(Originally posted to Facebook October 17, 2011)
Dear "Taxpayers" of America,
I regret that I must use the title or term of your design loosely, but many of those posting letters and pictures of how they are in the percentage of Americans that pay taxes do not, in fact, actually pay those taxes, as from the letters I have read, most of those individuals appear to qualify for rather exceptional tax returns in excess of what they would have paid during the course of the year. I felt I needed to explain the quotations surrounding the term before proceeding further into the heart of the letter.
Perhaps we have different views of that cultural icon known as "The American Dream". Perhaps we are not, as modern colloquialism would say, "Not in sync." You, the 53s, seem to feel that the dream is still quite alive, though it requires holding between two and four jobs, living below one's means, denying one's self any real enjoyment in life in the hopes that your sacrifices will one day pay off with incredible success. I, however, still believe in the mid-20th century application of the Dream, the "Leave it to Beaver"-esque model of how life should be. Certainly, we should not have life reflect television, but the appropriate analogy is there. The American Dream, where a family not just survives, but thrives, on the income of a single individual. The proverbial breadwinner of the family has a job with benefits: health insurance, sick days, paid vacations, retirement plan, etc. Their wages/salary allow them to purchase a car, buy a modest house suitable for their family, put something into savings for both their children's education and their own retirement. There are difficult times, certainly, but they are rarities that do not permanently impact the healthiness and happiness of the family or the individuals therein.
That is the Dream... that goal to which we would all strive. We're not looking to be wealthy beyond measure; however, we would like all of our years of hard work to show something more than the blisters and callouses of regret and sacrifice. I was a professional for some years, first in the military and later in retail management. I scraped by, I managed to live from paycheck to paycheck, a task made more daunting when children were added into the mix. I spent over ten years trying to balance debts and the necessities for survival.
Should I have to choose between the Dream and spending time with my kids? Should I have to choose between having a decent house/apartment and owning a vehicle? Should I have to eat simple and bland foods in order to afford private insurance? Should any of us have to do any of these and more?
Do not mistake my the intent of my message. I believe hard work should be involved; however, I do not believe life should be work and no play... I do not believe we should sacrifice everything in order to work for the future potential of a chance at the Dream. Just a chance, not a guarantee that we're going to get it.
I empathize with the letters from the 53%. I understand and respect your perspective. But let me state something rather important, a major flaw in your argument:
You are, in fact, still part of the 99%, regardless of whether or not you believe that you are. If you're working sixty-plus hours per week, balancing your debts with your basic survival needs, never taking a vacation, never being able to enjoy life for more than a few moments, then you are the 99%. It is not about your ideology, your personal beliefs, your work ethic, your ethnicity, your service... it is about the growing divide between the classes, the continuing decline of what was once a strong middle-class. The 99% is about not being part of the 1% that controls a vast percentage of the wealth in our nation. Hell, we could even extend it to say, "We are the 95%", and counting the 5% that controls approximately 70% of the wealth as the adversary in this "class war".
Let's understand this. It is not about freedom or patriotism. It isn't about extremist political agendas. It's not about lazy, unwashed masses looking for handouts.
It's about Democracy. God-damned, capital fucking "D", Democracy.
It's about our nation's version of it, the idea that the government serves at the will of the people and should, respectively, serve the interests of the people. It's about our system being damaged, broken, in a state of disrepair in that it no longer allows equality of voice. It's about money and promises of power shaping the political landscape... and I'm talking all sides of the ideological spectrum, from one extreme to the other.
We haven't had a division between the classes this large since the late 19th/early 20th centuries... and that gap was brought about due to corruption within the system. Powerful figures with exceptional amounts of money and a desire to exploit their fellow men pushing the system to do what they wanted it to do. We fixed that with child labor laws, with the application of the 40-hour work week, with sufferage... you name it. The system was changed and people, for the most part, went on to find their portion of the Dream.
Now, we have corporate entities, recognized as individuals, who perform the same function as the old rail and industrial barons. We have lobbyists and interest groups poking and prodding at federal regulations in order to maximize their profits.
Now, I don't begrudge the desire to make profits. We are a capitalist nation, after all... and capitalism works better than other economic systems. But, we must decide if we want our version of capitalism to be exploitative or if we would prefer for it to offer a measure of fairness to all involved. Do we want to keep hearing the variations of "pull yourself up by the bootstraps", only to find that no matter how hard we work, no matter how hard we try, the heights to which we aspire will continue to move just out of our reach?
I don't. I want better than that. I want it for myself, for my fiancee, for my children, for my family, for my friends, for the strangers across the nation who find themselves in the same predicament. I want better for everyone who gives it more than a try or two. We shouldn't have to kill ourselves to survive... that's counter-intuitive and at cross purposes.
I want better for the 53%. I want better for the 99%. Hell, I even want better for the 1%.
That's what the 99% implies. We want our nation to be better, as it has been in the past. We want the system to change, to repair itself. We want America for all Americans and not just some of them. We want all voices heard, we want the majority represented as equally as the more powerful minority. We want the system to work the way it was designed to.
And I'm sure the 53% would agree. We're not asking for handouts; rather, we're asking for acknowledgment that our hard work will provide reward instead of a seemingly endless sacrifice of our lives at the grindstone.
Deny it if you want, but it doesn't change the fact that we are all the 99%. We are the muted voices of the nation, the metal shaped between the hammer of the powered interests and the anvil of the governments.
You are the 99%. I am the 99%. We are in this together, whether we like it or not.
Sincerely,
The Belief in 100%
Dear "Taxpayers" of America,
I regret that I must use the title or term of your design loosely, but many of those posting letters and pictures of how they are in the percentage of Americans that pay taxes do not, in fact, actually pay those taxes, as from the letters I have read, most of those individuals appear to qualify for rather exceptional tax returns in excess of what they would have paid during the course of the year. I felt I needed to explain the quotations surrounding the term before proceeding further into the heart of the letter.
Perhaps we have different views of that cultural icon known as "The American Dream". Perhaps we are not, as modern colloquialism would say, "Not in sync." You, the 53s, seem to feel that the dream is still quite alive, though it requires holding between two and four jobs, living below one's means, denying one's self any real enjoyment in life in the hopes that your sacrifices will one day pay off with incredible success. I, however, still believe in the mid-20th century application of the Dream, the "Leave it to Beaver"-esque model of how life should be. Certainly, we should not have life reflect television, but the appropriate analogy is there. The American Dream, where a family not just survives, but thrives, on the income of a single individual. The proverbial breadwinner of the family has a job with benefits: health insurance, sick days, paid vacations, retirement plan, etc. Their wages/salary allow them to purchase a car, buy a modest house suitable for their family, put something into savings for both their children's education and their own retirement. There are difficult times, certainly, but they are rarities that do not permanently impact the healthiness and happiness of the family or the individuals therein.
That is the Dream... that goal to which we would all strive. We're not looking to be wealthy beyond measure; however, we would like all of our years of hard work to show something more than the blisters and callouses of regret and sacrifice. I was a professional for some years, first in the military and later in retail management. I scraped by, I managed to live from paycheck to paycheck, a task made more daunting when children were added into the mix. I spent over ten years trying to balance debts and the necessities for survival.
Should I have to choose between the Dream and spending time with my kids? Should I have to choose between having a decent house/apartment and owning a vehicle? Should I have to eat simple and bland foods in order to afford private insurance? Should any of us have to do any of these and more?
Do not mistake my the intent of my message. I believe hard work should be involved; however, I do not believe life should be work and no play... I do not believe we should sacrifice everything in order to work for the future potential of a chance at the Dream. Just a chance, not a guarantee that we're going to get it.
I empathize with the letters from the 53%. I understand and respect your perspective. But let me state something rather important, a major flaw in your argument:
You are, in fact, still part of the 99%, regardless of whether or not you believe that you are. If you're working sixty-plus hours per week, balancing your debts with your basic survival needs, never taking a vacation, never being able to enjoy life for more than a few moments, then you are the 99%. It is not about your ideology, your personal beliefs, your work ethic, your ethnicity, your service... it is about the growing divide between the classes, the continuing decline of what was once a strong middle-class. The 99% is about not being part of the 1% that controls a vast percentage of the wealth in our nation. Hell, we could even extend it to say, "We are the 95%", and counting the 5% that controls approximately 70% of the wealth as the adversary in this "class war".
Let's understand this. It is not about freedom or patriotism. It isn't about extremist political agendas. It's not about lazy, unwashed masses looking for handouts.
It's about Democracy. God-damned, capital fucking "D", Democracy.
It's about our nation's version of it, the idea that the government serves at the will of the people and should, respectively, serve the interests of the people. It's about our system being damaged, broken, in a state of disrepair in that it no longer allows equality of voice. It's about money and promises of power shaping the political landscape... and I'm talking all sides of the ideological spectrum, from one extreme to the other.
We haven't had a division between the classes this large since the late 19th/early 20th centuries... and that gap was brought about due to corruption within the system. Powerful figures with exceptional amounts of money and a desire to exploit their fellow men pushing the system to do what they wanted it to do. We fixed that with child labor laws, with the application of the 40-hour work week, with sufferage... you name it. The system was changed and people, for the most part, went on to find their portion of the Dream.
Now, we have corporate entities, recognized as individuals, who perform the same function as the old rail and industrial barons. We have lobbyists and interest groups poking and prodding at federal regulations in order to maximize their profits.
Now, I don't begrudge the desire to make profits. We are a capitalist nation, after all... and capitalism works better than other economic systems. But, we must decide if we want our version of capitalism to be exploitative or if we would prefer for it to offer a measure of fairness to all involved. Do we want to keep hearing the variations of "pull yourself up by the bootstraps", only to find that no matter how hard we work, no matter how hard we try, the heights to which we aspire will continue to move just out of our reach?
I don't. I want better than that. I want it for myself, for my fiancee, for my children, for my family, for my friends, for the strangers across the nation who find themselves in the same predicament. I want better for everyone who gives it more than a try or two. We shouldn't have to kill ourselves to survive... that's counter-intuitive and at cross purposes.
I want better for the 53%. I want better for the 99%. Hell, I even want better for the 1%.
That's what the 99% implies. We want our nation to be better, as it has been in the past. We want the system to change, to repair itself. We want America for all Americans and not just some of them. We want all voices heard, we want the majority represented as equally as the more powerful minority. We want the system to work the way it was designed to.
And I'm sure the 53% would agree. We're not asking for handouts; rather, we're asking for acknowledgment that our hard work will provide reward instead of a seemingly endless sacrifice of our lives at the grindstone.
Deny it if you want, but it doesn't change the fact that we are all the 99%. We are the muted voices of the nation, the metal shaped between the hammer of the powered interests and the anvil of the governments.
You are the 99%. I am the 99%. We are in this together, whether we like it or not.
Sincerely,
The Belief in 100%
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