A Shrinking Middle Class: A Growing Prison Population

Remember when President George W. Bush and his corporate cronies told us everything’s good and the economy is as rosy as can be? It probably was in the Bush gardens, but here in the tangible world where real people are affected by one malignant policy after another, the situation has disintegrated into a field of thorny weeds.

In contrast to a future filled with prospects, we, on the ground level, see some of America’s corporate icons sinking fast; from major airlines to a couple of America’s premiere automakers. Some sectors of corporate America seem to be see-sawing between senior lay-offs and low wage hiring; others are unpatriotically abandoning American workers for cheap labor abroad.

And it gets uglier: In August, 2005, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 37 million Americans live in poverty, up 1.1 million from the previous year, and up consecutively for 5 years straight.

The lamentable irony is that China, our emerging rival in everything from consumer spending to economic growth, is fostering a middle class at a rate of 1 million a month; obviously fueled by regrettable neo-American policies.

Kind of engenders a sinking feeling America might be imploding. Falling apart for the same reasons socialism in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics crumbled in the ‘80s: cronyism and greed at the top. Likewise with Rome, which neglected its interior and over-extended its might and hubris abroad.

Meanwhile, according to a variety of news reports, foreclosures, bankruptcies and homelessness in America are up. College enrollment, especially in minority sectors, is down and dropout rates downright shameful.

So the middle-class is shrinking, the working poor is a growing class, and poverty is robust.

According to the Department of Justice, Bureau of Statistics, there are over 2 million prisoners in the U.S. (we are beating China at something), and we’re locking up an average of 900 people a week.

You name it and there’s a new law against it. American policing has reached unparalleled heights, along with media reports of police brutality. But despite convictions of executive cheats like former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, or the guilty plea of former Boeing executive Darlene Druyun, stemming from a nefarious conspiracy involving a $23 billion Air Force contract, it’s the Wall Street elite who invest in the poor’s imprisonment. For it is the poor, not the elite, who fill up America’s prisons; yet the crimes of the elite are so much more extensive.

Progressives and the conscious call it a war on the poor. Unfortunately, too many at the bottom haven’t even realized they’re under attack.

The most frightening aspect of it all is that it is primarily the poor and middle-class who finance and support our very own demise. We tolerate deception from those we privilege to hold office instead of forcing a cycle where the new guy, any new guy, is given a chance. After a few of these cycles it will become evident to policy makers that keeping it clean is the only way to remain in office. Moreover, too many of us continue to patronize crooked corporations and re-elect sellout political figures without any demands or accountability.

Until this changes, that is until we change it, those of us already in the know can assure you, it’s getting pretty crowded in and down here.

Source list:

John O’Dell, “Fired Boeing Executive to Plead Guilty to Conspiracy,” Los Angeles Times, April, 2004: C1, C4

U.S. Census Bureau

U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Statistics

Alan Mendohlson, “Troubled Economy, Economic Woes,” KCAL-9, June 5, 2006

Bill Alexander, NBC, The Today Show (Challenging Economic Times), May 14, 2006

Michael McCarthy, “[Lou] Dobbs Fires Away Against Outsourcing,” USA Today, February 23, 2005: 3B

Mark Trumbull, “Inflation’s Rising Toll on Consumers,” Christian Science Monitor, May 18, 2006: pp. 1, 10

Update, June 2006: On his way out of the White House, President Bush acknowledged that the American economy was sliding downhill fast. During emergency congressional sessions economists suggested a massive $7 billion dollar bailout of the banking industry was needed, and they (the rich) got it with no strings attached.