Economic Injustice

Every week, there is a new crisis.

Conflicts are heating up in the Middle East, including US bombers striking Iran. Israel continues to attack Gaza. Putin has escalated attacks against Ukraine. Trump has empowered secret police to mask up and abduct people off the streets, including those here legally and even US citizens. The economy is worsening. Laws are being broken. Court orders ignored.

Some of it is intentionally manufactured; the rest results from corruption and ineptitude–all of it keeps the media and the public reacting to the latest catastrophe instead of discussing solutions to America’s fundamental problems.

Nothing will ever change if we don’t set aside time to discuss a path forward. The one topic that will address the most issues is economic injustice.

Poverty, homelessness, hunger, lack of healthcare, failing Social Security, reliance on federal aid, the national debt, and even crime are all made worse by economic injustice.

This isn’t a new realization. Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed a second bill of rights to enshrine economic security into the Constitution in 1944. These included:

• Right to a job.

• Right to a living wage.

• Right to housing.

• Right to adequate healthcare.

• Right to economic security in old age, sickness, injury, and unemployment.

• Right to a good education.

• Right for farmers to sell their products at a fair price for a decent living.

• Right to freedom from unfair competition and monopolies.

A quality list, but one that Roosevelt’s party abandoned after his death. In 1960, the Democratic Party nominated John F. Kennedy as its candidate and included the Economic Bill of Rights in its platform. Martin Luther King Jr. had long sought economic justice and supported the Economic Bill of Rights in a 1968 essay published after his assassination. Other Civil Rights activists published A Freedom Budget For All Americans in 1966.

There was a strong movement pushing for economic justice in America, but the 1970s changed a lot. Corporations began lobbying and buying politicians. Unions were attacked, and economic progress was pushed backward. Reagan brought Supply-Side Economics, or Trickle-Down Economics, to the forefront in the 1980s. As hard-working Americans began to struggle, the fight for economic justice fell to the wayside.

It isn’t that no progress was made. In 1968, when the buying power of the minimum wage peaked, it was a livable wage. Social Security was enacted to ensure people with disabilities and the elderly had the economic means to survive, even thrive. Antitrust laws were written to stop monopolies. Federal job programs helped people gain the skills they needed to get ahead, and loan programs allowed far more people to obtain higher education.

But all of that has been neglected.

The federal minimum wage is now a poverty wage in every state. Social Security is underfunded, which, if left unaddressed, will cause benefits to decrease in the near future. Antitrust laws have gone unenforced, and monopolies have eliminated competition, innovation, and low prices. Federal job programs were ended, and the price for higher education has become unattainable to many Americans once again. Even the recent Affordable Care Act has consistently been under attack, including with the current administration, and Medicare is facing cuts that will make millions lose their healthcare altogether.

The people have stopped fighting for themselves and for progress. We’re so busy trying to make ends meet and process the never-ending onslaught of domestic and global events that we’ve forgotten that our government is supposed to work for us. We’ve forgotten that we have the power to create change.

I’m not suggesting we attempt to pass congressional amendments in this time of extreme division. But we can get laws enacted. We can use legislation to pursue economic justice for all Americans. Once we do, the positive effects of that justice will be apparent to all. Then, we may be able to cement these rights into our Constitution to ensure they will last for generations to come.

And that is why, instead of writing about Iran, Israel, Russia, ICE, nuclear weapons, failed trade deals, or any of the rest, I am using my 200th update to bring focus back to one of the longest-lasting and most fundamental problems facing our nation. There is plenty to discuss about the US bombing Iran and the lessons we’ve learned from the conflicts in Israel and Ukraine, and we will discuss them. However, I will also be writing a series of articles on how we address economic injustice and why it benefits all of America to do so.

It isn’t enough to be against what is happening. We need a plan on how we move forward. A plan millions can get behind to make it a reality. No one should be hungry, homeless, or without medical care in the wealthiest nation on Earth. Everyone should be able to improve their life through an honest day’s work. And no one should needlessly suffer when disaster strikes.

It is time to realize just how many lies have become mainstream because corporations and special interests are buying politicians, media companies, and social networks. All of it is designed to enrich them at the expense of everyone else, and we have not only allowed it, but we repeat their lies to our detriment daily and attack each other instead of them.

I want you, all of you, to have a better life. I want America to be prosperous, inventive, and a world leader, not just in wealth and power, but in humanity. I will show you why we should all want that and how to achieve it.

It is time for progress in America. It is time to end economic injustice once and for all. I leave you with quotes from when Roosevelt introduced these new rights.

“We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.”

“We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. "Necessitous men are not free men." People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Bill_of_Rights