The expression “class warfare” suggests an enraged proletariat barricading the streets and tearing up paving stones to defend themselves against the tyranny of the ruling class.
That was then, this is now, and class warfare has a different face; it is subtler and the ordinary citizens who are its victims passively accept loss after loss. The ruling elites of Washington, the financial upper class, the corporate and financial interests and their party are more than willing to sacrifice the little guys in the interest of a “national good.”
They will wring their hands in despair at the prospect of increasing the national debt, unless that debt balloons for the benefit of the wealthy. What gets cut from legislation? Extension of unemployment benefits, health care, education. In short, the safety net we should all be willing to provide for the common good.
These rascals are like the guys who refuse to throw a rope to a drowning man because it won't do anything for the bathing suit industry. Here’s the rule for recovery: Privatize profit, Nationalize debt.
I recommend an article by William Greider in The Nation, reposted to AlterNet.org
Here’s the lede:
Governing elites in Washington and Wall Street have devised a fiendishly clever "grand bargain" they want President Obama to embrace in the name of "fiscal responsibility." The government, they argue, having spent billions on bailing out the banks, can recover its costs by looting the Social Security system. They are also targeting Medicare and Medicaid. The pitch sounds preposterous to millions of ordinary working people anxious about their economic security and worried about their retirement years. But an impressive armada is lined up to push the idea--Washington's leading think tanks, the prestige media, tax-exempt foundations, skillful propagandists posing as economic experts and a self-righteous billionaire spending his fortune to save the nation from the elderly.
Read the whole piece here.
No comments:
Post a Comment