THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 23, 1995 TAG: 9511230862
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: CHARLISE LYLES
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
Thanksgiving.
Unsullied by rampant, shameless commercialism - even the Lions vs. the Vikings can't taint it. The fourth Thursday in November remains an American holy day.
Surely, this is because we have so much to be thankful for.
Good health. A job. Shelter. A family. Friends. The cleanliness and beauty of our community. And, of course, all those fine, decent men I met at the Million Man March.
Whoever we worship, whatever we believe, we all can't help but feel appreciation on this day.
But what about tomorrow?
Even as we sit down to a table of plenty in the glow of the hearth, there is angst among us.
Will the cost of health insurance rise beyond our reach? The working poor who receive Medicare or Medicaid are already asking.
What about a good-paying job? Increasingly, jobs will become contract ventures, forecasters say. We see that happening now with consultants, part-timers and temporaries.
The expanding economy and record highs on Wall Street haven't meant diddly squat to the paychecks of American workers.
The Labor Department reported this month that our paychecks increased by 2.7 percent in the past year, the smallest increase on record.
President Clinton has called for a 90-cent increase in the hourly minimum wage. Five dollars and 15 cents an hour? Give me a break - a small box of cereal costs more than three bucks.
Clinton's much touted Earned Income Tax Credit can't compensate for these piddling, Dickensian wages.
Then there is that neighborhood called the middle class. Who can really afford to live there anymore? To hold on to the homestead, more and more dads work two jobs. Mothers, too.
And those of us living from paycheck to paycheck know how scared we are of that one disaster, that one illness, that could take us under.
Are the economic trends we're seeing ending American prosperity as we know it? Will they end Thanksgiving as we know it?
In his new book ``Opposing the System,'' Charles A. Reich suggests so.
``Today, economic growth may be premised on forcing wages down to save costs, excluding an ever larger number of people from the work force in the name of efficiency, imposing cost on those least able to pay, and undermining rather than supporting those `noneconomic' values such as family. . .''
Reich lists 15 things we can do to stop this runaway train called ``economic government.'' They are as simple as beginning to think of the economy as a force that we can collectively control, rather than it controling us. ``We have the power to design a system that will do whatever job we ask of it.''
And as radical as amending the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights to apply to big business and the workplace. ``Economic rights for individuals should be guaranteed along with political and civil rights,'' he says.
Now, now . . . I know what some of you may be thinking at this point: Lyles is the ``Grinch'' who stole Thanksgiving.
That's just it. I want always for a Thanksgiving full of much to be thankful for, just like you do.
Unless the current economic trends are reversed, that just isn't going to be possible for more and more Americans.
So let's be thankful there is still time to think and take action. by CNB