Thoughts on "Class Warfare"

[IowaBiker]

Bill Safire in a recent NYT editorial, resusitated the old right-wing hack, "Class Warfare," just in time for the election season.

Apparently, seeing that John Kerry is leading in the polls and primaries, he's chosen to talk about this war since it's the only war in which those in current right-wing leadership and propaganda positions have any experience fighting.

The right-wing is simply not going to sit down and take the Democratic party's line that the Bush administration is running a government for the well to do and the well connected, at least not without a whine and a whimper.

Expecting the barrage from your local lunch room dittohead, are you prepared with your snappy comeback? After all, ditttoheads live for their snappy comeback -- than and oxy contin.

I've been working on a few -- maybe you have others.

I call this one, the "Bill O'Reilly indignant affront" response.

"Class warfare? When there is a real war going on, how can you insult our soldiers by using the word, 'warfare?'

Are the wealthy coming home in body bags in this war?

Are we giving medals for valor? Purple Hearts, Silver Stars, Bronze Stars?

Are the poor and middle class stockpiling weapons of mass desctruction? Is their use immenent?

How many tours of duty are the wealthy volunteering for in this war?

And when the wealty serve in this war, what are their terms of service? Can they go AWOL, desert, or just show up when they feel it?

And, is it the Democratic Party the one who started this warfare? Because really, hasn't it been a guerilla war until now?

You know, all those attacks on working parents? When you laid off their co-workers, and made them make up the lost hours with unpaid overtime? When you killed their evenings with their children, and opportunities to coach or volunteer?

How about the effective loss in pay, because that overtime required a babysitter or a penalty at daycare.

How about the loss of lives when you cut health care benefits?

How about the loss of minds, when you left all those children behind?

Warfare?

What have the wealthy sacrificed during any of these wars, class or no class?"

Class warfare my ass.

--Brian

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

1. Class warfare:

Class Warfare - (n) term drummed up by Republicans to deflect criticism for fighting a losing battle. See also: judicial activism.

[DBoon]

2. There really is class warfare

except that it is so one-sided it should be called class slaughter.

[HawkerHurricane]

4. Class Warfare is what happens...

when the working class starts fighting back.

[La_Serpiente]

3. Class Warfare?

The rich are the ones that are combating the poor by getting all those tax cuts.

[Fovea]

5. Class Warfare????

Well, I guess that is what happens in response to class rape.

Note to pukes... you haven't seen class warfare yet.
We are taking back the wealth Bill Clinton made, and we are taking it from you.

[Ardee]

6. always been there

this government has, from its beginning start up by the wealthiest of the colonists, been oriented towards helping the rich get richer and keeping the poor as placated as possible while not interfering with job # 1.

As resources diminish the ability to placate the poor and keep more and more from becoming poor gets harder as the wealthiest fight over the remaining crumbs. This is not an altogether bad thing I suspect. Given the comfort level of most americans even yet, given their inability to see that they live in a flimsy reality that may come crashing down upon them at any moment the tougher things get the quicker the sleeping electorate will awaken....

[Fovea]

7. I disagree with your statement to a degree.

After the civil war, the country really changed from a semi agrarian, semi industrial economy to an economy where only the industrialists really had power. Transportation costs prevented the sort of price and labor cost manipulation you see happening now. With one or two exceptions, like California shipping laundry to China during the gold rush, labor was cheaper than transit throughout the 19th and early to mid 20th C.

The capitalist ownership of American government was resisted by certain political machines, which institutionalized crime on behalf of the lower classes for a secure vote. It was also resisted by organizations like the grange movement, but it took
defection of elites like Teddy Roosevelt and his nephew to break the back of Evil Capital(tm). FDR, in particular, set reforms into place that corrected the destructive tendencies of Gilded Age Business to boom and bust, taking the poor and working class with it.

It took the awareness generated by two world wars fought for, but not by imperialists and capitalists, and a whopper of a depression to arouse the population to action. They regulated capitalism and enfranchised the citizen, and a new larger middle class arose.
It's power and desirability was lauded by the paleoCons, and protected as best possible by a Republican President in the 50's,
and to a lessor extent by his ex vice president in the 70's.

But now the very folks Eisenhower warned us about have stormed the control room, and are stealing anything not mounted in concrete.


Time to smack Daddy Warbucks shitless again, IMO.

[Martin Eden]

8. Memo to Safire: Bring it on!

Class warfare is a fact in this country, except so far it has largely been waged by the politically-connected right-wing elite against the working class and the poor.

It is ironic that those who are waging this war hurl that accusation as soon as someone tries to point out what's going on.

Well, I say bring it on!

Real class warfare (short of actual violence) would involve the vast majority of the non-wealthy finally standing up, asserting the power of their greater numbers, and using the ballot box to toss the oligarchs and plutocrats out on their gold-plated asses!

[Merrick]

9. repeal Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific

of 1896 that granted constitutional personhood to corporations and really ushered in the climate of "Free Trade" rubric that privatizes profit for the owners of capital while socializing the costs for us. That's the real leverage point.

[Demeter]

10. YES! YES! YES!

[Aries]

11. Military conflict is class war by other means

War Is A Racket
By Major General Smedley Butler

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War (I) a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

[Broken]

12. no war but the class war

The class war is waged against the working class by the ruling class and the middle class that supports the system of class domination.

The very existence of classes is class warfare. The working class is the only class that can negate itself. The middle and ruling class can not do this because their very existence is dependent on the working class being in subjection to themselves.

The word class warfare when used by the rich means the working class is becoming class concious and fighting back and calling the rich on their classism. Then they try to say "hey, we're in this together, why must it be 'us verses them'?". Only the rich may be class concious.

[teryang]

13. The rich are exporting jobs and importing Asian

...labor standards. This is what keeps the dollar deflated, the ever tightening screw on labor costs and labor markets. This is how they cynically can claim there is no inflation when college costs, medical costs, insurance costs, energy costs and state and local taxation are going through the roof.

It is all a sham for the mindless masses to swallow as they vote for the wrong candidates. The veil concealing neo-feudalism will fall after november during the collapse to come and the grim reality will be there for all to see. They must have their wars and the patriot acts to suppress the inevitable social unrest to come.

The whole ponzi scheme will collapse if interests have to be increased. What will state and local government do when real estate values fall?

[lagniappe]

14. Republicans whinning about class warfare

is like a Klansman complaining that blacks don't like him. Unfortunately, there have been few Democrats willing to do anything about it.