On The Eve of Super Tuesday. What Will You Do?

On The Eve of Super Tuesday. What Will You Do? 

By  Jennifer Shafer Wood

As we approach Super Tuesday, I hope to see a major change sweep this country. We are at a point in history where we stand upon a cliff... Will our democracy fall over the edge, to be ruled by an oligarchy in a ever growing plutocracy? An oligarchy is a small group of elite people controlling the masses, and a plutocracy is the country or territory that is ruled by a small elite group, an oligarchy. Do you understand. Do you see how the oligarch works to build a plutocracy in the United States? 

Let me explain, there is a small, yet very powerful group who controls our country today. I know, I sound like a bad SciFi conspiracy theorists. I wish I were! Money has more power in the United States than the voice of the people. Citizens United, for example, basically gave money the right of free speech. If you don't have money, no free speech for you! What happened to We The People? Two words, Big Business. Here is a prime example of this elite force, the Koch Brothers, but don't be fooled, it's not just them, there are a few others, but the Koch Brothers are the most outlandish, and are a perfect example of an oligarchy. Do some research and see for yourself. There's no excuse, you have the resources at you fingertips. This new American Dream, for the wealthy by the wealthy, will bankrupt us all. There will be the super rich, the poor, with the indebted middle class, one pay check from poverty.  

This is a fundamental problem, and we as citizens of this country need to get up and fight for our republic!  

This country was founded on the premiss of freedom and equality. We do not have equality in the United States today, far from it. The American Dream is dead for the vast majority of Americans. For the naysayer that will scream communist! because of the word equality, you are woefully miss informed. Equality, doesn't mean everyone is the same, it means every person in this country who works full time should be able to live outside of poverty and support their family. It means that healthcare is a right for all human beings. It means that Carried Interest, a tax loophole used by CEOs, and billionaires, which allows them to pay less in taxes than a teacher, a policeman, a janitor, or any wage earner in the United States, must be eliminated. Go ahead, don't believe me, look it up, Carried Interest, and see for yourself. 

Over the last 30 years, a huge transference of wealth happened in the United States. Trickle Down Economics, the baby of Milton Friedman, and the battle cry of the Reagan Administration. It wasn't just Reagan, since him, Bush, Clinton, and Obama, have helped to solidify this growing economic divide, money is bipartisan. Here's what Trickle Down Economics gave to the average American. It's  like going to get a drink of water, but the spigot only drips. It will take a long time for you to ever satisfy your thirst. But the boss has more water than he can drink! 

It used to be that CEOs made 20 or 30 times more than their employees, today conservative estimates puts that at roughly 250 to 350 times more than their employees. It's cheaper to be rich. You pay less in taxes, because you can manipulate the tax code. Heck, if you have enough money you can manipulate the tax law. Take for example George Bush's tax break for Capitol Gains, you know those millions and billions generated from being the boss. Sometimes those gains come from dubious practices like laying thousands of people off, or shipping jobs overseas where labor is cheap. It comes with environmental costs too. When Koch Industries pollutes the community where its factories are and fill the waterways with toxic waste, it causes high rates of cancer for the residents. Yes, they make money on that too! During the Reagan years, Capitol Gains tax was at 30%, after George Bush it is at 15%, and with it came $2.9 trillion dollars in deficits, and untold amounts of suffering and growing poverty.  

We are not meant to be ruled by an aristocracy like an oligarchy. This is not fair, when you earn wealth in a free and democratic society, you have to pay the people that helped you earn that wealth, because you didn't do it all by yourself, that is the American way! You also have to pay your fair share of taxes, and stop using loopholes, like Carried Interests, to skirt your tax responsibility, that is the American way! Big Business also needs to be responsible for the environment, that is the American way! 

But the system is rigged. The stacks are against the average American, and Big Business rules the land, oblivious to the pain and the hardship their unbridled greed has caused this country. With money comes power, and power over the broadcast airways is the most pervasive and insidious power that any entity can have. Thanks to deregulation, the media which was once fair and balanced, is no more. It has become a propaganda machine for the wealthy elites to promote their message and convince the masses of people that their best interest is financial servitude. Political pundits used to be neutral, however if you peel way the layers, you see the pundits are on the pay rolls of the candidates they endorse with their rhetoric. Talking media heads convince average Americans that tax cuts for the super rich are good for them too, when they are in fact against their better interest. Talking media heads balk at climate change, when climate change is very real, and that poverty is a choice, when it's not. That a welfare queen and an immigrant live high on tax dollars when they don't. There is no welfare queen, and immigrants are not stealing your jobs, or getting free healthcare. As a matter fact, immigrants face the threat of deportation, or incarceration( that's a whole other story. Go ahead, look up immigrant prisons for profit) The talking media heads say that free speech is money,when it's not. That the war on drugs is good, when we have the largest prison population in the world. That Republicans and Democrats are different, when they are the same. 

It is time for a political revolution. It is time for all of us to join together and reclaim our democratic republic. A lone voice has risen above the shadows that the corporate media casts, his message penetrates in flickers across the corporate media spectrum, while the message roars across social media platforms. His name is Bernie Sanders, a self proclaimed Democratic Socialist aka A New Deal kind of leader. The longest serving Independent congressional leader in history. He changed his party affiliation to run as the Democratic Presidential nominee. Let's face it, we still have a way to go before we get an Independent in The Oval Office, so Bernie chose to go with the Democrats. His campaign is solely financed with small donation from average Americans. He raised $94.8 million in small campaign contributions since he announced his candidacy 9 month ago. His record is an incredible testament as pioneer of social justice all his life. A civil rights activist since he was a young adult. A champion of healthcare for all, free education, a living wage, investing in our infrastructure, protecting our environment. Most importantly, he has ignited a massive movement of people to unite and reclaim this land. Like Bernie says, this presidential campaign is about all of us! We have to stay in the fight. The powers that be do not want to give up their dominance. Are you going to live via the rule of the oligarchy in a plutocracy, or are you going to live in a Democratic Republic and become an active and informed citizen? 

The time is now. What will you do? 

"Brothers and sisters: Now is not the time for thinking small. Now is not the time for the same old – same old establishment politics and stale inside-the-beltway ideas.

Now is the time for millions of working families to come together, to revitalize American democracy, to end the collapse of the American middle class and to make certain that our children and grandchildren are able to enjoy a quality of life that brings them health, prosperity, security and joy – and that once again makes the United States the leader in the world in the fight for economic and social justice, for environmental sanity and for a world of peace.

My fellow Americans: This country faces more serious problems today than at any time since the Great Depression and, if you include the planetary crisis of climate change, it may well be that the challenges we face now are direr than any time in our modern history." Bernie Sanders