The War on the middle class started 30 years ago this week with the firing of every member of the Air Traffic Controllers Union and the AFL-CIO telling its members to cross the picket lines  and get to work.  This is one of the saddest days in Americas history.  Before this day the middle class was strong, people had money to spend.  It was good for families and business’s alike.  The American dream of living a better life than your parents did was still alive and well.  If you wanted to start a business you could.  If you wanted to work for a corporation you could.  And if you chose to do that you knew you could work hard for 20 years, without fear of loosing your job, and retire comfortably.

This has all changed.  Now the rich get richer, fewer people get rich, the poor get poorer, and the majority in the middle struggle to stay afloat because America now works like this:

The super-rich will make more, much more, and the rest of you will scramble for the crumbs that are left.

Everyone must work!  Mom, Dad, the teenagers in the house!  Dad, you work a second job!  

Kids, here’s your house key, your parents might be home in time to put you to bed.

No, you can’t leave now, we’re not done.  Your kids can make their own dinner.

You want to go to college?  No problem — just sign here and be in debt to a bank for the next 20 years!

You don’t need health insurance!  And health insurance companies: you go ahead and decide who you want to help — or not.

Unions are evil!  You will not belong to a union!  You do not need an advocate!  Shut up and get back to work!  

What’s a raise?  Get back to work and shut up!

Do the work of three people for half the pay or you’re out!

Complain about your working conditions, the management, or anything else and you’re fired.

Can’t pay your mortgage anymore?  Here’s a credit card.

This new America is not the country our Fathers, Grandfathers, and all our Grandfathers before them fought and died for.  This is not the America our Founding Fathers intended to create.  We are to be governed for, and by, the people.  Not by corporate lobbyists, corporate lawyers, and the corporate think tanks.

The Preamble of the Constitution is there for a reason.  It’s true that the laws of our land begin with the Articles and continue to the Bill of Rights and through the other Amendments, but the Preamble is there to establish the tone, provide the direction, and set the stage for the laws that were written to frame our government.  With that I’ll leave you with the Preamble…. amplified.

We the people [human beings] of the United States [all for one and one for all], in order to form a more perfect union [for human beings], establish justice [for human beings], insure domestic tranquility [the right to have a good job, to ensure our children have a chance at a better life than we do, to love who we choose to, and to worship, or not, who we choose to], provide for the common defense [defend our right to domestic tranquility], promote the general welfare [healthcare and social services], and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves [human beings] and our posterity [all future generations of human beings], do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America [for human beings].