Saturday, October 1, 2016

"Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much higher consideration." Abraham Lincoln, December 3, 1861



M: Dude! You were asking earlier about what diverse realities are shaping our lives on Main Street. Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine address these diverse realities on Main Street wisely and reinforce their visionary proposals against the backdrop of empowering lives like ours. We are the working poor and must also understand that as blue collar workers, it is up to us to move out of the hate and bitterness of today’s Republican Party rhetoric and propaganda and embrace Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine’s offers that they have judiciously placed on the bargaining table for US to evaluate and hold them accountable with once and for all. Their Republican opponents do not share their perspectives on how they will shape the future for the betterment of all, not just the privileged few, because the fact is that the Republican Party members are the representatives of the privileged few themselves.    

D: Man! And the American Press Corps and the International Press Corps are infiltrated by the very same mechanics as the Republican Party, which favor the status quo while going against the best interests of the working poor and the middle class. Even Public Television in the United States is not independent of big business! Do you know how many times I’ve read the names of the Koch Brothers and financiers like them having contributed to making public television broadcasts like Sesame Street and Nova possible. But these very same financiers are feeding US and the World with propaganda through media while annihilating the possibility of US and the World accomplishing not just our dreams but day-to-day goals with legislation like the duplicitous voter fraud and right to work arguments they have purposely financed by buying congressional Republicans and the American Press Corps to keep competition out of the marketplace.

M: Dude! In order to keep competition out, big businesses have reduced the worth of the American worker to that of workers toiling in the third world for scant wages. The American voter must be mobilized and registered to vote in this election cycle in order for American workers to not lose their capacity to dream big or their core humanity tied to their incredibly ingenuous work ethic, which is brought up by President Abraham Lincoln in his first annual message to Congress on December 3, 1861 and available online at UC Santa Barbara’s The American Presidency Project under the collection titled Messages and Papers of the Presidents. It reads as follows,

It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions, but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.

Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.

Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists within that relation. A few men own capital, and that few avoid labor themselves, and with their capital hire or buy another few to labor for them. A large majority belong to neither class--neither work for others nor have others working for them. In most of the Southern States a majority of the whole people of all colors are neither slaves nor masters, while in the Northern a large majority are neither hirers nor hired. Men, with their families--wives, sons, and daughters--work for themselves on their farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking the whole product to themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand nor of hired laborers or slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons mingle their own labor with capital; that is, they labor with their own hands and also buy or hire others to labor for them; but this is only a mixed and not a distinct class. No principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this mixed class.

Again, as has already been said, there is not of necessity any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life. Many independent men everywhere in these States a few years back in their lives were hired laborers. The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and consequent energy and progress and improvement of condition to all. No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty; none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which if surrendered will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them till all of liberty shall be lost.

D: Man! Inherited wealth schemers like the Koch Brothers and inherited wealth charlatans like Donald Trump want to reduce the United States of America to a regime, not the republic envisioned in the United States Constitution. American voters must remember that they have a decision to make in this presidential election cycle, between their own well-being as expressed through the commitments made by Clinton and Kaine in their book Stronger Together: A Blueprint for America’s Future, or their disparity and ruination by electing Donald Trump or throwing their vote away by casting their ballots for any of the third-party candidates.


M: Dude! The United States of America’s worth and wealth rest in the hands of the American Voter! American futures rest on whether American Voters registered and cast their ballots in this presidential election cycle. Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine’s book, the blueprints that they are willingly holding themselves responsible for accomplishing on our behalf, is being blocked from television broadcasts and being dismissed as nationalist in nature in online forums. The criticisms fall apart because the truth surfaces as you read the critics that they haven’t even read Clinton and Kaine’s book!

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

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