COMPLACENY OR HELPLESSNESS?

The American middle class has been hammered for the past 33 years yet all is calm.  How can that be?  We have lost most of our manufacturing jobs replaced by low wage burger flipping or retail sales paying in a lot of cases much less that a living wage. Some have several of these jobs to try and provide for their families.  In lots of cases both members of the family have multiple jobs and just earn enough between them to live.

No street movement has been detected unless you wish to count the Occupy movement as a street movement.. At this juncture I am not sure what I call the Occupy folks, hardly a movement I think as they had no real goal , bragged on the fact that they had no leaders, they relied on hand wiggling meetings to decide their course of action.. No stated demands, no leaders, no effect..

We look around the world and see masses in the streets over a lot less than has been done to our middle class.. Everywhere you look except the USA people are in the streets fighting for their rights or some social change , they are even at times violent.. 

But not here in the good ole US.. So it begs the question are our citizens complacent, or do they just feel helpless.   I can make a case for both but I am leaning toward the complacent side of the argument..   There is little excuse available for folks to claim they didn't know they were being had.. what with the internet, Facebook like sites, Twitter, texting, cell phones etc. they can't possibly not know they are being had.

If you talk to people in the streets about their economic plight they look at you like your crazy.. More often than not they shrug and say that is just the way it is.. If quizzed on how to bring about a change for the good , they don't have a clue.  We see the beginning of a movement in the fast food business with their one day strikes..but one day is not near enough.. The hell of it is if they walked till they win the day , the day would never come as their are too many unemployed folks waiting to take their crappy jobs.

So the change needs to be made by those of us who buy their products, but a whole lot more need to participate in boycotts of their establishments.  We can with a little effort change who we buy from.  Walmart is the biggest offender in the country but the other top  ten retailers are as bad..  Fast food joints are a major offender.  We can select other choices, local providers where possible but if not available choose places that treat their workers better.. Some examples of choices I have made , I don't shop at Walmart most of the time, I don't use Dishnet because their customer service is foreign based.. Direct is local.. There are local food establishments I use.. Winco, Cosco, Foodmax etc.  If we all started making choices like that we could force a change..

So in the end I believe that a majority are complacent and because they see it as hopeless that they could bring about change..

What we are needing is a leader such as a Martin Luther Kind, or maybe just a John Kennedy .. There are a couple of politicians out there that could lead a Elizabeth Warren, or a Bernie Sanders or an Alen Grayson, they would of course require we get off our dean and dying asses and back them by going to the streets, not going to work, not paying bills and spending no money.. Shortly when their cash flows stopped they would seek what it will take to bring us back to work..  The leaders such as those mentioned would have the clout to get us what we need.  If we took the political route it would take longer with a lot of small contributions to fund and cut the corporate folks out of the loop.. It might take an election or two to vote out the scum factor in congress but it can be done.. the Tea Party showed us how..

We can change it if we want to get change.