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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Great American Class War - Plutocracy Versus Democracy - Bill Moyers
From Tomdispatch, an excellent speech given on the class war by Bill Moyers:
We dont have emperors yet, but we do have the Roberts Court that consistently privileges the donor class.
We dont have emperors yet, but we do have a Senate in which, as a study by the political scientist Larry Bartels reveals, Senators appear to be considerably more responsive to the opinions of affluent constituents than to the opinions of middle-class constituents, while the opinions of constituents in the bottom third of the income distribution have no apparent statistical effect on their senators roll call votes.
...
Why are record numbers of Americans on food stamps? Because record numbers of Americans are in poverty. Why are people falling through the cracks? Because there are cracks to fall through. It is simply astonishing that in this rich nation more than 21 million Americans are still in need of full-time work, many of them running out of jobless benefits, while our financial class pockets record profits, spends lavishly on campaigns to secure a political order that serves its own interests, and demands that our political class push for further austerity. Meanwhile, roughly 46 million Americans live at or below the poverty line and, with the exception of Romania, no developed country has a higher percent of kids in poverty than we do. Yet a study by scholars at Northwestern University and Vanderbilt finds little support among the wealthiest Americans for policy reforms to reduce income inequality.
chervilant
(8,267 posts)who've usurped our media, our politics AND our global economy -- will do whatever they must to insure their absolute hegemony, unless we -- the vast Hoi Polloi -- do what's necessary to stop them. We MUST stop them.
BelgianMadCow
(5,379 posts)Here I am living in a country with single payer healthcare, relatively excellent social security and a socialist PM, and yet the issues are all the same. Saving banks, not people. Putting competitiveness ahead of any other concerns - in other words, neoliberalism. Spying on everyone and a direct hack by UK intelligence is tolerated. And the crimes on the people of southern Europe are perpetrated in my name. Meanwhile, 70% of europeans are unhappy with "their" union, and there has never been a larger democratic deficit.
The good news: the system only survives if we support it. Rethinking that support is becoming possible, as alternatives start to emerge.
The semi-bad news: unless we stand united, we will fall divided. What we've seen is Spring in the Middle East, Indignados in Spain, OWS in the US and UK (and Europe), the uprising in Turkey, Chile, Brasil, Romania, (forgetting many here, like Bangladesh) and now Ukraine. At some point we'll need all these movements for sovereignty to coalesce. I think it will happen when the climate crisis becomes really dire.
But like you said ("MUST" , I don't really care whether all my protest or actions make "the" change happen. I feel it's a moral obligation. I literally have no other choice.
chervilant
(8,267 posts)We MUST stop their hegemony, and we must make some essential changes in our economic behaviors--and we MUST do it as a united whole.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)malaise
(269,157 posts)for truth
ReRe
(10,597 posts)...for policy reforms to reduce income inequality." = They don't care about the 99%. As a matter of fact, they want everything just like it is, thank you. They're doing just fine.
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
dotymed
(5,610 posts)that if we unite and elect Senator Bernie Sanders as President, we will have a peaceful (as the oligarchs will allow) revolution.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)...discusses how the reformers got the "Treatment" during the Late Republic 133-44 BCE.
Kurovski
(34,655 posts)K&R
BelgianMadCow
(5,379 posts)old-fashioned