RK ARCHIVE - A View from a Fundamental

A View from a Fundamental

By: Great Blue
Published On: 9/16/2008 10:09:15 AM

I found out this morning from John McCain. I am a Fundamental. I am an American worker. He says I am strong. I agree. I want to get stronger. But I'm struggling right now.

For Sale signs, put up months ago, dot our middle class neighborhood.

Foreclosures are rampant. Our neighbors are on the move or teetering on the brink.

Gas prices skyrocket, food prices rise.

Big manufacturing plants close, more and more payday loan stores open.

Wages stagnate. Jobs go to India and Mexico.

College costs become increasingly unaffordable.

Our 401k sinks while corporate CEOs cash out with our money.

Pensions are a rare antique, fragile and hard to find.

Banks fail almost daily, with many more on the brink.

Reckless Republican deregulation passes in the name of "less government" and "personal responsibility."

We see tax-free rewards, but no consequences, for the corporate raiders who use layoffs as a management tool and call it innovation.

John McCain and Republicans follow an old formula. Blame the victims. Shift responsibility for your failed policies. Blame "Washington." Pretend the past eight years have been an out-of-body experience. The fundamentals are strong. The fundamentals are the American workers. Don't support McCain? Then you're against American workers.

Reminds us of the endless parroting of "Support the Troops."

We Fundamentals don't ask for much and we're willing to work for it. A job. A house. A car. A safe school for our kids. Church. The PTA. College. Health insurance. A safe and secure retirement fund. A government that protects us from exploitation and interference. A government that allows us the opportunity to play by the rules, to earn and enjoy all of these fundamental things.

John McCain says the Fundamentals are strong. He's right, but we're not stupid.

This time around, support the Fundamentals. Vote Obama/Biden.
Cross-posted at www.vagreatblueheron.wordpress.com

Comments

Fundamentals, (Teddy - 9/16/2008 10:49:15 AM)

Thank you and congratulations. You are strong, you built the America the Republican elite have been looting and plundering at the same time they have been raising a cacophony of scare words and a smoke screen of scurrilous lies to cover their depredations. Once we break their hypnotic grip on our minds and see through their hypocrisy and mumbojumbo we recognize their greed and treachery for what it is. This is the time to boot these curs out of office, at every level. They have proved to be nothing more than a well-dressed gang of thieves engaged in what amounts to class warfare.

One minor correction (Hugo Estrada - 9/16/2008 11:45:03 AM)

I don't think that the jobs are going to Mexico anymore. They did at one point, but many left about 8 years ago. :)

But did they return? (Teddy - 9/16/2008 11:48:11 AM)

Or, did they go to, say, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Malaysia (now that China's sometimes risky)? Or, maybe to Tom DeLay's little sweatshop in the Marianas?

I don't really know where they went (Hugo Estrada - 9/16/2008 11:51:35 AM)

But I am pretty sure they didn't come back to the U.S. They are just not going to Mexico anymore. I visited my town where I grew up last spring, and these giant industrial parks are empty.

Outsourced the outsorcerers (Teddy - 9/16/2008 1:32:57 PM)

No honor among thieves. And what happened to the Mexicans working in those now-empty industrial parks?

It depends (Hugo Estrada - 9/17/2008 10:10:05 AM)

The workers probably went back to being sub-employed.

The professionals who ran them are currently underemployed.

And the real culprits here are the corporate managers that moved American jobs in the first place. They are the ones who get to decide where they will set up the next boom town in the third world.

And with 3rd world countries trying to under sell each other to gain those jobs, it is not really surprising that these plants hop from country to country. This outcome should have been foreseen by the Mexican government, but they were all educated in free market theory in Chicago, Harvard, and Yale.

Those who kill by the free market get slayed by the free market.

They went to China (tx2vadem - 9/16/2008 5:00:45 PM)

As soon as China joined the WTO, Mexico lost tons of jobs to China.

When Ford announced the Norfolk closure (Great Blue - 9/16/2008 11:56:53 AM)

they also announced a new plant opening in Mexico. I don't know if it actually opened since they've had subsequent waves of plant closures.