Turning Your Back and Refusing To Do Your Job

We have two main political parties in this country and both have their traditional constituencies – at least in terms of what they claim and what their respective images portray them as. We have been though hard times, stressful times and those with most of the responsibility to sort out the root causes of our problems in such times are tested with the hottest of fires. It is in such times we find out which people will stay in the battle and which will fall back unwilling to go beyond a certain point. It is in such times we find out which people will be ready to stand in the center of the firestorm and which will roll behind the cover of something they feel is safe clutching a talisman and praying it stops there and that they can just go home.

We have suffered through the worst of times over the last five or so years. We watched the last administration preside over a landsliding economy that kept going building more and more momentum right into the next administration. Though it appears to have stopped, the current administration has not been able to make a whole lot of headway in terms of addressing the damage done to our nation's economy.

The whole thing started with the financial industry and the biggest names in that industry building up a giant ticking time bomb that raked in money while it was being constructed. Those corporations that took the risks did so because they knew the US government would bail them out and essentially insure the reckless games they played. Once the bombs went off we bailed them out and it was said if we did not our entire economy would collapse. Their losses were covered and they came out ready to replace their gold toilet fixtures with platinum ones.

We were told our tax dollars were needed to bail them out to ensure our economy didn't crash and that bailing them out was the surest way to maintain a robust economy including jobs, especially by one side. The theory we had been hearing from that side was that when the wealthiest corporations do well, and money trickles down to the rest of us providing jobs and in turn making us all wealthier and more financially secure. Huh. Here was the opportunity to prove it. (crickets chirping)

But the bailouts were practiced by both sides. First the TARP bailout was given to us under a Republican administration and the subsequent bailouts by the Democrats. The financial sector so troubled, starting in 2007 and becoming too big to ignore by 2008, ended up recovering soon after those bailouts and has been for the most part raging ahead. They took our money and literally ran.

But the idea that in bailing them out we would all be doing better was total nonsense and has not panned out. Instead the majority of us have been suffering more since the bailouts than before. Not only did we not start the problem, but the people that did start and knowingly cause the problem were let off scott free and were given our money to ensure they stayed operating, receiving exorbitantly high salaries and are essentially back where they were previous to the gamble they knew we had to ensure.

Not only did they get back to the level they were at previous to the recession, they surpassed it. They did exceedingly well. So according to that trickle down theory we should all have been doing well right? We did not. The majority of us have suffered tremendously as a result and the idea that by prolonging wars so wealthy corporations can get their hands on natural resources the rest of us somehow benefit is also ridiculous. Halliburton hires mostly foreign nationals to work their sites overseas and many American security contractors working war zones also hire large numbers of non-Americans? How do we benefit?

It is perfectly their right to do so and that right should remain theirs to hire whom they want, but we should not have to pay them to do so, as currently we are doing. In some cases those private security contractors get paid ten times what we pay US military personnel doing the exact same job. Is that fair to the taxpayers? It seems like our wars are meant to provide more billions in income to wealthy corporations that can benefit from the conflicts at taxpayer expense - middle class and the poor be damned.

We expect that from one party and they are not too interested in hiding it. That is who they believe they represent – the wealthy corporations and that is fine. But the other party claims to represent the majority of us. They say they stand for the little guy, but while their people have been in the White House we have seen wars for resources continue in Afghanistan and new ones in Libya (under the pretense of it being to protect peaceful protesters) and oil and natural gas rich Uganda.

Where is the good in that for the taxpayers footing the bill? The initial foray into Libya cost taxpayers roughly $2 billion and what has that given the majority of us? How much more money will we keep sending there over time to make sure wealthy oil corporations not even paying taxes and incorporated overseas keep helping Democrats get elected? How does enriching them make the majority of us better off? They are wealthier; why are we poorer, less employed and in worse shape than ever? Democrats were supposed to be for us and while they spent $2 billion creating a no-fly zone over Libya without congressional approval they have sat idly and quietly as protesters in America fed up with such things get beaten, tased, pepper sprayed, tear gassed, shot with rubber bullets, denied freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and more.

This has come not from the party we have traditionally associated with such actions, but from the one whose job they themselves said it was to protect the little guy. Do you feel more protected? Do you feel better off? The national reps didn't even come out recently while unions were being gutted across the nation. None of them. They said their job is to protect the majority of us and when running in 2006 and 2008 they said they would. Truth is they got in, got power had funk concerts in the White House and left us jobless, homeless and in debt. After promising immigration reform they even deported record numbers of people then said they would review cases after that was done. They even started 2 new conflicts of choice.

They need to keep their promises by not turning their backs on us and doing the job they claim is theirs. If they can't before the 2012 elections then there really is no political party currently representing the majority of us as it stands and all their talk is just slick advertisement with different labels on the same product.

To read about my inspiration for this article go to www.lawsuitagainstuconn.com.