Depression blog

At a friends last night, the sole bread winner, the uncle doctor was laid off yesterday. My friend is 38, mother 50-60, grandmother ancient. All are unemployed. They have no savings. Medical bills ate that up. The mom says they have "maybe a month", until they lose the home. They began naming things to sell.I grew up poor, even hungry one winter when our lovely father left us in an Idaho house , no phone, food, nothing.My grandpa told me stories of the Great Depression, he lost his ranch to the dust, cattle to disease. He moved back to his mothers reservation, ate entrails with the Cherokee. My own reading of the subject told me about middle class people with homes losing them, nevermind the jobs and savings. This nation really has become a country of ultra-rich and the hoi polloi. Both parties do nothing but destroy us. Immigration? Look, I have nothing against immigrants, my wife is one. She came here legally. Key word. Legal. We can not afford them. Trust me, Americans will do the work. We have become listless in allowing a few politicians, left and right, a few rich to dictate life to us. NAFTA. Clinton did that. Democrats supposedly have a "worker-friendly" history. The EPI(economic Policy Institute) states that over 870,000 jobs have been lost. http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/briefingpapers_bp147/
Outsourcing, i.e., a euphemism for stealing jobs. Where is a Eugene Debs? Yes, I said it. The fantasy that Americans can pull themselves up by their boot straps is, well, a fantasy.We have no boots. Yes, we have no bananas, either.
We needa party that stands with the people of this land. Repeal NAFTA, force companies to bring back the stolen jobs, or be convicted of treason. Remove all troops from Afganistan and Iraq. Now. Put them on the border. Implement a single payer health care system: now. Not tomorrow, or in 2014. Now. Make capital flight a capital crime.
My friends grandma came to America from Manitoba, Russian Jews who settled there after the war. Eventually, they moved to California. Legally. He prospered, their children did well. His grandchildren? We do not have civic minded scions anymore. There too into their foreign born orphans to care about American born orphans. They care too much about foreign disasters but not the disaster staring them in the face.
I suggest a General Strike.Yes, a General Strike asking for a few things. Jobs. Illegals out. Stop the wars and give us health care.If not, we are ushering in a beast that will slouch towards D. C. without Huey Longs anti-Semitism, but with his charisma and taste for erasing enemies. And, Americans would vote him in. I , for one , would follow him to the ends of the earth.My friends who are close to losing their home deserve help. Enough of the corporate fiefdom America has become. We are strangers in a strange land. It appears to not be our nation any longer. But, it is!It can be great.