By Dennis R. Pierce
BLET National President
CLEVELAND, July 3 — BLET National President Dennis R. Pierce issued the following statement in honor of our nation’s 236th birthday:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
When these words were written in 1776, our nation’s Founding Fathers set out to create a nation like none other … one in which all men truly could be equal.
Sadly, their dream has not yet come true for far too many Americans, even in the 21st century. In this country where all men — all people — should be equal, we see that this is not yet reality. In this nation, we see that the gap of inequality between the rich and the poor is widening into a chasm. We see working men and women falling further behind, while the richest simply add to their wealth at the expense of everyone else.
This trend has been magnified and accelerated in the past few years. The pay and quality of life for working men and women in this land of “equals” have languished, while the wealth has become steadily concentrated in the top 1 percent.
Defenders of the status quo will be quick to point out that the Founders’ goal was equal opportunity, not equal outcomes, and that’s true. However, with 40 percent of middle class wealth being wiped out when the real estate bubble burst, to uncapped and anonymous corporate funding of political advertising slanting the political debate, to increasingly prohibitive college tuition rates, the widening gap in outcomes is being equaled — if not exceeded — by the widening gap in opportunity.
For tens of millions of our family, friends and neighbors, the American Dream is fading. Social mobility, once the signature of American exceptionalism, is dwarfed by wealth accumulated through artifice and genetic luck, rather than a keen mind, a strong back and some good fortune. And a once unthinkable future faces us, as for the first time in U.S. history a generation of Americans will not fare as well as their parents’ generation.
In spite of these troubles, on this Fourth of July we in the BLET are as proud as ever to be American. We are proud to be a part of the union movement that built the middle class and made this country strong. Unions have received a lot of bad press in the media lately, mostly due to a highly coordinated and well-funded smear campaign launched by pro-corporate, anti-worker extremists. We have responded with our Proud to be American, Proud to be Union campaign, in which we educate the public that we are not the danger portrayed by the corporate agenda. Union members are not the ones who nearly bankrupted society and caused the greatest economic recession since the Great Depression.
We also will expose any politician who claims to share our views, but is working for a corporate sponsor to make it harder for working Americans to have a shot at the American Dream. In the coming months we must keep our eye on the ball, and work toward electing candidates who will work for working class Americans and who will not support corporate-backed attacks on working class Americans and Labor Unions.
In November, we will have the opportunity to exercise what may be the most precious right a free society can enjoy: the right to vote. We can decide whether we will once again become a nation where everyone has a shot of climbing the ladder of personal and professional success, or whether we will become even more a country where the economic inequity reigns, while those who have climbed the ladder pull it out of the hands of those below.
I’m betting on the vision of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence 236 years ago. Happy Fourth of July to you and your family.