Despite President Barack Obama’s calls to fight income inequality any push for national unity will be one-sided as the US is ruled by a small elite, believes Caleb Maupin from the International Action Center.
He told RT that in his last State of the Union address before running for re-election President Obama made a lot of references to the United States as one country where everybody is pulling together and sharing the sacrifice.“But in reality there are people all across the United States laid off, unemployed; food stamps are being cut; homes are being foreclosed,” he stated. Maupin does not see the US as one nation with everyone pulling together but a country with two classes in it. “There is one class; a small ruling elite that owns the banks, the factories, the oil wells, and then there is the rest of us who have to sell our labor to the small ruling elite.”The change does not come from one politician or another, but from people being in the streets in huge numbers making demands on the ruling elites, Maupin argued, referring to the Occupy movement.“History was made when people took to the streets in huge numbers and began demanding things like jobs, education, etc.” Investigative journalist Matthew Vadum told RT that a lot of people on the left have grown disillusioned with President Obama and are not expecting much from him. And even though he did accomplish a lot in the previous Congress it would be very hard for him to accomplish very much now as he has a hostile House of Representatives dominated by the Republican Party. “I don’t think he is going to be doing very much in terms of legislation for the rest of this year”Vadum believes, however, that Obama views the Occupy movement as a “valuable ally.”