A Humanist in the Bible Belt: Collected Papers 1974-2002

Is it our imaginations, or does it seem like something is seriously wrong with life in America these days? Amidst plummeting white and blue collar wages, mounting layoffs, massive benefit reductions, rising costs of living, diminishing quality of life, declining standards of living, growing poverty levels, longer work hours, mounting job responsibilities, less recreation time, record number of labor law violations, growing pay and bonus disputes, demoralizing salary scams, ballooning product and service fraud, runaway false advertisement, declining product and service quality, price fixing, record corporate mergers, skyrocketing numbers of personal bankruptcies, more families, than ever before, falling into the ravages of poverty even with two incomes, dis-functional biased governmental regulatory agencies, corporate and political corruption, economic and social exploitation of a people in America and abroad, fleecing of an entire nation, and for the first time in modern history the Demise Of The Middle-class in America.

Ironically, there seems to be a small minority, a scant 5% of the population of America benefiting very, very nicely from this current status quo. A privileged select few and their families known as the overdass now control almost 50% of the entire national income, graced with record income increases, booming corporate profits, skyrocketing CEO and executive incomes, larger fancier mansions, bigger yachts, more expensive cars, extravagant travel, growing tax breaks for the wealthy, increasing government blessings, lavish benefit and retirement packages, exploding stock values, landslide growth of elite savings, historical trading on Wallstreet, unprecedented growth of luxury at biblical proportions as we witness the fastest and most lavish growth of an elite class in recorded history, Delight Of The Overdass is guaranteed!

Is this the America you want your children growing up in? Is this the America you would want to live in? Well my friends you already do!!!

The American dream is to own a two story house, with a couple of slightly used cars, two children eating a couple of American apple pies. Sounds almost like a fantasy, doesn't it? Oh!, I forgot to mention two bank accounts with a couple of thousand dollars. Since World War II, the American middle-class has been the bastion of the thriving American Dream. In the past, this middle-class, a 90% of the entire U.S. population earned a comfortable lifestyle through diligence and loyalty at the work place. However, today the capitalist system that made the American Dream possible, has transformed into the most destructive, middle-class lifestyle beast named The Greed Factor to ever threaten our middle-class way of life.

In the past decade or so, the cost of living has continued to climb, however, we have witnessed middle-class and poverty class incomes stagnate at best, but in most instances decline considerably. Now even with two incomes, today's middle-class families can not make ends meet, much less earn the purchasing power of a one income family a few decades ago. Yet to our dismay, the wealthiest 5% of the population, the so called "overclass", ironically had tremendous, explosive, record increases in their incomes in roughly the same period of time. Today the American Dream is slowly slipping out of the hands of the mass majority, and into the hands of the richest, wealthiest few. We are witnessing this smallest minority living an increasingly selfish, over lavish and greedy lifestyle than ever before.

Amidst shrinking paychecks, declining benefits, longer work hours, mounting job responsibilities, and a deteriorating quality of life, the existence of the middle-class, as we once knew it, is doomed! The demise of the middle-class, and the formation of a two class proletariat society (indentured ser