Dear Editor,

Something that has always bothered me is the false “be successful claim” that “anyone could improve their lot in life if they only applied themselves.” (Of course this claim doesn’t apply to the mentally or physical ly handicapped.)

The “be successful claim” provides, if you are able, you are supposed to be personally responsible to get ahead by pursuing the highest education you could attain and/or was willingly to work hard and diligently.

Well the “be successful claim” is balderdash, baloney, poppycock, or bull expletive, whatever might be the term of denial you choose to declare.

I believe that we all want to be successful, to reach our goals and to live our dreams.

Nobody wants to live a mediocre and lousy life.

Worse, nobody wants to be dying of “deaths of despair” — from drugs, alcohol and suicide.

That’s why life expectancy in the United States, for the first time in a century, has declined for three years in a row.

Why can’t everyone make it if only they try?

Because our society’s economic system is rigged against the majority of all people.

The very people — a very small minority — telling you to “lift yourself up by your own boot straps” are the very people holding the vast majority down.

America’s top 10 percent average more than nine times as much income as the bottom 90 percent.

And Americans in the top 1 percent averaged over 40 times more income than the bottom 90 percent.

Just consider this gross fact: the 26 richest people on Earth now own as much as the 3.8 billion who form the poorer half of the planet’s population.

It is also a fact that over decades employers have built and maintained a massive collective political apparatus to hold down wages.

Why do the super wealthy need more expensive private jets, vacation homes, yachts, automobile fleets, stadium box seats, etc.?

Why do they have to be a billionaire? Isn’t a half-a-billion enough?

It is way past time for the plutocrats to make sure everyone has a fair shot at equality, humanity and justice.

It is time for a fair share for everyone.

The very rich can start by making health care available and affordable for everyone; free community college education; a federal minimum wage of $15 an hour; and a federal legal protocol to allow for resurgence of labor unions, such as repeal of Taft-Hartley.

Bill Bryant

St. Clairsville