Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Sequesters, Jobs, Revenue and Riots


Make no mistake, the cuts Congress is imposing with the Sequester will hurt everyone, as will Obama's "compromise", and no one will be hit harder than the unemployed.  We need government help and action to create jobs now, not cuts!  Obama's proposed cuts in Social Security are completely unnecessary.  Make no mistake, this is the first move in what will develop into a grab by the Corporations for the big prize of the SS Trust Fund.  Cuts in Medicare are unconscionable.  

The politicians and media claim there is no money.  They must know better.  There's just no money that they have the will and guts to go after.  Like dogs they nuzzle the hands that stroke and feed them, and cringe from the power of those hands to swat them if they get out of line.

But the money's there.  As of last July, US Corporations reported $1.7 trillion in idle cash on hand.  One Corporation, Apple, now reports $137 billion on hand.  Put that in perspective: Apple, one corporation, could pay the whole $86 billion shortfall to cover the first Sequester and have $51 billion left over!  

Then there are the well-documented reports of many trillions of dollars in private and corporate money stashed in overseas accounts to avoid taxation! 

For whatever reason Congress' corporate handlers are relentlessly seeking ways to force us further into peonage, strip us of the fruits of our hard work and set us to fighting each other over the scraps.  They know these cuts will cost jobs and deepen the recession.  They seem to want that.  Why?

Everyone thought if things got as bad as they are now there would be rioting in the streets. People regularly mutter "they can't do that, they'll be riots if they do."  But the years go by, things keep getting worse for the millions of unemployed and "unemployable", and nothing happens.  

The government has certainly been preparing for riots, with well-documented laws, equipment, new technologies, detention facilities and even troop deployments, but the predicted riots have not started.  Are they determined to keep pushing us down, down, down until they do?  

If so, we have to ask, what's in it for them?  Are they looking for the excuse to suspend the Constitution and suspend our rights?  The excuse to suspend the state and local governments that are impeding the foreclosures and evictions?  The excuse to impose controls on what can be posted to the Web, so they can operate in secret?  The excuse to clear away what's left of our unions?  

Clearly riots are not in our interests.  So far the people have had the wisdom to resist the provocations.  But if we are to escape this trap that we are being herded into, we urgently need to start acting together to regain control of our own government, and get it do it's job.  We need to demand and organize for a government with the will and power to lay its hands on the money we need for the necessary massive job-creating investments to restart the economy and to restore and expand public services. 

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