With November just around the corner, who should we vote for? Many Americans believe that if we can elect the right people this country will "get back on the right track."
Unfortunately, there is no going back. People are hanging on to the belief that those we elect could or would "fix" the United States and help the middle class. The policies that govern our social, financial, industrial, ecological and even health care systems are almost entirely of and for the benefit of corporations and the wealthy elite, that is, those actually running the country.
Wages and benefits have decreased. The work day has lengthened and working conditions have worsened. Higher education, for most of the middle class, has become cost-prohibitive. Working parents, with two-income households, live paycheck to paycheck. Forty years ago a multi-generational family home was almost unheard of in this country. Today it is commonplace. Americans have accepted continually lower standards of living.
Political candidates have convinced us to argue about non-issues like candidates' professional histories, personal indiscretions and unwavering government partisanship. Americans have been closely watching the right hand shaken in front of them by media and candidates, and not noticed the left. The bitter partisan battles and sensationalized media are pure subterfuge.
Both political parties work hard to help big business. Republicans say success for big business will trickle down to the working class; Democrats use a humanitarian guise, feigned concern for the working man's social conditions. The net result is the same: Increased wealth for the wealthy and more hardship for the working class. Some Republican congressmen changed their positions on the Affordable Health Care Act, aka Obamacare, from saying they were against it to now supporting many of its provisions. The lobbyists and corporate interests that dictate legislative action and policy to Democrats are the same ones whispering in Republicans ears.
The government first bailed out the airline industry, then the auto industry in strategic, calculated, and highly effective moves to eliminate unions. Remember when Republicans tried to pass a bailout package for the financial industry, but constituents called them in record numbers to say, "No"? Later that week, Democrats delivered a bailout package to the financial industry.
Democrats and Republicans have been amazingly efficient in their collaborative efforts to increase the wealth of the 0.1 percent.
Americans must be motivated to act. Too many hard-working people have passively accepted the Third World model at work and lower standards of living at home. I don't know what it will take to break the apathy of so many or how many more Sacramento-like tent cities will have to be erected. I do know that change doesn't happen because you want it to. Change happens out of hardship, necessity and strife.
I will be voting 100 percent Republican this year and I urge you to do the same. While I'll be quick to say that Democrats and Republicans are effectively and ideologically homogeneous, socio-economic decline seems to happen faster under Republican leadership (2000-08 for example).
So help me motivate America: Vote for an entirely Republican-controlled House, Senate and president. Demand the elimination of all social services, and privatize all public services.
Yes, it is class warfare and the working class has lost, regardless of party affiliation. Please help me in effecting meaningful change for the working people and restoring the middle class.
•-Kevin Crow is a Gardnerville resident.
