The window of opportunity to join our future overlords is
closing fast as globalism, technology and our perverted system of governance conspire
to create a permanent underclass.
All of us with regular jobs need to strap on helmets, knee
and elbow pads and prepare for a jettisoning. Recovery for the middle class is
not what the master architects are planning this time.
Our leaders (at the beck and call of the wealthiest
Americans, according to the messages being transmitted to my tinfoil hat) are
doing their best to ensure the creation of a permanent underclass, POPULATED BY
US. You and me. The suckers who have it pretty good right now and therefore
can’t be bothered to rouse ourselves from our latte-sodden, technologically
cheap-and-convenient slumber.
Half of you just left this page to search cute kitten videos
on YouTube.
If you want to get on top, you’d better grab for that ring
now. The American Dream is playing what’s turned out to be a pretty limited
engagement.
When you peek behind the whitewash of red-white-and-blue, we
aren’t very different from China
or Russia.
Apparently, whichever “C” you start with (capitalism, communism), it all ends
in oligarchy.
Education, the vaunted pathway out of poverty, is being systematically
dismantled, along with all basic social services. (Haven’t you heard?
Government is a failure.) Eventually, state-supported education will be doled
out via voucher to a lucky few lottery winners while the same vouchers
reimburse our “betters” for their private school tuition. Dibs on the sci-fi movie.
Not that it matters much anyway, since the available
workload is both shrinking (due to technology and outsourcing) and at the same
time being devalued. With a few notable exceptions, people with specialized
skills and education are undercut when the overlords find cheaper and cheaper
hires to gobble up more of their duties.
Minimum wage is the inevitable reality for more and more of
us. Given the speed with which things are changing, the current minimum wage
battle is one the middle class had better carefully consider. It might not be
our take-home pay next year, but it’s quickly becoming the basic calculus on
which our worth is figured. Scratch that: Turns out corporate heads are now
figuring our worth based on minimum wage in
Haiti.
The Industrial Revolution created winners and losers, and
it’s unavoidable that the unprecedented formation of a global, techno-economy
will do the same. But the results of the shakeout shouldn’t be permanent. We’re
the USA! We pool
our resources to create equal opportunity. We reward hard work… Oh wait. That
takes tax money, and a living wage, and those things are incredibly unpopular
with EVERYONE.
Never mind. It’s too late. Enjoy these last few years of
relative prosperity. Go back to your kitten videos.
