...let them hear.

This editorial and information hasn't become less important as time has passed from when I originally hubbed this. I think many people vote against their own financial well-being for a variety of reasons.

1. They are taken in by grandstanding hotkey distractions (religion, guns, etc)

2. Many who think they are in the middle class don't realize they won't be by the time the GOP is through with it's agenda.

3. People like to believe that someday they will be in the top 10% financially in this country so they vote money away from their 'now selves' to that group out of some bizarre belief that they are helping their 'future selves'.

4. They don't realize that income taxes aren't the only tax and that when the GOP lowers taxes, it ends up costing them more to live anyway through hidden taxes and increased expenses anyway, licenses, tickets, sin taxes, higher prices, increased incarceration costs, lost productivity, loss of paying jobs/benefits in the U.S. etc.

I mean, it's great if people who live entirely off unearned income have a lot of oil stock right now, for those relatively few people. But notice it's not that great for everyone else.

Walter Mosley says it best below.

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"The rich get richer..." This truism is irrefutable. "...and the poor get poorer." We look away from ourselves, and our loved ones, when the latter phrase is used to complete the saying...

...But where does this money, which moves so unerringly into rich folks' pockets, come from? This is one of the most important questions in everyday working people's lives. Because the money that makes the rich richer comes out of the sweat, the sacrifice and ultimately the blood of working men and women.

Many people deny that they are the victims in the proverb because even though the rich make money off them, too, they are also making money, being middle class, off the working and lower classes...

...These self-proclaimed middle-class citizens feel a certain private smugness about their proven ability to make it in this world while those in the working and lower classes--because of upbringing, lack of intelligence or will, or bad luck--are merely the fuel for the wealth of the nation...

Poverty is defined, in my system, by people not being able to cover the basic necessities in their lives. Indispensable medical care, nutrition, a place to live; all these essentials, for poor people, are often and chronically beyond reach. If a poor person needs $10 a day to make ends meet, often he or she only makes eight and a half. ..

...Workng-class people are (excuse the Marxism) wage-slaves. Those in the working class live on the edge of poverty, saying to themselves that they are doing all right. They drink and watch far too much TV. They buy Lotto tickets and live moderate lives that are far beyond their means. The profit they generate flows to the rich, and they borrow to fill out the coffers.

Most Americans are working-class wage-slaves, arguing that they're better off. This fantasy, more than any other confusion, hobbles us. Because we fear to see how delicate our economic state is, we cannot motivate ourselves to demand change.

Capitalism, the accrual of wealth from labor, is the religion of America; poverty our cardinal sin. To recognize our position in relation to wealth would be perceived as a confession of wrongdoing, and so we stoically bear up, pretending we are doing all right. And because we don't see ourselves clearly, we have poor healthcare, no adequate insurance for old age, poisons in our water and our food and the continual nagging fear that things may at any moment fall apart.

Where is the money? It's not in our bank accounts or serving our people. It's not in affordable housing, quality education or the development of sciences that would better the species and the planet. It's not being used for the purpose of global peace.

America is the wealthiest nation in the world, by far, but we the American people are not wealthy. We, most of us, live on the border of poverty. In the distance are towering silvery skyscrapers housing our corporations and our billionaires. But do not be fooled. This skyline does not belong to us. We are not partners in the corporation of America.

The money we make, the wealth we have created, is paradoxically beyond our reach. We live in a separate America. An America that is heated by oil that we may or may not be able to afford; an America that makes profit off of cigarettes, alcohol and imperialist incursions into underprivileged nations; an America that cares more for corporations than it does for its living, breathing citizens.

Where is the money? It has been turned into gold and laid upon our willing backs. We struggle under the weight of the wealth of America, and there we are ground down until, in the end, it shall be soaked in our blood.

This knowledge, as depressing and oppressing as it is, is also a harbinger of hope. Poverty is not our fault or our destiny. We, the poor and working class, have built this nation and it, along with all its fabulous wealth, belongs to us. From the Atlantic to the Pacific we, the workers, are the ones who hold sway. And every vault, every clinic, every drop of sweat fallen upon American soil is our democratic birthright.

The rich don't own anything that we haven't built. The government means nothing that we don't endorse. These are the secrets that need to be made public. There may be charities to help with income and profession, there may be those who lend a helping hand. But the helpers and the help are equals in this country, in this nation. There are no hierarchies of class in a democracy. There is only freedom and debt owed to the millions upon millions who have labored to make us great.

The greatest service that could be given to the poor and working classes is the knowledge that they, that we, all deserve the best that America has to offer, and if there are those who try to diminish us because of our bankbooks or our education this is a crime against our Constitution. We carry this nation on our backs, and everything it has done is our property and our responsibility.

A man can be rich, but only a nation can be wealthy. And if any person of any age suffers from poverty, then our whole country bears the shame. "

You can zoom in and out of that picture on this site:

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"The L-Curve graph represents income, not wealth. The distribution of wealth is even more skewed. Quoting from a recently-published book by political philosopher David Schweickart, "If we divided the income of the US into thirds, we find that the top ten percent of the population gets a third, the next thirty percent gets another third, and the bottom sixty percent get the last third. If we divide the wealth of the US into thirds, we find that the top one percent own a third, the next nine percent own another third, and the bottom ninety percent claim the rest. (Actually, these percentages, true a decade ago, are now out of date. The top one percent are now estimated to own between forty and fifty percent of the nation's wealth, more than the combined wealth of the bottom 95%.)"

This is relatively dated material. The differences are much greater now. As I dig up the information I will hub it, however I love this site because it gives you a visual of what I'm talking about in my typical rants.