The New Social Revolution

Lately I have been on sort of an introspective marijuana binge (if such a thing is possible), and have been writing mostly about myself. However, as the beginning of the new semester draws near I have begun my descent back into reality and have started to pick up on the outside world again. Anyway, to my post…

1968 sparked a revolution around the world. As people were coming down from the Summer of Love they took with them a communal brotherhood and general good will. As they came back into the “real” world they began to question why it was that those feelings they had felt over the summer weren’t being felt now. Slowly they realized that there were serious problems in the world. They saw how truly unfair the America was. They saw discrimination everywhere, not just in the south, but in every major city around America. They also saw their chance at a socially equal world. As they began to band together change became a more realistic probability. The youth started to organize and fight for change. Not just in America, but in France, England, Czechoslovakia, even Mexico as well. All over the world universal social equality and a general sense of community began to grow in the minds of the youth. In Europe universal healthcare began to become commonplace. The French youth reinvigorated the socialist party, the Czechs won more rights for farmers, and the American youth banded with the blacks to fight for civil rights as well as social change. However, change did not come easy in America. The blacks had been fighting for years for their essential civil liberties, and 1968 would prove to be a hard year for both the blacks and the youth. The loss of both Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy in the same year put a swift end to social change in America. Although the civil rights movement won its fight, the youth movement never recovered, and the rage set in. As students saw their peaceful protests failing they began to become increasingly violent. As the violence escalated the hope of the youth in ’68 became the anger in ’69 and apathy of the youth in the 70’s and 80’s, and gradually universal social equality faded away.

Today we are still faced with the same problems we faced in the 60’s. We still have yet to receive universal healthcare, progressive taxes, or free collegiate education. All of which are commonplace in many European countries. Why is it that everywhere else in the world these changes have been in place for years yet hear at home we have yet to pass anything at all similar? The answer is simple. We are still a country driven by the wealthy. Who else could logically oppose these types of social reform? All help both the middle and lower economic classes, which make up the majority of the population, but the change has yet to happen. Why are the poor not voting in large numbers? It’s really quite simple. The lower economic classes don’t care. Not because they don’t want a better life, but because they don’t realize the impact they could have. They don’t give a damn about politics because no politician cares about them. They have to fight so hard every day just to get by and survive that universal social equality means absolutely nothing to them. The lower economic strata of America could, if united, take over politics and bring about any change they wanted. They could better the lives of majority of America, while giving no inconvenience to the minority. However, they are plagued by poverty and crime rates so severe that simply surviving is, on a day to day basis is amazing. The lower class is not the only group who is not fighting for a social change from which they could benefit. While the middle class sits around and bickers over propagated problems, the rich maintain their stranglehold on American politics. Issues such as Gay Marriage are only ideas made up to divert attention away from the injustices being committed on a daily basis. Under the separation of church and state, a church has the right to refuse anyone any church service on any grounds they see fit; however they are not granted the right to interfere in a civil union or marriage performed by a government official. (Now that that issue has been completely resolved in one sentence let us return to what is important.) Universal healthcare, progressive tax rates, and free collegiate education would drastically improve the lives of the middle class without much a change to their daily lives.

America was once the land of opportunity. Now it is only a place where the rich get richer and the poor get babies. For America to truly be the land of opportunity again all of its citizens must have an equal chance at that opportunity. The poor need it the most. Their life is the hardest, yet they are treated the worst. People act like the poor have brought all of their problems upon themselves, by not fighting for their share of the American Dream. But, of all of the people who make this argument, which has ever had to live in South LA, the Bronx, or even the 3^rd Ward of Houston? Kids don’t join gangs because they want to. People don’t apply for Welfare because they want to. And they sure as hell don’t commit crimes because they want to. They do it because they have to; because it is the only life they know. Sure there are success stories like Homeless to Harvard, but the number of people stuck in the life they are born into far outnumber the amount of people who make it out, and a few success stories is by no means a reason to think that everyone can do it. The fact is, if you are born into an inner city ghetto you have far too much going against you to pursue the American Dream. All the while, the middle class sits around debating Gay Marriage, or whatever else is popular like it is going to affect the fate of the universe, completely forgetting that the have to scratch and claw for every single thing they have as the rich just breeze through life. The rich may have worked hard to get rich, but that does not allow them to force the bulk of America’s taxes on the rest of us. In his The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith described his view of the right tax system.

The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

If America truly is the land of opportunity, why is it so wrong that all of her people be granted a fair chance at that opportunity? The wealthy can afford it, the poor need it, and the middle class can most definitely use it. So why do we not have it? Think about where you fit among the economic classes that make up America, and then consider your stances on universal healthcare, our tax system, and state funded collegiate education. If your views don’t match your income ask yourself why. And most definitely let me know.