TERRY MOSHER
BERNIE SANDERS
I was surprised the other day to discover some good news. It’s a rare find in today’s world. So I thought I’d pass it on to maybe brighten your day.
Nevzat Aydin, CEO of a Turkish firm, gave out an average of $237,000 in bonus money to 114 of his employees after the company was sold to a German firm. The unexpected gesture had some employees crying and screaming in joy. According to a CNN report that first aired this, the average monthly wages of these employees were from $1,000 to $2,000.
Meanwhile, contract negotiations over a Russell Wilson wage increase continues onward as training camp gets set to open. The hitch in these prolonged negotiations apparently is over guaranteed money. As you know, NFL contracts are not guaranteed as they are in baseball, so the trend in recent years is to get up-front guaranteed money in new contracts.
I don’t know about you, but how much Wilson makes or doesn’t make is not my business. I’ve gotten very tired of sports radio shock jocks talking about this over and over and over again, week after week after week. Don’t they have something else they can talk about?
It would be nice, I suppose, if all NFL team owners would do as the Turkey CEO did and share a large sum of their profits with the players without worrying about negotiated salary caps, but that isn’t going to happen. Owners didn’t become owners being stupid. They are happy to have their wallets zipped shut and locked by a collective bargaining agreement so they don’t spend unwisely.
This thought brings me around to a thought I have had for a long time: The capitalistic system is broken. Yes, the system promotes incentive in the work force to find better ways to do thing and that can result in those who have the bright ideas to make large sums of money. But it’s gotten to the point now that almost all the power is in the hands of the huge corporations and the ultra-rich and they are getting more and more power and more and more wealth at the expense of the workers who are getting less and less power and less and less wealth. It’s a vicious cycle that is creating a large gulf between the haves and have nots
This is not the way it’s supposed to work. In our early years of the Industrial revolution the often cruel and long working hours led to the formation of unions to protect workers, but they were formed only after some long and violent battles that cost lives.
Those unions helped balance out some of the disparities and led to better working conditions. But unions have been losing ground for a decade or more and we are going right back to where we were before those battles were fought and won.
Don’t believe for a second that the American worker hasn’t noticed. That is why a guy like Bernie Sanders can suddenly be so popular among presidential candidates. He is mostly socialistic and his popularity is based on his war on big corporations, big banks and the sleaze that is Wall Street and his demand that the wealth be shared with the worker.
Bernie will not win. There is too much power in the hands of the rich and they will make sure he does not see the White House.
Hillary Clinton will not win, either. She has too much baggage and is too phony to survive the Koch Brothers and their servants.
But it will be an interesting presidential season because we are witnessing, thanks to Citizens United, the marriage of politician to the power brokers, the wealth. This has led to curious people being swept into public office where the marriage has conspired to deny the rights of the worker. People like Scott Walker have become popular by crushing unions that were meant to protect the people who have been deceived by the powerful, and by extension Walker.
We are now also seeing the rise of fervent nationalistic candidates who are riding into popularity by promising to tear up international agreements and wage war. It’s not just crazy talk, but a real threat to our security. What we are seeing is the rise of Dick Cheney-like candidates who are backed by powerful forces that would benefit from war.
Who will fight these wars?
The workers.
So now you know why I found it exhilarating to see some good news. Unfortunately, I find it difficult to find the good news with bad news washing over me every day like a Japanese Tsunami.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.