WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?

In 1931 Florence Reece, the wife of Sam Reece, wrote the song that has been used to call attention to the plight of underrepresented poor and lower-middle income Americans in their struggles for dignity, economic rights, and civil rights. Mrs. Reece was the wife of Sam Reece, a union organizer for United Mine Workers, who was targeted and intimated by a powerful sheriff J. H. Blair and a small of armed men hired by the mine owners. One night after the sheriff and his band had stormed into the Reece home and harassed Sam’s family, Mrs. Reece wrote the song. She took the melody from an old Baptist hymn. The song became well known all over the country when Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan sang it at rallies held in solidarity with people whose civil and/or economic rights were being threatened.

The song has been running through my head all day. The majority party in the House of Representatives is participating again this week in its now familiar circular firing squad. Even after news media reported this morning that CEOs in the United States enjoyed on average a rise in annual compensation last year of 27 percent while the median salary of Americans (remember median is not the same as average) hovered at $27,000. That means, of course, that fully half of working Americans are earning less than $27,000 a year; yet all but four of the Republican members of Congress have signed Grover Norquist’s pledge not to raise taxes on anybody... which means they are unwilling to adjust the tax rate even on the CEO in a health services company who enjoyed last year a salary of $145 million dollars (the highest paid CEO in America, John Hammergren of healthcare provider McKesson). By the way, that $145 million paid to McKesson’s CEO is more than the corporation paid in taxes. J.P. Morgan’s Jamie Dimon got a $19 million raise and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein got an extra $3.6 million in bonuses. My own song, “I Don’t Get It,” may become tiresome to folks who read my BLOG, but I remain incredulous. How can it be?

My grandfather wasn’t a man who cussed much, at least not in my hearing; but I remember his favorite joke. “A man paddled his son for some transgression that he had been warned not to commit, and after a couple of whacks, he stopped and demanded, “Now what you think?” The boy said nothing. The father said, “I know what you think. You think “Dammit...” Now I whup you for cussing.” Folks in the “Occupy” movement are getting the “Now I’ll whup you for protesting” response from people in power in many local governments. Even students at the University of California at Davis were pepper-sprayed when they peacefully sat-in to protest rises in college costs and to show solidarity with people in the “Occupy Movement.” It's true that the protesters sometimes don’t have a clearly articulated message. Some of them are just saying “Dammit.”

Democrats and Republicans don’t agree on how to pay for something that both sides claim to want-- extension of a payroll tax holiday for almost every worker. Republicans in the Senate and the House say it can be paid for by cutting workers from government agencies... in other words, put more people out of work. Democrats want to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans. Republicans use the slippery slope argument and say that if we raise taxes now on people who have more money than they could possibly need, the next step will be an increase in taxes on the people who aren’t rich. The dilemma for Republicans is that if they don’t act, the payroll tax will increase for almost every worker at the end of the year. In other words, in order to protect the incomes of the richest Americans they seem willing to see taxes go up by about $1000 a year on most Americans. They are having a hard time finding logical reasons to preserve the great tax breaks enjoyed by the wealthiest folks, so tomorrow we’ll learn if they are willing to shut down the government rather than to compromise.

...And when it comes to “circular firing squad” exercises, how about the Republican presidential candidates debates.

Oh, yeah. I forgot to say. I know which side I’m on... and so do most people know which side they are on. The majority of American are on the side of the people, the workers; sadly, too many of them just don’t vote.