From the Wall Street bailouts to the recent suggestions from the Republicans that taxpayers pay for the BP oil spill cleanup, it’s pretty clear that the tiny group of privileged ultra-rich people at the top and the politicians they own (which is about 99.9% of all politicians; there may be some county-level bureaucrat they haven’t got to yet) have nothing but contempt for the rest of us. Despite what some right-wing “leaders” and their deluded, unthinking, brainwashed followers might have you believe, there is a class war in this country, but they’ve twisted it backwards: the poor aren’t picking on the rich: the rich are attacking the poor, and they’re winning.

If you had any doubt about this, wonder no more. This week, Congress has again delayed or blocked action on unemployment insurance, COBRA benefits, and have shown no interest in actually trying to come up with solutions to create jobs, or to take steps to stop the continued loss of jobs.

The current “concern” is the deficit. Sure, we have a huge deficit, but while we somehow can’t find money to work on solving our problems at home, we sure seem to have plenty of money for foreign aid (Egypt and Israel are among the largest recipients), plenty of money to fight two wars we’re sure as hell not winning, and plenty of flexibility to provide generous tax breaks to multinational corporations like BP, Goldman Sachs, and Halliburton, and tens of dozens of corporations that shipped our jobs overseas for good.

Unlike previous periods of unemployment, this time many jobs have vanished for good. This is the one time where continued assistance for the unemployed is really needed, and Congress has pulled the rug. People aren’t being “lazy” or unmotivated in taking unemployment, or wanting to continue benefits; for many, these benefits are often the only thing keeping them from being homeless, from suffering malnutrition, from vanishing between the cracks.

To make it even more difficult, now some companies are refusing to even interview unemployed people; instead, they’re only talking to people that are currently employed, or have been out of work for a few months at most. This is appalling, and if this is continued, will devastate our economy even more. These are often the same companies that offer the lowest salaries possible, that supported shipping our jobs overseas, that benefit from generous tax breaks (which they’re NOT using to “create jobs”; they’re using them to pay themselves even more outrageous salaries and perks).

Congress isn’t saying anything about this though, because they don’t really care. Instead, they’re overly concerned with deficits (deficits that were caused in part by two wars, foreign aid to countries that we get nothing beneficial in return from, and tax breaks for the rich and corporations —the exact group of people who don’t really need tax breaks), so instead of trying to use our taxpayer money to invest in America and its people, they’re going to hand out tax breaks instead. It’s not considered “spending”, even though the result is the same, since that ends up being lost revenue. Our government’s priority, from the President on down, is to spend money on bombing and killing other people, on supporting other countries, but nothing for the people they supposedly serve.

When big companies pay nothing in taxes, hide their money overseas without punishment, and hedge fund managers pay slightly more in taxes than the average person, something’s wrong.

Both parties, Democrat and Republican don’t care about us. Big business of all kinds don’t care about us. Rich people manipulating the stock market don’t care about us. They’re shafting us, and they’re winning. If you care at all about yourself, your neighbors, your community, and especially your country, NOW is the time to speak up. Now is the time to contact those sorry excuses for leaders, and tell them we’re fed up. We want our government to invest in all of America, not just the 1% at the top, not just the corporations that own them, not just the foreign countries whose asses we kiss.

If you don’t speak up, you don’t protest, you don’t make some noise, then accept the fact that you’re screwed. Because there is a class war, and the elite, ultra-rich have just about won.