Candace

Talmadge

Read Candace's bio and previous columns

June 2, 2008

You Bet U.S. Workers are Bitter

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was right. U.S. workers are bitter, according to a national poll conveniently ignored by the mainstream media.

The workplace poll, conducted in May by Zogby International for The Marlin Company, found that 74.4 percent of U.S. workers say the American dream is not as attainable today as it was eight years ago. Of those surveyed, more than half – 52.4 percent – say that the dream is simply unattainable for the average American. 

The poll defined the “American dream” to those questioned as, “the opportunity to have a nice home, financial security for you and your family and hope for the future.” 

In other words, fewer than half of Americans now believe that the U.S. economy will provide them with the jobs they need to advance in life. The poll also found that almost half of those surveyed – 45.1 percent – admitted to being “bitter” because “the political system has caused a deterioration of their economic circumstances.” 

Obama used that same word, “bitter,” in April during a San Francisco fundraiser. According to widely circulated reports, he was speaking about his troubles winning over working-class voters: “It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns, or religion, or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” 

When his words became public, Obama faced a firestorm of faux criticism from his presidential rivals as well as the chattering classes. How dare he have the temerity to point out the truth? We’re all quite happy in our make-believe world pretending the buck-naked globalism emperor wears a fine suit. 

If there is any justice, the politicians of both parties who rushed to embrace globalism without demanding any protections for workers left behind will feel voters’ wrath come November. Republicans are especially vulnerable on this issue, as are those Clinton Democrats who drank the economic Kool-Aid and pushed trade pacts with unenforceable “side agreements” relegating workers’ rights to negligible afterthoughts. 

A pox on all of them, and on all of those media talking heads who simply refuse to acknowledge the true extent of the financial pain, peril and stress that today’s metamorphosing economy has dumped on their fellow Americans. 

Instead, all we hear is horsepucky about how the American workforce must prepare for emerging fields like nano-technology. What good does hot air like that do for our fellow Americans already in the job market? Most of them will never attain the education levels or intellectual capabilities to secure employment in ultra-high-tech fields. And even for the few who do attain such dizzying heights of employability, there is no guarantee whatsoever that those premium knowledge-based jobs won’t be shipped overseas to equally highly trained workers who will accept half the pay (or even less). 

Expanding trade between nations and regions does bring opportunities for economic growth that should be encouraged as much as possible. As currently implemented, however, free trade and globalism are little more than fig leaves for unalloyed corporate greed that leaves the vast swaths of Americans further and further behind in an insatiable quest for profits over any other consideration. 

Bitter? We ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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