To the editor:
America is the richest country in the world. But who is benefiting at who’s expense? A look at the facts indicates that the wealthiest 1 percent of American families owned approximately 39 percent of total net wealth in 1997. This gross imbalance of wealth and power results in control of the media through direct ownership and control of elected government officials through "contributions."
Control begins insidiously by the dominant forces controlling the language that frames our policies by creating terms such as "tax relief" which further benefits the rich and corporate America at a far greater rate than the working class.
The latest is a long list of emotionally charged phrases from the "wrong" wing is the so-called "Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention" act before the House. Like "tort reform" and the divide and conquer tactics of blaming the less than one percent of the American public who are on welfare for our problems, when the real culprit is corporate welfare this bill is aimed to imply that poor people are abusive.
The truth is quite the opposite: Credit card companies – such as MBNA, one of the largest republican contributors prey on the poor. These mega-corporations do not need our sympathy or our help. They need to be sanctioned and stopped. Aggressively soliciting college students and people already in debt, they are "pushers" in as much as of a negative tone as we use for drug dealers who get people hooked on their illicit yet powerfully addictive product.
It is the victims of credit card fine print who need our help. It is the interest rates that are abusive, not poor people trying to get out form under debt. Half of all personal bankruptcies are a result of medical bills. Good, hard working people are loosing their homes because of uncovered medical bills.
The richest nation in the world has an average household income that rose 10 percent between 1979 and 1994, but 97 percent of that gain was unequally claimed by the most well-to-do 20 percent, while 1.5 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2004, down 3.8 percent from 2003.
We need to stop corporate welfare and take back this great country for the people on whose backs it was built. While not sugar-coated with newspeak, the ownership and abuse of human being known as slavery was so good for our economy, a war that pitted brother against brother had to be fought to end the practice. Immigrant workers have a long legacy of sub-human treatment from laying tracks for our railroads, to mining coal, to working in sweatshops. All with an end-justify-the-means rationale that what is good for the economy is good for "the people." Between 1970 and 1990, the typical American worked an additional 163 hours per year. That’s equivalent to adding an additional month of work per year for the same or less pay. And still families are going bankrupt.
Stop so-called "morality" that’s a smoke screen for meanness. Stop so-called "faith-based" rationales that "might makes right," weakness is a sin, and if you’re born poor that makes you lazy. We need to restore true morals based on human compassion, and take our country back to being for all the people.
Mirah Riben
Monmouth Junction

