Posted by Editors on June 03, 2008 at 15:56:05:
Class Warfare, Here? In the U.S.of A.
O.K. Let’s get Real!
Subtle, Sophisticated
Not talking About It Doesn't Make It Any Less Real. . .
It's not supposed to happen in America; went out with the 19th century economic theorists. Class warfare in a democracy?
It happens every day.
Most conspicuous are strikes, which have been the traditional working class weapon to gain increases in wages.
On the other side, mass layoffs and firings have been the capitalist tool to decrease wages and increase profits. This tug of war is relentless.
Long, protracted worker lockouts and corporate-inflicted violence on striking workers, has long been the history of the war of the classes.
Politicians and corporate image makers have always talked down the existence of CLASS WARFARE because it lays bare true social and economic relationship between classes, and increases the potential for a national dialogue which would question the propriety class divisions in a society which calls itself a democratic one.
CONGRESS, CAPITALIST TOOL.
Congress has awesome power to collect taxes and make laws,any laws. It has spending control of billions of dollars,supposedly for the common good. But in a society of economic classes, where legislation is bought by the highest bidder, where corporate capitalists actually sit down and spell out the
language of bills slated to become the laws of the land, it follows that the unrepresented working class can never win.
The results of such clandestine meetings can be readily seen when Congress steadfastly keeps a clamp on the minimum Wage, which can't sustain any kind of decent lifestyle as it is.
Corporate innovations to increase production without increasing wages, and Capital Investment flight to more profitable global markets,are always in motion
alongside a more subtle form of class warfare used by the dominant economic class through its representatives on the federal levels in Washington. Corporate lobbies, themselves are a big business.
It happens all the time. No matter which major party is in control of the government. Congress has always found ways to reward the wealthy at the
expense of the working class. The ongoing assault on the economically inferior class is the "balance-the-budget" tactic being touted as the only way to save the federal government from total bankruptcy.
The plan to cut federal costs, NOT by reducing the extravagant military expenditures still necessary to defend corporate interests throughout the world, BUT TO CUT OR ELIMINATE SO-CALLED "ENTITLEMENT" PROGRAMS SUCH AS MEDICARE AND MEDICADE, and to reduce the costs of SOCIAL SECURITY by smaller monthly payments and/or increasing eligibility age qualifications. All such possibilities are always on Congressional committee tables.
Such cost savings, if enacted would free up many billions of dollars that would be used to offset a massive tax reduction for some of the richest people in the country, the most benefited would be the capitalist class.
Congressional strategies which end up being tax impositions on working people are being rightfully characterized by the party-out-of-power as "class warfare", a label they themselves earned when they hold the majority power in both Houses of Congress.
Ours is a government whose primary commitment is to its corporate sponsors. This was never more clearly demonstrated in the eighties when then-President Reagan, with one swipe of his "free enterprise" pen, wiped away the Air Traffic Controllers Union,
and the jobs thousands of its air traffic control
members. Why? Because they were holding out for safer work schedules which would translate into greater passenger safety.
But there was never any question in the minds of Reagan and the airline capitalists about their
safety-or-profit priorities. The ethic of the collective bargaining process,supposedly the democratic equalizer between the classes, was ignored.
Other silent warfare tactics include corporate tax exemption meetings prior to the periodic codification of tax laws which establish corporate subsidies currently being described as "corporate welfare", all at the expense of rising costs for the rest of us in the form of direct and indirect taxes which most
folks can ill afford to pay out. In the vernacular, these Congressional tactics are "sneaky", and designed to appear fair to all classes. Here's how it's done
POLITICAL DECEPTION
Several years ago, Congress passed a 3/5ths majority
requirement before future income tax increases can be legislated into law. On the face of it, it appeared the lawmakers had all of us in mind because it would more difficult to tax all of us, right?
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!
The 3/5ths majority requirement is "A great idea - if you're rich," writes Michael Kramer of Time Magazine.
"The change applies only to the most progressive form of taxation (meaning, the more your income, the more you pay.) which means the most well-off (the most affluent capitalist class) would be paying more than others." But they don't. Why?
Because Congress never can attain the 3/5ths majority which would enable the rich to be taxed accordingly. So they don't pay up.
To make up the monies the wealthier groups are
excused from paying, Congress uses public services which charge for their use. Kramer explains. "All the government's other revenue raisers, from national-parks admissions, to gasoline, cigarette and alcohol taxes can still be hiked by a simple majority vote."
What this means, according to Newsweek's Jonathan Alter, is "...the middle class (another way of saying the rest of us, or “working class,” who have a marginal ability to afford such services) will have to pay by having entitlement cuts from the Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs, or borrowing even more (Iraq invasionfor corporate oil needs costs $$ billions each month) from OUR children and grandchildren."
Today,class warfare is alive and well in our society,
which is one more reason why We , the People, have all the more reason to heed the council of the our nation’s Founding Fathers, who told us, their future generations; that WHENEVER OUR GOVERNMENT NO LONGER SERVES OUR NEEDS, WE SHOULD REPLACE IT WITH ONE THAT DOES, one in which CLASS warfare will be an embarrassing page in future history books, as is the history of Chattel Slavery of the ante bellum days.
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