And it's 1, 2, 3, 4, What Are We Fighting For?

Back then it was a question about Vietnam, today it's the question I asked of my fellow working class and that most endangered of cultural species, the middle class.

Why are we fighting?

Why are we fighting while the rich laugh themselves silly over how stupid we are as to have let them systematically dismantle every protection given to the poor, the near poor and the two paychecks from poor in this nation?

Why do oil companies, on top of record profits counted in the billions, get federal money in subsidies and tax breaks to the tune of approximately four billion dollars a year, but we are snarling at each other over Title X funding, that provides family planning, birth control and reproductive health care (pap smears, mammograms, treatment for STD's including testing and screening for HIV. Oh, and state run family planning clinics do NOT provide abortions, don't try to tell me that they do because they DO NOT.)

Really, America? Multi-trillion dollar companies get federal funding and we shrug our shoulders, but god help a poor woman who wants a pap smear? We turn on her like a pack of mad dogs furious that she dare take one penny of our hard earned money.

As the brave people of the Middle East begin to stand up against autocratic rule, we watch the situation in Wisconsin, where ordinary Americans are standing up for themselves also.

Look at what has been happening. Most of the budget deficit could be amended by letting the Bush era tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans expire. (And if we can't do it because they create jobs, where are all the jobs they created since the tax cuts went into effect? In India, that's where.)

But look, really look at what they are doing, people. The wealthy get a pass on those "tough decisions" that have to be made.

Budget trimming is effecting the poor, children, women, the elderly and the disabled.

Those with power and resources are not being affected one bit.

Those least able to defend themselves are bearing the brunt of these "tough decisions".

And the networks that have been bought by those powerful wealthy, are feeding us a steady diet of hatred for one another. They lie, they mislead, they villify left or right or poor or brown skinned.

We have got to stop fighting with each other and stand together against the oligarchy.

Begin here: Find your representative's email address. Put it in your address book. Whenever an important issue is being discussed, write to him/her and let your opinion be known. If they get one email, they delete it, but if they start getting thousands, they have to respond. It only takes a minute, come on people, miss the first few minutes of American Idol.

Then find your Senator's email address. Repeat.