Why are so many up in arms against the McDonald's Fast Food Strike?
I hear so many comments about entitlement and how little everyone is making, why do THEY feel entitled?
But is everyone struggling? Yes the economy has tanked across the world and the quality of life for the majority has declined and everyone should be sacrificing in order to pull our economic downfall upwards again. But I wonder if there are those who are actually benefiting and reaping rewards from the decline most of us are experiencing.
Rather than those who are seriously struggling turning against one another, shouldn't at least encourage those who are asking the questions about equality concerning living standards and income levels? Couldn't our income standards even benefit from their efforts in changing the system? Even if there are those who are invested in the strikes for a personal benefit, I believe that their desperation can point to a bigger picture of the economics of the United States of America. Perhaps the point of our need to support their efforts is that their energy is calling attention to the need to create economic standards that consider the hard working class of this country. Maybe their actions will draw a better understanding of what it's like to struggle on a daily basis to simply buy enough milk to keep your kids healthy, worry about whether or not to rush them to the ER knowing the cost of the care our children will need, or the guilt of not being able to give time to an aging parent who needs us to take them to a doctor appointment.
With the cost of living increasing so quickly, those who earn in the lower income brackets are quickly seeing the amount of hours they work increase for the same quality of life. Not only are the hours increasing for maintaining our living expenses, but the cut backs are adding stress and responsibility as fewer are now doing the work of those who have been cut. It is those who seek to work honest jobs, and are willing to work hard and even undesirable jobs who are hurting the most. These are the folks who built America's backbone...but now we don't work for Mom and Pop shops anymore, but corporations who answer to stock holders and the profit margin. No longer do we work for somebody who cares if our parents are ill and need us to rush them to the hospital and maybe be a minute or two late...we work for somebody who will let us go and hire the next person in line (more pressure and more family division). The quality of their life for the backbone of America is going down. It doesn't matter if it is a democrat or a republican holding office, the trend is to spiral the middle class and the dream of making it into the middle class into extinction and this will recreate an indebted lower class that will be comparable to the indentured servants of yesteryear.
We are going backwards in the US: this is the first time in the generations of America that we cannot look forward to seeing our children enjoy a better quality of life than we have. I personally think there are enough of those in the higher income bracket who are willing to stomp upon any of us in the lower income brackets that get the courage to ask for anything that will allow us to have a good quality of life (not the same quality as the higher income brackets, but at least as good as we made yesterday if not a little better than yesterday...we do have to retire some day you know?). I believe that that when the lower income brackets turn against one another (even though what we may be saying is truthful and we know we may be earning less than they are), we are only hurting ourselves and enabling the wealthier people to sit back, watch their wealth accumulate and let us do their dirty work. Let's encourage one another... and allow the energy of the McDonald's movement to empower us to look at our own situations and consider what the true worth of all of us are.
Let's hold hands as a growing class of struggling folks who have seen the quality of our lives go down (making it harder and harder for us to hope and strive for the American Dream of our grandparents) while there are those whose lives get better and better with each dollar that accumulates in their bank account. There are enough of them who are already looking down upon us and judge us for not pulling ourselves up by our ragged bootstraps that we don't need to support or encourage their belief system. Let's lift one another up as brothers and sisters who may not be in the same boat as ours, but whose boats are at least more comparable to our own than those whose boats leave us in their wake sputtering for breath.
Together, let's find a way for the economy of this country to receive a thorough, unbiased examination that seeks to find a way to return government to consider the lives of all its citizens...one that allows all of us to believe that the lives of our children will be better than our own; one that each one of us can hope for a bank account that will see us through to our last days; one that doesn't allow a few to take advantage of a system that the majority of us can no longer qualify for and sets in motion a system that escalates the quality of life for fewer and fewer people who are riding the backs of those who are working harder and harder but are only seeing their bank accounts and cupboards empty out while their indebtedness for the cost of survival is growing.
Maybe the question better asked is who is it that really feels entitled? Is it the ones who break their backs and work hard every day to bring home less or is it the ones who demand policies that benefit the bank accounts of those who are riding on the broken backs of those who are demanding a better quality of life?
http://lastresistance.com/1827/15-an-hour-for-fast-food-workers-entitlement-is-killing-us/
No comments:
Post a Comment