As the nation faces the toughest economic times since the Great Depression, we are witnessing an assault on public employees and their labor unions, wiping out eighty years of hard gained rights since the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and in so doing, further eroding the middle class!
It was labor unions, which came to full development and success beginning in the 1930s, which helped to create decent working conditions for millions of Americans, both in the public and private sector.
Now Republican Governors, and backed by the Republican leadership in Congress, are salivating over the loss of pension and medical benefits, the end of collective bargaining, and the return of employers, including state governments, dictating conditions of work to employees, as if this was the Gilded Age or the 1920s revived! 🙁
In the process, the middle class is being wiped out, being added to the growing number of Americans who are falling into poverty, and yet the suggestion that raising taxes on the wealthy and business might lessen the assault on hard won labor rights is automatically dismissed.
If the states and the national government continue the Republican assault on the middle class, there is the real danger that people will not just sit by and take punch after punch, and allow their dignity and rights gained long ago to be taken away without a counter reaction.
We are entering very dangerous territory and conditions, and yet the Republican Party seems to be tone deaf and immune to the reality of human suffering, only concerning themselves with the comfort of the elite wealthy and corporations.
It may remind many of the arrogance of the elite in other societies, and how their short sightedness led to unfortunate tragedy!
Democrats and progressives must continue to speak up and oppose with all of their energy this great tragedy of the middle class being destroyed, without any concern as to the long range effect!