we know we're only a paycheck or two away from being in their shoes.

We're what keeps the country rolling and the economy working. Not Donald Trump, Lee F. Raymond or Conrad Black. And since it now has become a national issue, not illegal/undocumented immigrants either.

See, it's like this: When the undocumented workers take the day off, like a couple of months ago, things get a little dicey for some businesses, but overall, not that much changes. The power stays on, the water keeps flowing, and we all watch the demonstrations on the 6 o'clock news.

When Trump takes the day off to, say, visit a foreign country and perhaps buy it, nothing changes. Maybe it's because his apprentice fills in, but probably not. As for Raymond, former CEO of Exxon, he's already retired. Probably spending a lot of time around the house, what with gas at more than three bucks a gallon.

When there ever comes a day when the Middle Class decides not to work, well, that's the day the manure really hits the lawn mower. The country will simply shut down. And if the day after that we all decide to quit buying stuff, the world economy just might shut down, too.

Yeah, it's easy for our foreign friends to point at us Americans and joke about how fat and materialistic we are. God knows there's a lot of truth to it. At the same time, it's our insatiable consumption that keeps most of their beret-wearing-35-hour-work-week-with-six-weeks-off-every-summer-plus-holidays economies from grinding to a halt.

We live in a time of unease. Our standard of living is inexorably slipping away, like a neap tide. Pensions disappearing, Social Security going bankrupt, medical costs skyrocketing; it's no wonder we're angry, disgusted and fed up. And working second jobs.

That's one reason this illegal immigrant thing has become such a hot-button issue right now. In all honesty, we're probably not going to lose our jobs to someone who just snuck over the border. At the same, we still fear we could. We've already lost jobs by the thousands — jobs we used to do — to places such as India and China. And many of the businesses still in the U.S. are cutting back on their work forces, and outsourcing and subcontracting a lot of the work we used to do.

You see, we're getting backed into a corner. The giant global corporations don't care about us. The government doesn't help us (hell, they can't even help themselves). And the rest of the world pretty much hates us (but still wants our tourism).

Someday we'll rise up and take back this country, someday we'll force honesty and fairness back into big business, someday we'll reverse the consolidation of wealth from the hands of the few to the hands of the many.

Someday.

But not today. "Desperate Housewives" is coming back on and we've got to go!

Bill Wimbiscus is a columnist for the Herald News of Joliet.

http://www.dailysouthtown.com/southtown/dsliving/021ldco1.htm

Dream · Joined: 23 Jun 2006 Posts: 427

Good article. American apathy has become the new age killer disease.

Bootsie · Joined: 22 Jun 2006 Posts: 492

Boy--do I EVER agree! WELL SAID. We are just getting lost in the shuffle.