http://www.truthout.org/actually-rich-dont-create-jobs-we-do/1305380742
I can't emphasize enough that no one became rich on a deserted island. The Rich become rich because they utilize all the advantages of our country which our citizens have created and accumulated through historical time.
The role each citizen takes ranges from farmer, teacher, student, laborer, builder, designer, homemaker, government worker, contractor, manufacturer, factory worker, healer, nurse, nurturer, educator, student, inventor, investor, entrepreneur, dreamer, artist, pastor, councilor, advocate, seamstress, garbage collector, janitor, tradesman, architect, entertainer, statesman, volunteer, academic, writer, journalist, lawyer, to activist, among many more. WE DID THIS!
We originally came to a rich, rich continent which our ancestors took advantage of. (And one would have to admit, stole from the original inhabitants.) None the less, we were a hard working, ingenious, caring and creative people including the additional refugees, homeless and disadvantaged of the world who joined us through the decades. Once upon a time we believed we could create a perfect, fair, democratic nation that would be able to grant a decent life, health, education and growth to even the least of us.
There were originally more than enough resources here to do just that. We built an abundance that could have rewarded all citizens with the basics for a simple, secure, healthy, abundant life in the midst of communities of decent, hardworking, ingenious, caring and generous people. But instead, the harder we worked and the more we labored, invented and created and produced wealth which should have benefitted everyone, the more profit was skimmed off and accumulated by an unscrupulous few who encouraged us to consume more and more short term pleasures while we waited to be allowed equal citizenship in a country we had worked to build.
No, now our role is to buy, buy buy. And by doing so we cover the costs that those who claim to be the creators of wealth have managed to avoid so that their profits can be larger. We bare the cost of pollution on the planet and resultant poor health for those who cannot afford healthcare. We pay for the costs of huge numbers of young adults with no education and few jobs and the children who do not get adequate nutrition or education to develop into the best citizens they can be.
We will pay for loss of biodiversity and ecosystems when the health of the planet deteriorates including the costs on civilization for global warming. We the majority will bare the cost of squandered resources such as fossil fuels, water, and healthy soil. We the people pay for failing infrastructure, for the loss of new technologies that might have provided renewable energy but were never developed. We pay by living in communities built for petroleum based transportation that will not last and loss of sustainable family farms that could not compete with factory farms which are dependent on huge inputs of petroleum and provide less nutritious food than we had been able to produce ourselves locally.
No concern for tomorrow was evident in those who accumulated our wealth for themselves. No thought was given to designing a nation that could provide for all its citizens far into the future. So why is it that the rich should not be taxed? Have they served us well with their privileged accumulation of the fruits of our labor while avoiding any of the true costs of their activity? Did they help create the country we envisioned in the beginning or have they hindered what we might have accomplished if they had paid back to the nation, the true costs of their activities to the nation's people? They claim they have done everything for us. I find they have done little.
WE DID THIS! "We the People" could provide the necessary capital as well as pay all the true costs. There is still enough abundance to do this although time is growing short. Stop working for them and start creating the world we need.
