The Forgotten Class

An interesting interview just given by Bill Moyers on PBS discusses what both presidential candidates fail to recognize: the lower class. McCain hasn't even acknowledged any classes in his campaign, and Obama is sternly focused on the middle class. But what about the lower class, the poor, those who are struggling to provide adequate food, housing, and a decent standard of living for themselves, because gas prices are so high, food prices are rising, credit is untouchable, and housing and rent costs are through the roof? It is blatantly obvious that no political member in the United States knows how, or should it be said wants to recognize a huge amount of people who have no influence on America's rudderless leadership, other than the fact that they are just ever-present.

How does such a lower level economic mass begin to effectively be a player in the political realm of government? In the past, revolutions seemed to have been the only means for poorer classes to force recognition upon their leaders, or in fact turn over the ruling institution, and grab hold with their own structures of economy and rule. The one thing the United States is missing since its inception is a revolution of sorts, one in which has completely turned the governing structure on its heels, and replacing it with what is necessary to make the populace feel secure in the way they can effectively, and efficiently get through life under a governance.

The United States, is in a sense revolution-proof. A large part of the lower class in America is partially informed, but not what most would call educated about how they're governed. Entertainment has replaced informative news at this level, because it is not only simpler to digest, but also quicker, and much more pleasing to absorb. How many people, lower class or not, actually spend the time to watch a Congressional hearing on C-Span, or actually read longer articles in a newspaper about current affairs (other than sports and entertainment related articles), or the economy? For one, they are complicated to understand, and often time overwhelm the reader with verbiage that is written by intellectually elite journalists, who are reluctant to inform at the level of a high school graduate. Granted there are some really great Internet resources available that scale this information down, but they still don't get the message across, because it's simply not interesting. Look at shows like John Stewart and the Colbert report, that do in fact give the average intellect an informed perspective of politics, government, or economy, but yet because it is satire, it leaves out all the questions, or the arguments of political perspective. So, for the most part, information in this country, and the ability to make an informed decision about your quality of life is basically removed via pulp entertainment.

Even the news in some cases is pulp entertainment. All major networks pretty much cover the same issues with slightly varying points of view. So the headlines are packaged into quick and easy relatable stories, without substance. Take for instance, the economic bail out of $700 billion being granted to financial corporations. Yes, it gets the people worked up, but because there is no points or counterpoints provided by the news networks, people won't despise or protest what they are hearing about, because they don't fully understand the reasoning behind it. They simply cannot understand, once they revolted, the arguments for changing it. In the same interview, as mentioned above, Moyers asks, Michael Zweig, that you can have a journalist relate this news to people, and have a professional economist advocate for them, why is there no unions, or other representative institution in place to provide a movement for these people to gather muscle to get the government to listen to them, and Zweig's response is, that they do in fact exist, but the problem is they are, if not weak, simply not active, and if after the presidential election they don't come to muscling up, there is a need for organization to "come from below". He even has tried to go to these organizations and have them gather their members, in an effort to educate them on how to get a better footing in the current economic struggle. Informing the masses simply isn't happening in the news, and these folks are not getting the information they need from anywhere else.

What You Want to Hear Comapred to What You Should Know

Last night's presidential debate, though in most of media's opinion was pretty bad as far as structure, but the content is a great reflection of how much the balance of truth in the U.S. is so lopsided, that it doesn't seem that American's know what to ask themselves what they expect of a leader. Instead, Americans have always lumped all the failures of the government on the shoulders of presidential candidates, in hopes that they can solve all their problems.

That's a huge responsibility to expect of two people, and is not even close to being reasonable. On the Republican stance for smaller government, if we look at the government's disposition under a Republican leadership, the government is huge. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the government's employee count comes in at 1.8 million employees, and that doesn't include the postal service (Federal Government, Excluding the Postal Service). With 488 congressmen, and 15 cabinet member within the Bush administration, there is apparently a large amount of government presence. The point here is presidents are not the sole solution to the country's problems. They only manage, and if they manage instead of controlling the government, then they can indeed solve all the nation's problems.

Something that really stood out last night, was McCain pointing out that Obama was wrong about the surge in Iraq. Well, he wasn't wrong. Yesterday afternoon, General Petraeus talked about the future of U.S. Central Command, addressing the Association of the U.S. Army, and he mentioned the surge, and stated that the surge was in fact not the reason for success in Iraq. So would you believe a presidential candidate or the general who is running the war? Obama wasn't wrong. To add to this, Obama wants to deal with fighting al Qaeda in Pakistan, because that's where they are. They are not in Iraq, and Afghanistan is not the frontier of this war. Currently the U.S. military is carrying out military attacks within Pakistan's border, and this is all while George W. Bush is in office calling the shots. Which leads into the next point.

McCain also accused Obama of not understanding national security issues, and that if Obama was president, there would be no time for "on-the-job training". First off, neither candidate has any experience with contending with foreign threats, outside of making ineffective votes in the Senate. Both candidates supported a war in Iraq that was a pseudo-declaration based not on intelligence and fact, but based on suspicions. Because, when the Bush administration went to the United Nations for the case to go to war in Iraq, Bush expressed a need to go to war based on the suspicion that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, not a fact. No one in the intelligence sector felt that was an adequate truth, and it “was [now] a guiding principle of the U.S. government that suspicion was an adequate threshold for preventative action." (Suskind, Ron (2006). The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11. (pp. 170-171) New York. Simon & Schuster.) No one needs training to be a fear mongering, and suspicious character, or a leader that cannot responsibly deal with foreign policies.

As far as the economy is concerned, which is a very heavy issue right now with Americans, both candidates were a bit weak, and there was no real backbone behind their statements in dealing with economic issues. But Obama constantly gets slammed for wanting to raise taxes. but, there was a statement made by a CNN correspondent, who said that McCain has an axe chop when it comes to dealing with the economy, where as Obama uses a surgical knife to cut away taxes, and dealing with budgets. Currently we don't need a president who uses volatile policies on a volatile economy. Obama wants to increase taxes for those who bring in more than $250,000 a year. There are billions of people in America who don't even bring home over $100,000 a year. It seems that Obama is more aware of the economic make up of the U.S., and McCain is so far out of touch.

Consider these points! Also remember these are issues that the candidates support, but will not directly have control over. It must be realized that they will only steer the policies into the direction that the people see fit. The president only has as much power as the people sacrifice to him.

Get out and vote, and don't leave the control of your future in the hands of leaders who won't listen.