Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Class Wars

Since America ended the draft it has been mostly poor and middle class kids who have joined the military and fought the wars that have helped make many people rich. While companies like Halliburton and people like Dick Cheney have made record profits off of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the men and women who volunteered to join the military are coming home to find they have no jobs or prospects for the future.

The brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces are used as pawns by the rich and powerful, not for the best interest of America but for the best interest of their wallets. After September 11th 2001 many young men and women joined the military to fight terrorists and the people who attacked us on that horrible day. These men and women where taken advantage of and their patriotism was used against them, they joined to fight the men who attacked us and instead where used to personal gains.

A young man by the name of Pat Tillman gave up millions of dollars to play in the NFL and jointed the military and was sadly killed in action. It was a tragedy that this young man lost his life but that was just the beginning, his death was exploited by the military to help get more patriotic people to join the army. To this day we still do not know what happened to Mr. Tillman and his poor family had to fight for the little information they did receive. We learned that he was not killed by terrorists but died by friendly fire, rather then release this information the military exploited his death for their own gains.

These brave soldiers risking their lives to keep America safe and free do so for little pay, they receive a lot less then contractors like Halliburton and KBR make. KBR is a company who gets paid billions of dollars to do jobs that our military should be doing, and in some cases they are responsible for the deaths of about a dozen American soldiers. Instead of paying these war profiteers billions of dollars to do the jobs of soldiers we should just pay the fighting men more while on active duty. The soldiers have to live by a code of conduct while the contractors can run rough shot over the country and not be held accountable. Then when the soldiers come home they are having a hard time finding jobs or are suffering mental illness and many end up homeless. We ask these people to lay down their lives for a country that turns their back on them as soon as they return home.

Why do I mention these things? The military is made up of brave men and women who do it for pride and their love of this country and not for the money. People sitting in comfy offices making five times what soldiers do are the ones who decide where and when they go and for what reasons they might lose their lives. Soldiers do their job, the don’t complain because what they are doing is what they believe is best for America. They are willing to give their lives for America but rich and powerful people are not willing to give up another 3% of their income to help keep America running. It’s ok for hard working people to lay down their lives just don’t ask the wealthy to pay a little more? Even worse to help keep the few extra dollars in the pockets of the few the republicans have decided they need to cut the benefits of the soldiers that they move around like chess pieces.

If the rich want to keep their 3% tax break then they should strap on a gun and go fight for it, stop attacking soldiers, teachers, police and firefighters and blaming them for everything that is wrong with this country. It is these hard working people who built this great nation, I never saw a rich person paving a road or putting on a police uniform. When we speak up about the people who have gotten rich off the backs of others it’s called “class warfare” but the truth is that for 30 years it’s been a genocide and the poor are finally standing up and fighting back.

The occupy movement is the people wanting their voices heard, we don’t have the money to buy a politician or judge. All we want is equality, time to take away all the breaks that rich people get and even the playing field. Exxon should be receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer money while paying little or no taxes themselves, stop bailing out the banks of America if you are going to let the middle class lose everything. We should reinstate Glass Steagall act, it kept America working for over 50 years after the great depression and only took 8 years after it was repealed to bring down the country again. Finally we need to get the money out of politics, when you have John Boehner handing out checks from tobacco companies on the floor of congress while they are voting on tobacco issues shows how corrupt politicians are. Until you separate money and politics you will have class warfare and the middle class will always come out the losers.

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