Who’ Da Thunk It?
Everyday life in the dying American empire
As a child growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, I was raised to believe in the American Dream. My parents had benefited from programs like the GI Bill, and were employed in workplaces with strong unions. They believed that hard work, combined with a college education, would allow my sister and I to achieve a comfortable standard of living.
By the time I began to pursue my adult life, in the mid 1980’s, life in the US had radically changed. President Ronald Reagan fired over 11,000 striking air traffic controllers, and decades of union-busting tactics ensued.
The significance of Reagan’s actions is rarely discussed today in the mainstream, and for understandable reasons: It was the first huge offensive in a war that corporate America has been waging on this country’s middle class ever since. As Warren Buffett — current estimated net worth $101 billion — has said, “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” https://theintercept.com/2021/08/06/middle-class-reagan-patco-strike/
In 2023, the “rich class” war against the people is so commonplace, that many of propaganda techniques used to brainwash the people into submission go unnoticed by the majority of US citizens.
