“The Middle and Working Class Manifesto” by Rev. Paul J. Bern.
Watch the video at http://youtu.be/VZguRDJmCqc
I Dare To Dream
The march of economic inequality, from which springs the source of
racism, poverty, crime, violence, and lack of access to healthcare and
higher education, has become the new civil rights issue of the 21st
century. (I like to call it Rev. Dr. MLK, Jr. 2.0.) King's dream of
unconditional equality throughout the country can finish becoming a
reality when the economic barriers that we all face on a daily basis
finally come down for good, like an economic Berlin Wall circa 1989.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke to the masses during the 1963
civil rights march on Washington and said, “I have a dream...”. By
writing and publishing these words it is my intent to help take up where
King's Dream left off, and to do anything I can to help finish the job
that he started. And so let me slightly change that to, “I dare to
dream”.
I dare to dream of a world in which the gap between rich and poor is
gone forever. We all deserve to live in a world where wealth has been
redistributed in a peaceful and orderly manner and not by the barrel of a
gun. I dare to dream of a country where wealth has been redistributed
in 4 ways. First, every worker earns a living wage so poverty can be
eliminated. Second, free higher education and vocational retraining must
be available to every worker for life, including daycare available to
all, that would be based on the worker's or student's ability to pay on a
sliding scale, because everyone has the right to better themselves at
will. Third, I envision an America where quality health care is
available to every worker at nominal cost for life. Single-payer
healthcare based on the current Medicare model must not be reserved only
for those who can afford it, but it must be a fundamental human right
for all ages. I dare to dream of an America where there will be no such
thing as someone without health insurance, where every citizen will have
lifetime healthcare and prescription drug coverage without
qualification, and where there will be the fewest sick days for American
workers and their children of any country in the developed world.
Fourth, “we the people” demand the abolition of the federal tax code,
including elimination of the despised federal withholding tax, which
would give every American worker or business owner an immediate 18% pay
raise.
I dare to dream of a new America with a robust and viable economy. That is why I have been insisting on a $14.00 per hour minimum wage since 2010.
I dare to dream of a new America where education will be subsidized
from the cradle to the grave so that the US develops the most formidable
work force the world has ever seen. I dare to dream of an America where
all workers have the right to organize, to a flexible work week and to
paid family or maternity leave. Most other developed countries already
do this. The US is the only exception and that has got to change. The
only remaining question in my mind is whether we can accomplish this
peacefully or otherwise, and it looks more and more to me like it will
be the latter.
I dare to dream of an America where affordable housing is the law of the land, where home ownership becomes a right and not a privilege so we can wipe out homelessness, and where the price of a house is limited to the sum total of ten years income of any given individual or household purchasers. I insist on a country where home ownership isn't part of an exclusive club with the highest “credit scores”. It is, and must become, a basic human right. Even the cave men lived in caves of their own!
I dare to dream of a country with new public works programs that put an end to unemployment forever so the USA can have full employment all the time. America's infrastructure needs to be rebuilt, and its inner cities are in dire need of an overhaul. What a better way to accomplish this!
I dare to dream of a new America with an all-new public school and
university system that has an Internet-based curriculum that can be
updated at will, and that is second to none in the developed world, with
a new and more intensive school year, and that has viable replacements
for standardized testing, and where class size is limited by law. I dare
to dream of a country where teachers make what their Congressional
representatives make, and vice verse.
I dare to dream of a new nation where unconditional equality is the law
of the land for every citizen without exception, and this will include
economic equality. I dare to dream of a new America where there is no
more income tax, no capital gains tax, no alternative minimum tax, no
estate tax, no self-employment tax, and where families and businesses
can have a tax free income unless they are very wealthy. In its place
would be a national sales tax, such as a Consumption Tax, where everyone
pays proportionately the same tax rate on only what they consume, plus
an “excess wealth tax” for persons with annual incomes exceeding $3
million, and for businesses with annual proceeds exceeding $300 million,
so America's budget can be balanced and fair.
I dare to dream of a better USA where personal privacy is the law of the land, where identity theft is a thing of the past, and where it will be illegal for employers to obtain the credit files or credit scores of any job applicant.
I dare to dream of a more compassionate America where children have the right to a challenging and progressive learning environment, and where kids will be legally guaranteed freedom from hunger, sickness and violence, and where all God's children will have the right to safe adoption, foster care and day care.
I dare to dream of an all-new voting system, including the abolition of the elitist Electoral College, that is Internet-based, paperless, and that can be accessed from any location using any computer or wireless device, instead of wasting our time and fuel and losing work time going to polling stations, and instead of using unreliable and unsecured voting machines.
I dare to dream of an America of integrity where all of the dirty corporate money and all the filthy lucre is abolished from our political process. I dare to dream of an America where the Wall Street shysters who crashed the US economy are brought to justice, and where the keys to all of the fraudulently foreclosed homes are returned to their rightful owners.
I dare to dream of the end to America's sinister war on drugs, where all convicted nonviolent drug offenders can qualify for alternative sentences for their offenses so they may obtain early release, and where all the currently illegal drugs are legalized, regulated and taxed by appropriate legislation.
Finally, I dare to dream of a world in which all this is easily financially achievable because all the money that is being wasted currently on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and to a lesser extent in Pakistan, Libya and elsewhere will be redirected towards all these dreams that I have just mentioned. The money is already there, its just being budgeted in all the wrong places. Let me tell you why.
If the US military took all the money it spends occupying Afghanistan for just one day and put it into an interest-bearing account, there would be enough money available to send every American school kid from the first grade up to senior year in high school through 4 years of college fully paid for, including tuition, dorms, books, food, access to the Internet and to public transportation. Here's another example: If the US government took all that money set aside from one days worth of military expenditures in Afghanistan alone, there would be enough money to build a 2,500 square feet house, fully furnished and stocked with groceries, with all the utilities already turned on, for every homeless person in the US including all the homeless kids. That's how easily we can end homelessness in the richest country in the world.
Just as surely as there was an Arab Spring beginning in 2011 that is still ongoing in Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and Somalia, to name a few, so I am telling you that there will be an American Spring in her near future. In fact, I'm surprised it hasn't already begun. Beginning in 2011 with the start-up of the “Occupy” and “99%” Movements, of which I am proud to be a part, this uprising of the American people against the top 1% will explode like an atomic mushroom cloud over the American political and economic elite, obliterating them all in a bloodless coup without anyone having fired a single shot – so that the remaining 99% of us can peacefully take back what has been stolen from us over the last 100 years. We can only accomplish this by uniting together as one and acting as one body to break free from the shackles of oppression that have us all enslaved. Who is with me today?
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