What can we do to save the middle class? How can we help our returned soldiers find a career after their most productive adult years   were spent killing people in foreign lands? Why does the riches people still get richer? Who should we elect to help the working poor when their campaigns are financed by rich special interest groups? When is there going to be real change for the better? Where can we go for answers? I used up the 5 w’s and how and need to fill in the blanks for some sanity.

Neither party is telling the truth. The large thriving middle class that we used to have did not just appear. It was created after World War II when we had thousands of returning soldiers needing everything as we have millions of Americans needing everything now. No one is creating any savings. We have a population of struggling people living from pay check to pay check. The era of prosperity for the middle class during the 50’s and 60’s was created by the economic tool called socialism. Yes that dirty word that still somehow keeps people who have nothing living in communist states like Cuba and China somehow surviving.

We hate that socialist word but it is exactly what our government did after World War II. It taxed the rich up to 90% per cent and massively redistributed that money through the G I Bill so that more than half the population benefited from free college, free job training cheap mortgages and homes specifically built for the returning soldier families. Yes, for a brief shining moment we were not bought by the rich in every political arena. Congress did not pass laws that only benefited them first. Our Congressmen live like kings on and off Capitol Hill when they are supposed to be representing their districts that are mostly failing.

We can debate if going back to socialism is a good thing or a bad thing but it helped then and should help now if anyone could penetrate the thick walls the rich have created around them politically and financially. They even managed to convince people that unions are wrong when it is when run properly the single closest thing to a person’s paycheck to saving it. Unions were there to protect the working classes rights in the workplace. The 50’s and 60’s was a time when a family needed only one bread winner, a house cost only 2 year salary. It was an age when a parent could afford college for their kids. They could even enjoy a night out at a restaurant meal or movie for all once a week. This is a fairy tale now. Back then it was reality.

A middle class is not the by- product of capitalism. It is actually a strange thing in most of history going back to the Middle Ages where the rich lived behind elaborate castles built like fortresses constructed so well that they still stand today centuries later. Most of the people lived in poverty in the woods,  forced to give their best meat and crops to the rich. In the 14^th Century a middle class was created in Europe during the Black Plague when a third of the population died resulting in a labor shortage. That increased bargaining power for workers. That was one way to create a middle class but I do not recommend wide spread disease wiping out a population of people to create some stability or worth.

Somehow we need someone to burst out of the shadows like a kind of Robin Hood for America who really cares for the population of the people in this country and not their own personal wealth or career. Obama had good intentions always. He is a great speaker but always lacked a good faithful staff for six years. They all bailed him and every cause he tried to CHANGE as part of his campaign rhetoric never went to full fruition. God Help Us All.