The American worker is being turned into a SLAVE.

[barbaraann]

Today two men delivered a refrigerator to my home which we had purchased from a major retail chain. They carried the double-door appliance in on a circular strap that went over a shoulder of each one an under the very large refrigerator.

One of the men appeared to be an illegal immigrant and did not speak English. The other one was a white man about thirty years old. I started talking with him and he told me that about 3-4 years ago he went from being an employee to being a contractor with NO benefits. He works six days a week, 14-16 hours a day for $100 a day, regardless of the hours. He said his company hires illegal immigrants.

I asked him what he would do if he got injured or sick and he said he was resourceful and would figure out something. He wasn't registered to vote and didn't think it would make much difference if Bush or Kerry was elected, but he had a few good things to say about Clinton and didn't like the Iraq War or Bush. He thought the country wouldn't survive four more years of Bush but he hadn't planned on voting!!!

It's just stunning to me that the rightwingers have convinced so many people that politics/voting is a waste of time and that they have to accept their lot and just stand by passively while our country goes to hell in a handbasket. I think that when the Bushies talk about jobs that don't show up on the radar they are talking about jobs like these two men had and I think that's how they want all of us to be employed.

I gave the man three voter registration forms and he said my talking to him made a difference. I just can't believe that to win we have to convince people that they have a right to be more than a slave, but I guess that's how it is.

[Nikia]

1. Many working poor seem to lack a sense entitlement

Despite what rightwingers would have you believe. They don't believe that they are entitled to higher education, decent wages, good benefits, better jobs, basic respect, the right to quality merchandise, even if they could get it as cheap as Walmart crap, or evidently the right to exercise their Constitutional rights. I see this where I work. It is sad. The rightwingers speak badly of them, that these people are not motivated. It's not that they are lazy. It's that they've given up hope of a better life.

[wurzel]

2. Not Slaves. A defeated People.

Working people in America are a defeated people. With no power base. You might be putting altogether too much faith in Kerry. Even Clinton didn't do a lot for working people, and he was the best we had for along time. When Democrats take care of workers the way Republicans take care of Corporations we may see a change.

[NJCher]

3. you're right, wurzel

Yesterday on Bill Moyers they had the author of a book on how and why Americans vote against their own best interes.

He said one reason for nonvoting from workers is that no one has really championed their cause.

He said Democrats pretty much have dropped the cause of unions over the past 10 years.


Cher

[Senior citizen]

4. Precisely. The corporations admit it.

They say they want to maximize profits.

One way they do this is by cutting labor costs.

Note that corporations don't say they merely wish to increase profits.

In order to MAXIMIZE profits, you have to cut labor costs completely. That means slave labor. Since the corporations privately own the natural resources they have, with the help of imperialist governments they control like ours, driven indigenous peoples away from, they have very little materials cost, and certainly don't want to cut CEO salaries. The only thing they can cut is labor, and in order to "maximize" profits, they must have minimum cost slave labor. Paying workers even a third world pittance might increase profits, but wouldn't "maximize" profits.