Is it Class Warfare or a Cry for Justice

[natrlron]

Over the past three decades this country has experienced rapid growth in income inequality. While the incomes of those in the top 5% have increased exponentially, especially during the past decade, the inflation-adjusted income of production and non-supervisory workers has actually decreased. The 2010 census found the number of Americans living in poverty to be higher than at any time in the past 51 years that records have been kept; the poverty rate … 1 in 7 Americans … was higher than it’s been since 1994. The rich have indeed gotten richer and the poor have gotten poorer. The middle class has been eviscerated.

Yet in Congress the Republicans, who say they speak on behalf of the average American, instead fight any efforts to regulate the financial industry excesses that brought about the recent/current recession, resist any tax increases on wealthy Americans (although current tax rates are lower than at any time since before the Depression), and in general continue to support government subsidization of industry while seeking savage budget cuts in programs that support middle income Americans and the poor. All in the name of reigning in the deficit.

This is the context in which Mitt Romney and other Republicans are crying “class warfare” at the protests taking place against the financial industry and at Obama’s call for the rich to pay a minimum tax at least equal to the taxes paid by middle income Americans.

Call it mendacity; call it hypocritical. But beyond deceit, as Rick Perry so aptly stated when criticizing his fellow Republicans for their stand on immigration, these people have no heart. Not only have they no heart, they have forgotten the American social contract which has benefited them greatly and under which they have an obligation to support the government’s efforts to help those less fortunate.

It is not class warfare to ask that the rich pay their fair share to support the government. It is not class warfare to ask that industry be regulated so that the public good is protected. These demands are a cry for social justice. They are consistent with the balance that our nation has historically struck between private right, the public good, and government.

The Republicans seek to fundamentally alter that balance. They are making war on the American social contract and on the middle class, the poor, and the environment.

For more on this and other issues, see my blog: http://PreservingAmericanGreatness.blogspot.com

[Quantess]

1. It's a cry for justice.

[RagAss]

2. It's a cry now...soon to be a HOWL !

[ChillbertKChesterton]

3. Class warfare is a cry for justice.

Stop letting the corporate media and conservatives frame the debate. Don't let them tell you what words are acceptable to use.

If you play by their rules, you always lose, and those rules include the rules concerning what we are allowed to think about, talk about, and what is "crazy".

[mdmc]

4. 1

[natrlron]

5. You make a good point

Class warfare has a very negative connotation. In the US, we're all supposed to be in this together; no classes. Well, it never was quite that way, but at least for the last 50-100 years, the rich understood their part of the social contract and even Republicans supported many aspects of the progressive agenda, and even advanced it under several presidents. But things have changed. The rich and big business have no sense of responsibility, of being part of society ... they have no concept or understanding of the American social contract. And so it's getting to the point where the concept of class warfare is legitimate, but I don't know that it is a productive way of framing it. And the whole point is to bring about change, to be productive.

[ChillbertKChesterton]

8. The entire labor movement was class warfare

The civil rights movement was class warfare

Don't shy away from it

[Quantess]

10. The past 30 years was when the Middle Class Decline began.

1980, when Reagan took office. I was oblivious, as I was a child then. But if you look at the statistics and facts, and charts and graphs, everything points to a decline in the middle class beginning 1980. But for most people it was barely noticeable, (except for the recession in the early 80's which was blamed on Carter).
The poorest suffered the most, but who cares, right? They're loser sadsacks anyway, was the reasoning the American public believed. For a while anyway, but now people have woken up! The "trickle down economy" has been proven to be a huge LIE.

You are right "class warfare" is sort of an ugly phrase. Seriously, and I mean it, let's start telling the Robin Hood story all over again, like we heard as children if we were from earlier generations.

[Raksha]

13. Exactly what I was going to say! n/t

[Vincardog]

6. IT is neither. It a demand the the whole system be trashed and a new fair system be built.

We can not let this be co-opted by some smarmy politician and devolve into a "political" fight.
In my opinion, this protest is about how the Obscenely rich have corrupted the whole system.
Politics, the courts, the whole economy is designed and built to serve and maintain THEM.
WE the 99% who are not served by the system are demanding it be replaced.

[TBF]

9. Agree for the most part - especially with your solution

But the rich did not corrupt this system. Capitalism is a system that is inherently corrupt.

[Vincardog]

11. Join a OWS meet up and let the PTB know we will not allow it to continue

[Selatius]

7. As I am very left wing on a whole host of economic issues, I can't but characterize it as class war.

I reject any notion that class warfare is inherently wrong. It is a bit like saying one is offended that the sky is blue or water is wet. Wealthy individuals have always used their power to solicit favorable treatment from governing entities since time in memoriam, and others should be free to challenge that activity. It is a check on power.

[natrlron]

12. I agree

that this movement is in effect class warfare. Just as, as one person commented, the labor movement was class warfare. The point is that calling it class warfare, as opposed to social justice or something similar, does move the cause forward. It creates even more antagonism between the parties, and that makes a favorable resolution of the issue less likely. I have called for more or less war on the radical Republicans, but that's because any attempt to conciliate is hopeless and there is a possibility of knocking them out of their power position if the Dems make a good cause to the people in a way that they understand. Whereas there's no way to knock the business elite out of their position and I don't know that they are beyond hope.