I was listening to the radio today and I heard how bad the health care bill is for America and how government intervention in our lives needs to be stopped. Let me say that if we are getting our news and opinions from talk show hosts we are in trouble. People, we cannot possibly be properly informed without doing a little research. Read a book and take the time to go beyond the 10 minute force-fed information of these radio entertainers. Many of us are being brainwashed by these so called political experts instead of forming our own opinions based on a variety of different sources.
Let’s get into the government intervention issue. Conservatives hear this, America is becoming more liberal. We have the greatest military and we can’t win a war. Our wars are political wars based on special interests. We get into these situations and we don’t seem to have a plan or exit strategy, so many Americans see this and decide most of our wars aren’t worth the human costs. America becomes a little more liberal.
The last four or five decades have seen corporate America become more and more powerful. They acquired and merged with smaller companies turning their corporations into megacompanies. These companies have gotten bigger and with that weild more political power. The economic crunch of the last couple of years has turned much of the population against corporate America blaming them for much of this economic calamity. Many folks are desparate and feel they are being squeezed between a rock and a hard place. In my opinion, people are ready to take a chance on government vs. corporations. Let me tell you why I don’t believe this will work. To put it simply, our government is constantly being fed and manipulated by big business and to expect government to bite the hand that feeds it is doubtful.
Unions have become villians eventhough in my opinion it is middle America’s best chance to fight this situation. Unions have made mistakes and many have not done the best job trying sell their message to the masses, but we have to fight big organizations with a big organization. I don’t see it happening any other way. Why do you think corporations are fighting the card check thing so hard. They don’t want any more competition to take away from what many of them are trying to do, which is make more money without giving more to their employees. In the fifties slaughterhouse workers unionized and turned a very dangerous and low paying job into a well-paid and respected job. They made a good wage with benefits, pension, and changes to working conditions which made it much safer. Unfortunately, many of these gains have been turned back. Ccompanies have used their governmental influence to weaken these unions and turn back the hands of time to the preunion days. Now slaughterhouses not only abuse their product (animals), they also abuse their employees with the help of governmental policies.
So if we want better wages, safer working conditions, better benefits not paid by the government, and a bigger voice in what happens in our government we need to get organized, and involved in our unions. Don’t blame unions like we do the government because as a population many of us have given up our voices by not voting or getting involved in the organizations that have the best chance to help us. Are unions perfect no, but they are only as good as the people involved in them.
