As primaries approach here in New Mexico and every single congressional seat seems up for grabs, I was reminded of a favorite topic of mine from times past. Steve Pearce is likely going to put an end to that hack Heather Wilson (sorry Pete, but when your anointed one can barely get past Patsy Madrid, it is a sign that her political career is done) and then will give Tom Udall the fight of his life. But in the meantime, Pearce and Wilson are at each other's throats on who is the "real conservative" or who is the "common sense conservative." All of this amuses me, because conservatives have destroyed this country...and why anyone would brag about being a member of the movement that ended the grand experiment is beyond me (unless they happen to be filthy rich and like getting filthier rich). We been stuck under the thumb of conservative leadership since Reagan conned (pun intended) the American people into believing that the founding documents of this country did not mean what they said in plain english, and the party of Lincoln abandoned that which its grandfather held dear in direct contradiction to its early platforms. After the actor turned destroyer of liberty, we were given a Bush that was not quite as crazy, a Clinton that sold out the greatest accomplishment of his party, the New Deal, and the boy king, who sold this nation to a few very, very rich friends. Now the country is slowly awakening to the reality of the situation, that conservatism and moving to the right has destroyed the fabric of this nation.
The conservative movement betrayed their promises to the American people. The big business elite which lead the way lied to you in order to garner more for themselves while leaving the American people holding a bag full of nothing but empty promises while their neighborhoods deteriorate, their homes crumble if the banks have not taken them away, their schools fail their children, their families go without medicine, their wages are frozen, and their tax burden far beyond their fair share. It is time for the American people to reclaim that which is rightfully their's. It is time for this country to once again return to the American tradition of progress towards greater protection of individual liberty and freedom through protections against the actions of the conservative elite and their big business cronies which menace the health, safety, morals, and welfare of the people.
The conservative elite told you tax breaks for their big business cohorts would help your family. They told you giving more money back to Big Business would mean it would be reinvested in you. They told you it would mean more jobs for your neighborhood, that more money for the big whigs running the company meant they would voluntarily choose to provide health care for you. But now you look around and you wonder when that investment, your investment, in the elite will make it's way down to you. You look at your paycheck and notice the numbers have not increased in years while your cost of living has shot up well beyond the measly few hundred bucks the government gave you in an attempt to buy your acquiscence into the conservative elite handing back much bigger checks to their big business friends. You see your paycheck covering less and less every month while they vote themselves raise after raise to coincide with the money given back to their big business friends. You look at your children and realize they still go without proper medical care while they are now on a free lunch program at school. Yet you look at proven economics, which provides a living wage to working people and the growth and boon that it brings to communities and that it brought to this nation from the New Deal until the conservative disaster. You figure it is common sense that rich people with more money will save it, while the rest of us will spend it, creating more opportunity, more jobs, more growth, and a more stable society. All the while, that huge check that the conservative elite gave to their big business friends went directly in someone else's bank account or sent overseas. And you are left holding the tab.
They told you they would get you off the welfare rolls and onto the employment rolls. Only now there is nowhere to go when you are laid off and your children are hungry and the electricity is turned off because the only training they gave you was for a job at Walmart, and then they told Walmart it does not have to pay you the full value of your work, and it does not have to allow democracy into the workplace. And they repealed the protections which secured your right to free assembly and balanced the power between you and the fat cats in the penthouse office making 430 times your salary. And in the meantime, your children are sick and there is nothing you can do but get in line for hours at the emergency room of the one not-for-profit hospital left in your state because the big business you are stuck working for after all the small businesses in the neighborhood were forced to shut their doors will not spend a miniature portion of their record profits to provide you with basic health benefits and the plethora of hospitals which used to accept all now only cater to the wealthy.
They told you they were looking out for the American worker when they spent your paycheck to "get tough" on undocumented workers crossing the border in search of a better life. They told you they were looking out for you and trying to make sure that American jobs went to Americans. But then you wonder why the factory in your town is shutting down after some elite big whig decided to send those jobs overseas, even after his big tax break. And you wonder why it is perfectly fine for capital to cross borders and transfer between the elite, but workers and jobs cannot follow suit. Then, as the last factory in the state closes its doors, you watch in disbelief as they line up yet another trade "agreement" in which Big Business and the conservatives agree on one thing, that the American Dream needs to be crushed.
They told you the economy was going great, they told you to just look at the record high stock market. You wonder, if the economy was so strong, why did my pay not keep up with inflation? Why did the stock prices increase and record profits for the giant corporations run by big business elite who fund the conservative policies and translate into your taking on a second and third job to try and maintain a basic existence which your parents took for granted? If stock prices rise they tell you it will mean more money for more jobs for your community and for raises in your pay and for health care to you and your family. Only when the stock market explodes, your pay decreased, and your health care and pension disappeared, and the fat cats salaries exploded. And again, you are left holding the tab.
They tell you they are solving the problems with your failing schools. They tell you they will leave no child behind. But you look around and see that every child in your neighborhood school is being left behind, and the answer of the conservative elite was to take even more of the already incredibly limited resources out of the school. They tell you the solution is to privatize education, even though when America took over as ground zero for technological and scientific advancement every state in the nation offered a college education, free of charge. And while they tell you privatizing education is the answer, you look around and see tuition at private colleges sky-rocketing well beyond the reach of your family and you wonder how it is possible that higher tuition rates at your neighborhood schools until only the richest of the rich can afford even a sub-par education will in any way, shape or form benefit your community.
They told you bankrupty laws needed to be altered because too many were taking advantage of the system. But after the accident at the job left you hospitalized, an accident which you cannot get relief from because they repealed your protections as a worker and your employer quit providing medical insurance even after those huge tax breaks he received, you find yourself completely unable to pay the bills. And the bankrupty judge tells you you still must pay the giant corporation that now owns you because it provided the credit (at 30 percent) to pay for the hospital stay which your employer and the conservative elite running the show refused to help with, every single penny. And then, just when you thought everything would be alright because your pension would be there to support your family even if workman's comp was off the table, you find out that the bankruptcy judge did not tell the big business that refused to pay for your health care the same he told you. No, the big business elite declared bankruptcy and took your pension away before combining with even bigger business, and the conservative elite that was running the show made off with his golden parachute and a few million more of your tax dollars.
They told you they would give you a prescription drug plan. Only you look at the three-inch thick "choice" you have and realize you have no ability to take advantage of any of it. You look at the prices of your medicine and realize that you are paying much more now than you ever were before, and that after spending your life paying into the system you are not getting your money's worth. The plan they offered gave drug companies huge profits, and you are left catching a bus to Mexico or Canada so you can afford your pills.
They tell you that government involvement in your health care would be "disastrous socialized medicine." But you look at your foreign friends stuck in such a frightening system and notice that they are healthier than you, that they do not have to wait to see the doctor as long as you, and that they are living longer than you - all for half the cost. And you wonder what kind of a "disaster" causes better health, less expensive care, more access to doctors, and longer life expectancies.
They tell you they are giving you clean air. But you hear your children coughing through the night and wheezing as they try and play through the smog that the conservative elite told their big business friends not to worry about cleaning up. You see the bills for your children's asthma medicine pile up, and you wonder how you will pay for it after the corporation you work for cut your medical benefits, even after the ownership received a fat check from the conservative elite's tax breaks.
They tell you if you just work hard and persevere you will get ahead. And so you went out and got the only job left in the neighborhood after their big business friend took the factory overseas. You work hard every day to put food on the table and a roof over your family's head because you believe that in America, if you work hard, you will be taken care of. But then they tell big business not to give you fair pay for a fair day's work, and they wink and nod as the company harrasses you and your coworkers for trying to bring your freedom of association and democracy back to the work place.
They told you they were going to bring personal responsibility and morals back to Washington and the White House. But they brought you child molesters heading their efforts to protect children, conservative elite walking around K Street pocketing millions while paying off congressman with million dollar golf trips overseas, the truth being covered up while the nation is sent to war, and the rights of voters trampled as the conservative elite applaud the efforts. All the while every one of them plays pass the buck, refusing to own up to any mistakes, refusing to take personal responsibility for anything, refusing to own up to their own moral shortcomings.
They told you they support the troops. But you wonder why your son, your daughter, your brother, your sister, your mother, or your father had to go into combat without proper protection, even as billions are ciphoned into the hands of the big business friends of the elite in the White House. You wonder why, after all that has gone wrong, the only option they have to offer is to stick it out to avoid losing face. You wonder if they will build another wall on the national mall and put your loved one's name next to thousands more and try to call it even.
They said they were making a "Contract with America." Only they did not fill you in on a little secret of contract law, that contractual obligations can be avoided if doing so is profitable for business. And at every turn, when it has been good for the big business friends of the conservative elite, they have avoided their obligations to the American people.
Life, liberty and happiness...they are your god-given rights. They require the protection of law against the evils which menace the health, safety, morals, and welfare of the people.
West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379, 391 (1937). They require the government to have your back. The conservative movement would rather the government step all over it. They lied to you, and you let them. Tell them no more.
