Mr. Obama said. “The average American doesn’t think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it.”
I have a few questions:
- What “average Americans” does Mr. Obama interact with in his daily life?
- How many “average Americans” are buying vacation properties on Martha’s Vineyard?
- With our wages virtually stagnant during his two terms as president while his personal wealth soared into the multi-million dollar category, why would we, as average Americans, be complacent with the status quo?
- Are Oprah, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Hanks and Sir Richard Branson the sort of people that Mr. Obama thinks we “average Americans” see during our vacations?
To quote Upton Sinclair, once again: ‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.’
And yes, Mr. President, this average American thinks we need to completely tear down the system and remake it.
Please share widely!
My wife and I had a very nice dinner at our favorite local Chinese restaurant last night. My after-dinner “fortune” last night seemed relevant and helpful:
As it turns out, this no random utterance. It is a quote attributed to the I Ching. Here is the full quote:
I think America is already in a period of great chaos. I think Donald Trump and his GOP Collaborators have already done enormous damage to “the system” that makes America strong and great and will do much more before they are removed from office (one way or another).
Mr. Obama may be correct in his assessment of the average American — Barack Obama is one of the most astute politicians of our day. Nevertheless, we can’t always get what we want.
The economic system that has dominated America and the world for generations, and especially in the three decades since the Reagan era, is not sustainable. The climate damage it requires is not sustainable. The economic suffering it causes is not sustainable. The polarization and social dislocation it causes is not sustainable.
The most prosperous region in the world it its time was the American South during the first half of the 19th century, especially in the period from about 1830 to about 1860. That prosperity was also unsustainable. It was a prosperity based on literal slavery. It required slavery because only slave labor could perform the backbreaking labor required to grow, harvest, and ship cotton to market.
The phrase “wage slavery” is often used to describe the state of today’s working class men and women. It is an apt description. Wage slavery shares many attributes with literal slavery. Most importantly, the economic system that requires it is unsustainable just as the economic system based on literal slavery was unsustainable and for several of the same reasons.
The average American might well not yet be ready to embrace the consequences of what comes after the collapse of the unsustainable economic system. Because the economic change is inevitable, I think the economic change will drive a corresponding change in the opinion of the average American, not vice-versa.
I think the question therefore is HOW, not whether, we make that change.
When Democratic leaders tell us that we do not need change, or the changes we need are limited to the working class (as has been the attitude of Biden, Obama, Clinton, and the rest of the “centrists) we need to speak truth to power and demand change.
It’s also worth noting that this was part of the “Make America Great” message and Trump’s promise to tear down the power structures, drain the swamp, and so on……all lies of course on his part, but it is what many Americans want.
I actually agree with Obama. But the governing class has shown itself to be so intolerant of moderate reform, that we are likely to see even greater instability in our future.