Written by Bob Maschi   

California Governor, Jerry Brown issued orders that are supposed to force a 25% decrease in water use by residents. Unaffected by the new orders are the agricultural industry—which uses about 80% of California’s water resources. Also unaffected is Nestle which bottles (often for shipment out of the state) hundreds of millions of gallons every year. Also unaffected are the energy companies whose fracking used 70 million gallons of water in 2014 and polluted a whole bunch more.

Residents use only between 4 and 10% of California’s water. So a 25% decrease in their usage would save about 2% in a state suffering a major drought.

Two percent.

In Florida, welfare recipients were ordered to take mandatory drug tests (the law was recently struck down by the courts). According to MSNBC, “Only about 2 percent of applicants tested positive, and Florida actually lost money when it was forced to reimburse everyone else for the cost of the drug test, plus pay for staff and administrative costs for the program.”

In Ferguson, Missouri the police have had to admit that they targeted the poorer population (somber pun intended), usually people of color, with citations and assorted fines. The money was used for balancing their budget (trimming the police force was an option they didn’t pursue).

In Kansas, they’re passing laws to forbid welfare recipients from using their payment on luxury cruises. A score of states have refused to expand Medicare for the poor, opting for nothing in its place. The insanity of financially enslaving generations of bright, young people through sinister student loan programs, continues unabated.

What sense does it make to focus budget cuts and tax increases and other additional costs on the people who can least afford it while the wealthy and their corporations are swimming in cash? What sense does it make that large and profitable companies like EXXON, AT&T, Boeing, General Electric, Verizon and dozens of others usually pay ZERO federal income taxes?

In case there is any doubt in your mind there is, absolutely, a war going on against poor and working people.

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, recently offered some anecdotes about speaking engagements he was offered. In one, the head of a religious congregation asked that he, “…not advocate raising taxes on the wealthy. He said he didn’t want to antagonize certain wealthy congregants on whose generosity the congregation depended.” In another instance, a college president requested that he not criticize Wall Street as investment bankers would be in attendance.

And don’t think it is any different in the media. If a young, Black, male steals a car it’s front page news complete with photos, prior arrest record and elementary school report cards. But if a banker gets caught stealing mortgage money from the elderly, the story is buried behind the full-page ad his institution buys. Do you know how many bankers and investors have gone to jail for crashing our economy a few years ago? Just one. And that was only because he was a lower level manager who was dumb enough to plead guilty.

Politicians from Democrat to Republican and top to bottom, are in a similar predicament faced by Reich. If they speak up, tell the truth and promote real change, they’ll lose their backing and soon after, their livelihood. Then, they’ll be just like the rest of us poor slobs.

So what is the point of this war on the poor or soon to be poor? It isn’t to save or to make money. If that were the case then the wealthy would feel it in their ass-cheeks as well as where they keep their wallets. Nope. The purpose is to keep us off-balance and living in fear. To keep us shut up and submissive. If we’re worrying about bills, about our jobs, about our shrinking bank accounts, we aren’t noticing their thievery and their corruption. The overtime we spend working and worrying is time we cannot educate ourselves or talk to our neighbors or organize with our fellow workers.

Their strategy in this war is a simple one. To prevent us from fighting back. And it’s working.


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