Much can be said about the many differences in American society, but while most, through breakthroughs in social reasoning, are beginning to decline, our differences in income and quality of life seem to be growing.
How does a corporate CEO get an increase in salary, while the corporation he's running records loses, drops employees, and closes places of employment? Why does 10% of our population control 90% of the wealth? This becomes even worse if you figure in that out off that top 10%, the top 1% controls most of their portion. Why is the gap between, not only the lower class and upper class, but even the middle class(well,what's left of it) and the upper class, growing so rapidly?
I'm not going to pretend to be a financial expert, but I don't think you need to be to see the problem with this distribution of wealth. Power follows money. When you control money and policy, policy will seem to work to your advantage. At least it has for the last 7 years. In 1998, the top 1% had more income than the 100 million in the bottom 40%. The 13,000 richest families have a net worth equivalent to the assests owned by the poorest 20 million people. (Bushwhacked;Molly Ivins,2003)
The Bush Administration has done everything in their power to increase this gap and keep their friends (foreign and domestic) fat-pocketed and happy. In the past 5 years, these differences in income have not been addressed by government, but more like fast-tracked instead. Enough already.
Classism is not an issue that will be fixed with one peice of legislation, but the right vision could get the process started. A process that will take generations to recover, but could show improvment rapidly. It will not be higher wages and more jobs alone, but a whole new mind-set on how we view ourselves and our concerns for our neighbors. This problem is so far along, it will take influence from the top to say enough, and set big business interests aside to lift up the rest of the nation that is suffering on their behalf.
Enter Sen. Obama. This issue of classism is what keeps uptown peole out of urban areas. It seperates the quality of education your child will get, sometimes depending on just which side of the road you live on. But more importantly, it decides who forms policy, and if an official is more concerned with their own interests, as we have seen for the last 7 years, there's a simple answer. Keep the public out of the circle, and ignore the general publics needs. President Bush and his staff successfully accomplished this for two terms.
This is where my faith in Sen. Obama comes in. The fact that he is encouraging the 'middle-class' and social outsiders to get involved, while running a grassroots campaign, and trying to stay as transparent as possible, shows he has faith in his own plans. I'm sure he realizes, as we need to once again, that the working middle-class keeps this nation running. Sen. Obama puts alot on the line by educating 'everyday' people on the way a democracy can work for the people, all people, because now that we are excited about the vision he has, he has to deliver.
His willingness to put himself out there, open and accountable to all of his grassroots supporters, makes me believe he understands the importance of closing the class-ism gap, and there is hope for the working class to pick up this country once again.
I must also mention the 8.5 million AMERICANS living in poverty. I understand their situation well, considering I was a welfare child to a single mother with mental disabilities, which made her unable to work. One thing I learned quick, it doesn't matter why you're poor. Poor is poor, and we were poor. I was able to succeed out of a life with no hope for success, not only because I busted my ass and started working at 14, but also because I was able to take sadness of community hand-outs for Christmas gifts, and know regardless of how the government saw me, I would not let the life I was born into dictate the life I would have. Thankfully, federal help for college allowed me to keep my word to myself. Without education opportunities, how can anyone advance? I know Sen. Obama also knows the importance of helping to educate anyone, regardless of income or family credentials, that truly wants to do better.
We have that high number in poverty, and say America is the land of opportunity. There is a reason for that. It is because we are the land of opportunity, we've just had the wrong people calling the shots. We can make a difference. We can vote for change this election. We can close the gap.
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