So now not only has Michigan decided that retired employees in Detroit, who devoted their lives and safety to their work, shall see their pensions cut, but the state of Illinois, governed by Democrats, has enacted legislation to the same effect!
Normally, the power of legal agreements prevents such action as to cast the elderly, on a fixed income, out to the wolves! But no more by the power of courts and legislatures and governors to defy the law and get away with it!
As one retired employee in Detroit said yesterday, he has to decide between eating and his medication come next year.
This is unconscionable, and shows the lack of respect for the elderly, and for life itself!
Already, there has been an attack on poor children, taking food out of their mouths, through cuts in food stamps. But the thought that maybe poor women should have access to birth control and abortion, so that they and future children might avoid poverty and deprivation, never crosses the minds of those who insist all life in the womb, from conception, should be born, but then to hell with what happens after birth!
If Michigan and Illinois can destroy public pensions for the elderly, what will stop many other states from doing so, rather than facing the facts that the wealthy have been ripping America off with the help of conservatives and Republicans, who have no problem subsidizing the wealthy and corporations, but do not give a damn for the poor, the sick, the young, the elderly, women, and workers?
With all of the progress of the progressive movement, the New Deal, and Great Society, we are now witnessing a return to a true Gilded Age, a return to a century and a half ago, effectively wiping out the 20th century movement toward humane, compassionate government!
Now it is back to laissez faire, Social Darwinism, dog eat dog, no concern for those less fortunate, and Democrats are starting to act like Republicans, all so that the wealthy do not have to pay taxes in a fair, honest way!
How can one have any optimism about the future of the “great experiment” known as American democracy?
And imagine with all of the reality described, how much tougher it is if one is African American, Hispanic, Native American, or disabled?
What has happened to our souls, our ethics, our morals, as we honor the almighty dollar, and fight over “things” on Black Friday and even Black Thanksgiving?
The middle class is being ground down to the level of poverty, as a small elite takes all of the wealth of America, and now wants to privatize EVERYTHING, including our national parks, in the almighty quest for profit and MORE MONEY, never enough, a level of materialism enough to make one want to vomit!