ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, August 27, 1996 TAG: 9608270052
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MICHAEL J. LONERGAN
SOMEWHERE in that cloud of pros and cons surrounding the end of "welfare as we know it" there is a silver lining. Our politicians have now pretty much eliminated all those horrible enemies they identified for us - i.e., no more affirmative action to take our jobs, no more immigrants supported with our money, no more welfare queens living off us. Now that they have saved all those billions, each of us will see an improvement in our lives. It's bound to be clear sailing from here on.
Wait a minute. Suppose it isn't clear sailing? Suppose we all have to go on struggling to just barely stay afloat. Where do we turn then?
You can bet the politicians are not going to expose the culprit that has been the true problem all along. So here comes the silver lining: With the scapegoats gone, we the people will finally be forced to initiate our own search for the truth. Fortunately, it will not be all that difficult.
When it comes to helping others, no people on Earth are more generous than Americans. More money is given to charity in our country than the rest of the world combined. Normally, we are very happy to help the poor.
We only get testy about the whole thing when we are having trouble making ends meet ourselves. These days we work harder than ever and still can't seem to catch up with expenses. We do not spend as much as we did in the past, yet our bank accounts are dismal. We used to do OK on one salary, now we can't make it from one end of the month to the next on two salaries.
What's happened to us? In the past 20-odd years, our great country has contracted a terminal case of the deadly ancient disease OMOW.
This cancerous, sometimes fatal, condition is reaching epidemic proportions. OMOW - Obscene Maldistribution Of Wealth - was first identified centuries ago by a handful of revolutionaries who decided to overthrow the then-commonest form of government, monarchy. The kings and the nobles took everything. They left nothing for the peasants except back-breaking labor and humiliating poverty.
The people said, "Enough." They took matters into their own hands and put an end to their suffering. Their bravery eventually opened the doors to the practice of democracy.
Once again, we are faced with the CEO's (read kings) and their band of executives (read nobles) taking everything and leaving little for the rest of us. Forty-eight percent of the private wealth in the United States is now concentrated in the hands of 1 percent of the population, and 96 percent is concentrated in the hands of just 20 percent of the people.
This condition came about solely because these greedy men were in a position to "take," and they did. In fact, they took it all.
Nothing was left to improve the pay of the majority. The incomes of the top 20 percent have grown out of all proportion to sanity, while 60 percent of the American workforce has experienced a reduction in real income over the past 15 years.
Make no mistake, democracy itself is at stake in this fight. Americans must stand up for themselves and demand that the federal government and the Securities Exchange Commission put some rational controls over the "taking" privileges of corporation executives and Wall Street traders.
This will be especially difficult, because Congress would have to be counted in the band of nobles enjoying the spoils. So, the demand must be that much stronger. Raise your voice until it's loud enough to be heard!
Michael J. Lonergan of Lexington is a retired university professor and a former vice president for American Motors Corp.
LENGTH: Medium: 67 linesby CNB