By
Laura Winsky
This year's tax proposal takes us a step back to a place in time when inequality and class oppression were completely acceptable in the United States. Can you remember those times? They seem so far away now: the dark years.
Since then, so much progress has been made. It is with this progress in mind, that the proposed trillion-dollar tax cut cannot be tolerated.
Let's take a moment, and close our eyes, and remember all of the steps our nation - and the world - have taken toward a better society. We should review all the good that's been accomplished. Hmm, let's begin the dream.
Perhaps it all began when Congress finally passed the Campaign Finance Reform Act. The Act was surely a catalyst for all the change that was to come, and truly a step for the nation. The reforms forced American political parties to shift ideologies and ultimately make radical changes. The U.S. saw the emergence of new parties focusing on liberty, freedom, and equality.
From the working class, the charismatic and brilliant John Jacob Jingle Jones achieved the presidency and began to personify the changing face of America. Jones was the first African-American president the country has seen. He brought humanity to the then faceless movements of affirmative action, minority rights, and humanitarianism.
The nation actually began to understand that all humans were created equally; it was simply the capitalist system that had separated classes.
That was only the beginning of what Jones was to teach us. Ah, the good old days, when these revelations were new and exciting! Within the first one hundred days of his presidency, third world debt was canceled, paraOlympians were given equal status at the official Olympics, reparations were made toward families of former slaves and those who had survived internment camps, and welfare recipients were treated to a formal dinner at the White House.
Actually, the administration was able to accomplish all that just within the first few days. The rest of the historical period was a whirlwind of progress. A moratorium on the death penalty took place at which time inmates were given extensive DNA testing. Fourteen death row prisoners were found innocent of their crimes, and the death penalty was consequently abolished as a defunct mechanism of justice. The Southwest, comprised of land that had been stolen from Mexico, became a cooperative entity, run by both countries, creating an open, safe border region. The sentiment that any human being could be "illegal" totally disappeared, especially when white people became the minority in the U.S.
With the aid of the Finance Reform Act, the administration owed nothing to big business. After canceling the Cuban embargo, a federal mandate went into effect requiring the clean-up and increase in wages of any factory in the third world operated by an American company. Nike was angry, but eventually complied. That victory was sweet, wasn't it? The international world was so surprised that most nations encouraged the United Nations to forget that we hadn't paid our dues in years.
With the United States behaving as a responsible and compassionate nation, rather than as a threat, the world entered a period of a kind of peace that had not been experienced before. True globalism and acceptance were shared by every nation. The government systematically scaled down the military, training the armed forces personnel to work in all forms of social services.
When we envision all this progress, it is true that we have reached a golden era.
Is it not easy to see that passing such an unjust tax plan would return us to a world not fit for humans?
