Fwd: . . . and on it goes

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From: John Hemington

We remain deeply embroiled in a serious class war in which young adults have become the most recent victims.  It's not just college graduates broken down with almost unpayable debts, it's also those without an opportunity to go to college who can't find jobs paying a living wage or any job at all.  It's minority youth of all stripes who are denied essential opportunities in a not-so-colorblind society as we would like to think.  Check out the attached article for additional information.

And lest we forget, young adults are not the only Americans suffering from this long-standing class war which resulted in the election of Donald Trump.  As this excerpt from Greg Maybury's article in Consortium News,  Fall and Rise of the Forgotten 'Deplorables' (see second attachment for full article), points our two major political have long ago abandoned and declared war on the rest of us also:

"In what must serve as the quintessential master class of prolonged, consistent, truly bi-partisan cooperation American politics has on offer, both parties have contributed enormously over the past three-plus decades to the dismantling if not effective destruction of the American Dream in its hitherto real and imagined dimensions.

Whether on broad economic, social, national security, or foreign policy issues, both parties have demonstrated a recidivistic, palpable indifference to the concerns and needs of average working- and middle-class Americans, with both repeatedly showing themselves prone to elitism, corruption, cronyism, manipulation, greed, deception, bribery, hypocrisy, opportunism, self-interest, contempt, cynicism and arrogance.

In the process democracy's once "proprietary" domains — equal justice, freedom, human rights, equality of opportunity, civil rights, liberty, and most everything from habeas corpus to the pursuit of happiness — have effectively been declared "no-fly-zones" for ordinary people, accessible only to those increasingly privileged, mostly unelected, and thoroughly unaccountable few.

Most significantly, both parties have undermined, possibly irreparably, the sense of pride and place folks had in their once beloved — but now maybe not so — United States of America.  Along with that, they have all but conspired to "deep-six" that once famously enduring, optimistic mindset that by some accounts enabled the country to thrive and prosper as a "paradise of opportunity" (or even a reasonable facsimile thereof).

Let's term that period The Era of Future Promise, or that time in history — from 1945 to say 1975 — where a whole generation or more of the majority of folks could not only envision a progressively better future for their kids and grandchildren, but anticipated it, and all things equal, if one was willing to strive for such, rightfully expected it.

That is no longer the case for an increasing number of people, and it is this sentiment — one whose seismic impact we have just witnessed — that's been neglected by both party majors.  That this envisioned future is no longer realistic for many comes as a direct result of neoliberalism — the roll-out of which was overseen by both parties — and with it the globalization of economic and financial activity itself culminating from there via "casino capitalism" in the inexorable transfer and consolidation of historically unprecedented wealth, power, and income into the hands of fewer and fewer people — is inarguable.

Now the end of this earlier era might have been heralded by Reagan's ascension in 1981 and the advent of neoliberalism.  But its sustained demise was enthusiastically presided over by Bill Clinton, in cahoots of course with this year's DNC candidate for president, his wife Hillary, and the then Party establishment.  Some folks clearly haven't forgotten that.  In short, there was no clear sign from Clinton that things would be substantially different under her regime than under that of her husband's administration.

…

And for those who understood there being such a thing as a "class war" and viewed globalization and neoliberalism through such a prism — if we recognize that the upper class won that war a long time ago — we might posit the following:  Why when after the vanquished have long since surrendered to distraction, disillusion or outright despondency are the victors still fighting the war?  Before this election, the short answer we might have suggested is that it's because they can!

The ascension of Sanders and Trump in this election demonstrated that vast masses of Americans have finally given up on the two elitist Parties and are ready to fight back; but unfortunately most of us still don't understand what's behind the system which oppresses so many while promising so much.  It is now imperative that we somehow figure out a way to redirect this anger and frustration into meaningful action.

Fight on!

John

Links from John's collection

• Economic Hardships with Young People - PDF article
• Fall and Rise of the Forgotten Deplorables - PDF article