“Oh yeah? What are you going to do about it?” — Classic prelude to a playground fight.
I’ve been seeing and reading a lot of posts lately on Facebook from people very angry about unpopular legislative decisions regarding Net Neutrality, the new GOP tax plan and a variety of other issues. They too often seem to reveal lawmakers out of touch with everyday working stiffs and much more interested in taking care of their wealthy donors.
This is happening at the state and national levels — in state legislatures and in Congress.
The Federal Communications Commission’s vote to overturn neutrality rules on the Internet has been reported to be opposed by as many as 75 percent of voters. The GOP tax plan that appears to be on the cusp of being approved in the U.S. House and Senate also has shown a majority of voters oppose it. Despite GOP claims the new plan will benefit the middle class, two non-partisan analytical groups have insisted it will hurt the middle class, benefit the very wealthy and increase the national debt by as much as a trillion dollars.
I had come to believe over many years that Republicans hated budget deficits and insisted government live within its means. Then came reports that House Speaker Paul Ryan has said the deficits indeed must be dealt with by making cuts in “entitlements,” particularly Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
So the end result of all of this is the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, a process launched by supply-side economics in the early 1980s under St. Ronald Reagan.
While absorbing this, I once read about the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56, the one famously started by civil rights icon Rosa Parks. The courageous dissidents spent a year refusing to take the bus and instead walking or getting car rides to work. Their economic pressure had an impact and finally the U.S. Supreme Court in December 1956 ruled in their favor.
It would really take something serious, a problem such as loss of net neutrality or another “trickle-down” tax package screwing working stiffs to get people to rise up in righteous indignation to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. An old friend of mine told me you have to raise a ruckus, at least to “make the bastards sweat.”
We working folks have only one meaningful way to show our displeasure and insist something be done about it — at the ballot box. If we’re really mad as hell and won’t take it any more, we’ll throw the rascals out in August and November of 2018.
Please note that all three West Michigan Congressmen, Fred Upton, Justin Amash and Bill Huizinga, voted for the tax plan that will stick it to us. So the time has come for us to stick to them.
It amazes me that the U.S. Congress has an approval rating of somewhere around 10 percent from the public, but somehow we think our Congressman is a good guy. He’s not. He’s part of the problem, not the solution. Yet we elect these Bozos again and again.
These GOP Congressmen and our less than attractive state legislators, do the bidding of their rich donors and their party bosses. They’ll nod and listen to our concerns, but then go back to Washington and Lansing to do as they’re told by shadowy lobbyists and their leaders.
Our only way to fight back against this system of legalized bribery is to throw the rascals out and do the unthinkable — vote for Democratic challengers brave enough to join the battle against a one-party system that has enabled the GOP to do whatever its wants.
But will we? Probably not.
“We have met the enemy and he is us.” — Walt Kelly in the cartoon strip “Pogo.”
