In the beginning our Founding Father's made it clear.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution,"
The beginning of the preamble of our constitution, where it states that the Government of the people will promote the general welfare of the people, they meant all the people. Today the Country via the government has lost its way, unless you are a wealthy Corporate Oligarch, then the government provides for your general welfare and far beyond. Unfortunately this has left the vast majority of US citizens without, many of the things that provide a meaningful life "general welfare". The current situation is permeated with corruption, couple this with an uninvolved citizenry and what you get for the the average US citizen is one of the poorest standards of living in the so-called developed world. The members of both major parties are at fault via taking money from the Corporate Oligarchs thus becoming indebted or in this case "literally owned".
To ensure that their crimes (they swore an oath) go unchallenged one of the tactics used by our leaders is to promote divisions among the electorate, today the US is divided, some even comparing our time to the era of the Civil War. Consider also that many people believe that the things we are lacking should not be provided by the government, even when the government has taken away the avenues to procure what would deliver a decent way of life. Even when the Government in conjunction with the Oligarchs have made a decent life financially unreachable for millions of US workers. Wages have not kept pace with the cost of living for over five decades. Many of our citizens have not received a proper education therefore they are easily duped. Consider that corporations have turned the state against its own people in ways that are many and far reaching. Look at the way consumers are controlled through fine print contracts. It is now legal for the wealthy and corporations to give undisclosed political contributions. The tax system provides loop holes for the wealthy while the average wage earner just pays their taxes with no such benefits. The US has the worst labor laws of all the Western countries. The reason behind all this can be explained with just one word, "greed". We seem to have forgotten that the Senators and the Congressional Representatives work for us they don't work for wall street, well they're not supposed to, work for Wall Street.
So to begin, we need to find common ground issues that all or most US citizens agree upon, then united bring our demands to the five hundred and thirty-five members of the US Congress. If we don't do this, things will only get worse, more people will become bankrupt (one million per year) more people will become homeless (currently 600,000) more people will find it impossible to achieve a decent life style and the country will slip further and further into third world status.
Here are some things we almost all can agree upon: A living wage, as stated it is over five decades since the average wage has been increased. Wages have not kept pace with worker productivity and wages for the US workers have fallen drastically behind the increases seen by the top wage earners. Some executives have seen a four hundred percent increase in earnings while the average earner has seen a net zero increase. This is criminal and shameful.
Most citizens agree we are paying way too much for pharmaceuticals, most citizens agree that the country needs election reform, most agree that members of Congress should not receive benefits that the US workers do not receive. Most of us agree that health care should be affordable and available to all citizens and Healthcare billing fraud must be illuminated. Most of us agree that the Congress should be subject to term limits. Almost everyone thinks that we need to somehow get money out of politics. Most agree that Corporations are not people, in the 1800's corporations achieved personhood. Most agree that billion dollar bailouts of Wall Street should end especially when companies don't pay taxes nor some type of security like the average citizen. Most of us agree that monopolies should be broken-up, just look at the influence of companies like Google and FaceBook. Large corporations control the media hence, we hear what they want us to hear. Education must be available to all either free or at an affordable cost. Most agree that the US military budget is out of control, we must take a sensible approach to shrinking this out of control unregulated spending. Most agree that the laws of the country must be exercised evenly and ensure no one is above the law.
The only way woe can bring these changes is to organize and bring our demand directly to the congress. We must begin with town meetings and grow outward from there. We must summons our representatives to our meetings. It is said that it will only take one percent of the people to bring about the changes we desire.
Bill Rogan AKA Dung Teller
