There’s a song that includes this phrase: “Kick ’em when they’re down, Kick ’em when they’re stiff, Kick ’em all around.” Well, that’s what has just happened very recently when the massive global corporations that now rule America were, once again, given free license to kick American workers when they’re down.
The American worker, already hemorrhaging from corporate administered beatings over several decades, has just received what may be a knockout punch by President Obama and his team of corporate bullies who have combined their power to successfully force Fast Track legislation for the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement) through Congress.
If this TPP gets fully approved and its provisions are put into effect as planned then it has the potential to open up large new markets in Asia for U.S. corporations. But does anyone believe that these corporations are going to take this opportunity to hire American workers? You can bet that they will hire more overseas ultra-cheap labor in various countries, and when they produce and then sell these slave-manufactured products across these new markets their profits will reach new highs; the sky is the limit for these masters of Corporatism and they have this president to thank for this great gift.
Is this what America needs right now when our manufacturing sector is on life support and our workers are in a state of shock? Let’s make this very clear; if you are against the American worker then you are against this country. The further decimation of this country’s manufacturing sector, its workforce, and its middle class is unconscionable; we will soon see this president smiling broadly as he signs this disgraceful TPP trade agreement into law, sending his corporate friends into a state of ecstasy. But what’s left of the American workforce will not be smiling; they will be devastated.
An American president who truly loved his country and its people would have done everything in his power to stop the continued dismemberment of this most important foundation of America that has seen the closure of some 70,000 factories in the last 14 years. He and his predecessor G.W. Bush did no such thing. And all the while this has been going on the “servants of the people” in this Congress has looked the other way. All of them should hang their heads in shame and disgrace.
Did we hear President Obama go before the American people and explain what this TPP is all about? Did he take extra pains to tell the American workers that this agreement will create new jobs here in this country and that they should have no reason to fear it? He did not because he knows it will not happen. He explained nothing; the entire process was secretive; everything in it was developed by this president and the corporations of America behind closed doors.
When we think about Mr. Obama’s record in office what would ever have us believe that he has been the champion of American workers, that he has been in their corner, fighting alongside them to defend and expand their rights? Do we see any evidence of that? What great job initiatives has he launched? Have we seen him put immense pressure on U.S. corporations to hire more American workers? Has he done anything of any kind for workers? The answer to every one of these questions is a resounding NO. What we clearly see is a president who has, instead, sold out these workers.
This will be Mr. Obama’s historical legacy; how he failed his country and its workers in their greatest time of need.
Those workers now face a stark future; more unemployment, more low-paying jobs, more applicants for food stamps, a much lower standard of living, and a lot more home foreclosures. Yes, this is what the current president of this country has done in his role as the chief facilitator of the objectives of the corporate world.
Here’s an excerpt from Senator Ted Kennedy’s passionate speech in 2007 blasting Republicans for their stonewalling of legislation involving a raise in the minimum wage. That speech, originally aimed at Republicans, and the questions that were asked, should now be re-directed at Mr. Obama. I have altered the words in bold type to refer to this president.
Message to President Obama:
“What is the price, we ask you? What is the price that you want from these working men and women? What cost? How much more do we have to give to the private sector and to business? How many billion dollars more, are you asking, are you requiring? “When does the greed stop, we ask you? That’s the question and that’s the issue.”
How has this rampant greed metastasized within the body of America? Well here’s a recent statement by Senator Bernie Sanders which illustrates the high degree of greed present in this nation and where the bulk of this country’s wealth is concentrated. “Meanwhile, the wealthiest people and the largest corporations are doing phenomenally well. Today, 99 percent of all new income is going to the top 1 percent, while the top one-tenth of 1 percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 40 percent. In the last two years, the wealthiest 14 people in this country increased their wealth by $157 billion. That increase is more than is owned by the bottom 130 million Americans – combined.”
The America in which we live has now become the Land of the uber-rich and the Home of the victims of Corporatism. As the wealth continues to flow upward to the top of the income spectrum the misery and hopelessness flows downward into the lives of more and more Americans. The most troublesome aspect of this current lopsided ownership of wealth is that those in control of this government can see what’s happening, they see those millions of Americans suffering and, yet, they refuse to do anything about it. They just don’t give a damn about their fellow Americans; that is just plain despicable.
These masters of Corporatism will use the TPP and the TTIP and whatever other trade agreements the U.S. government comes up with in the future to try to completely dominate the vast Asian markets. And of course, their profits will be generated largely by their use of slave labor. But who knows, some day these Corporatists just might consider restoring some manufacturing in America; that is, when American workers become so desperate that they will gladly work for the same wages as their Chinese counterparts.
Right now these workers have been dumped overboard by the corporations of America with the acquiescence of this government and Mr. Obama. The American worker, which no longer is an integral part of the process by which products of value are produced for domestic sale and export to other countries, has become an endangered species; and if this backward-thinking government, filled with heartless, corporate-controlled politicians, continues to refuse to reverse this situation, these workers will become extinct.
It’s as simple as this; if a country, in this case America, has a government and a business sector that, collectively, refuse to provide meaningful, productive employment for the vast majority of those Americans desperately needing jobs, then that country has no future; its downward descent will rapidly escalate and become permanent; and the American dream will no longer have any meaning.
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