If you’ve been around this site much you would understand that I have a penchant for the “blue collar” Americans – the people who made this nation the greatest nation on earth during the period of the thirties through the sixties as the union movement built a MIDDLE CLASS that was the envy of the world.  By the sixties something approaching 40% of America’s workforce was unionized, American’s mostly had access to health care and other benefits which unions brought to the bargaining table, we got the 40 hour work week, overtime pay, sick leave, vacation pay, and ultimately – for women – maternity benefits – to name some of the achievements of America’s great union movement.  Somehow, the appreciation of that has been lost, and it’s like we’ve got caught up in a “race to the bottom” in regard to wages.  Labor is cheaper in other places around the world and somewhere along the line we, as a nation, allowed ourselves to buy into the idea of “free trade” thus losing most of our manufacturing base.  In fact, we still make some cars – although based on what I observed during the “TARP” bailout process – the “right wing” of America’s political system was more than willing to allow our auto industry to FAIL (probably thinking that would help make sure President Obama would fail as well)  – but, other than cars we don’t make much in America unless it’s related to WAR.

If you’re as old as me, or if you’ve read a bit about American history, you know that President Eisenhower warned us all about the danger of the “military industrial complex” getting out of control back in the 1950’s.  His words are ringing truer than ever these days as our military budget dwarfs the military budgets of every other nation – in fact, I’ve heard that it is more than the combined military budgets of all the other nations in the world put together.  Is it any wonder that people around the world are afraid of the US?  I’m presently reading a book titled “Ghost Wars” by Steve Coll (I’m not half way through with it yet, but already thinking it should be “must reading” for American voters) which is detailing the history of the CIA in Afganistan and Pakistan during the years of the Soviet invasion of Afganistan.  Another book which details activities of our CIA is called “The Shock Doctrine” which I read sometime back, but it also points out why people around the world might view our CIA in the same way they previously viewed the KGB of the Soviets – in their “heyday.”  It appears the CIA has been much more active in pushing America’s military “machine” than most of us are aware.  It appears to me that Eisenhower was “right on” and our nation is relying on our military “might” as the foundation of our economy.

Sure, America – supreficially – has evolved into a nation with a “consumer” economy – except for a few cars and the MILITARY stuff.  However, we spend something approaching 600 BILLION DOLLARS per year on the military budget – and, I don’t think that includes the occupations of Afganistan and Iraq.  Do you think one of the reasons our “leaders” keep us entrenched in those two hapless occupations is because it keeps our military contractors busy?  On top of all of that, we’ve got a bunch of “private contractors” such as “Blackwater” – now called Xe Services (by changing their name it pretty much got the horrible stuff they do out of the headlines) – Bechtel, KBR, and Haliburton (Dick Cheney’s former company which moved it’s headquarters to Dubai in order to avoid US taxes and oversight).  These companies are HUGE corporations and they’re powerful, but what do they do for the general “good” of our society?  From what I can tell, they suck money out of our economy with the intent of putting as little back in as possible.  I don’t think ANY of these WAR companies feel a real sense of patriotism to America.  They are bilking us for BILLIONS of dollars and we seem to be helpless to do anything about it – in fact, it is rare when I’m able to find information about what they’re doing – our “liberal” media seems to be “looking the other way.”  The biggest problem here is, it appears to me, that the more we spend on the military the less “safe” we are.  Ask anyone you know who travels overseas how Americans are greeted.  The people I know say they tell people they’re from Canada.

What does all this have to do with America’s workforce?  Well, I believe these WAR companies represent the accepted NORM in America these days.  Everything that represents success for them refers to their “bottom line.”  The workers are just the workers.   This is not how it was in this nation when I was young, and – in my view – it’s what is eating America alive from the inside out.  The biggest frustration for me is that there seems to be no one to carry the “torch” politically for the workers.  When I voted for President Obama I believed with all my heart that he was going to “change” the culture of Washington – or go down “fighting” to do so.  I’ve heard many people say that the president is just one man and he can only do “so much.”  Well, I can’t argue with that, to a degree – but, he can set the agenda and he can LEAD in the battle to FORCE change on Washington DC.  And, when I say FORCE change – that is exactly what I think has to happen.  Money has so corrupted our nation’s capital that it is going to take a major BATTLE to really change the “culture.”  Are we seeing less lobbying?  Are you kidding me – what kind of a message was it when A BILLION DOLLARS was spent by special interests to defeat the health care bill – and, then to have our government abandon the so-called “public option” which was supported by 3 in 4 Americans?  This lack of will on the part of democrats has been more discouraging to me than the frustration I suffered under the disastrous tenure of Bush/Cheney.

And, it’s not that President Obama’s administration isn’t doing anything – they are attempting to get things done – with some accomplishments.  But, it just doesn’t appear to me they understand the gravity of the “WAR.”  I still remember when Bill Clinton allowed the republicans to bring the government to a standstill.  He called their bluff.  Didn’t anyone learn anything from that?  The public reaction forced the republicans to back off.  President Obama had a solid majority of Americans backing him when he took office.  What did he do?  He started of with possibly one of the biggest “gaffs” in presidential history by pardoning Bush/Cheney – OK, I know he didn’t really pardon them, but that was the effect of his “looking forward instead of back” policy and that “pardon” is the only explanation why there hasn’t  been even one congressional investigation into the criminal behavior of the Bush/Cheney regime – Obama stopped them – that pardon essentially gave the discussion parameters of the political dialogue to the republicans.  It sent a message that what the republicans did was OK – just the usual disagreement over policy.  Republicans immediately “smelled blood” because it was Obama’s first sign of “weakness.”  The next sign was the stimulus bill.  That bill should have been at least half again as large (something over 1 TRILLION) without the tax cuts.  That amount of job stimulus would be well into the “kicking in” stage by now, and – again – the democrats would be able to take the debate away from the republicans.  And, by giving the republicans “room” to turn the deficit debate around and point it at Obama, there will be no further stimulus at this point.  You have to keep in mind that the republicans don’t want a lot of job creation because their interests aren’t that the country would be succeeding and the economy would be recovering – that would be BAD for them because all they care about is getting back in power so they can continue their great heist from the American taxpayers.  Heck, the democrats couldn’t even get an extention of benefits for the long term unemployed before they left for vacation – demostrating how important those people were to them.  Nothing seems to get in the way of congressional vacations.  I can tell you, had I been in Harry Reid’s shoes, there would have been no vacation without that bill being passed – PERIOD!  That was the perfect time for the CONFRONTATION!

That gets me back to my main thought for the evening.  America’s workforce.  We have allowed ourselves to accept this notion that corporate profits are to everyone’s benefit, and loyalty to workers is a thing of the past.  Unions are bad – they cost companies too much money – make them uncompetitive, or whatever.  Well, that is all BUNK!  As I noted earlier it was America’s Unions which made this the great nation that it is – and based on how we’re treating our workers these days we could be saying was to that last statement soon.  America’s strength was built from the bottom up and since the days of Ronald Reagan we’ve accepted the “top down” philosophy which simply doesn’t work – long term.  In businesses, the “top down” approach to management results in poor moral and less production.  In our country now, businesses counter that problem by creating circumstances where workers are constantly fearing for their jobs – job stability seems to be a thing of the past, plus there’s a shortage of jobs – and corporations have succeeded in reducing the union workforce in America to something less than 10% to make matters worse for working people.  Unions not only represented stability in the workplace but they fostered a sense of justice and solidarity for working people nationwide (I’m sure republicans would call “justice and solidarity” “socialism”).  Bob Herbert, the great Op Ed columinst at the New York Times put it best in a column the other day which you can read by clicking here.  He does a much better job than me of explaining the importance of America’s labor unions and America’s workers.

The major frustration for me is that it seems almost all of our politicians are “corporatists” – democrats and republicans – they are separated only by the degree in which they’ve allowed corporate interests to “buy them.”  That is why the other day when I was thinking about the people who referred to President Obama as “Bush lite,” I thought there is a ring of truth to that.  Yes, the policies are noticeably different on the surface, but the bottom line is the special interests still seem to be in charge and the chances for changing that seem almost remote to me as I’m anticipating the “outcome” of the “Citizen’s United” Supreme Court decision.  If the democrats won’t cancel a vacation to fight for the rights of our most severely unemployed workers what are they going to do when the republicans filibuster every attempt to mitigate the “Citizen’s United” problem – which I’m sure the politicians are seeing coming at them like a huge frieght train – at least if you’re someone like Dennis Kucinich, or Alan Grayson, or Barack Obama.  Unfortunately, it seems to me the jobs our congressional leaders are most concerned about are their own.  And, the way the democrats are going about their business it’s going to take a different crew of legislators to “get” the importance to ALL OF US that our middle class needs to be healthy and, until it is, we are all going to continue suffering economically.  The damage done over the past 30+ years by the Reaganites to our economy is immense, and the worse thing I can think of is putting them back in power to continue their carnage, but it appears to me that the thing that turns American voters off more than anything else is the sign of weakness.  President Obama is being termed “weak” in many circles – despite his efforts to appear strong (I believe he’s thinking his continuing of the occupations in Iraq and Afganistan make him appear to be a strong “commander in chief”).   It is my opinion that every time he tries to “reach out” to republicans it makes him look weaker – understanding that is the first step in changing that image.  Turning this “carnage” around will be a “war” and, the middle of the road, pragmatic, democrats don’t appear to be up to the challenge!