Jim Hightower: Conservatives Are Blind, Deaf and Dumb to Class Warfare

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



Hightower: Conservatives Are Blind, Deaf and Dumb to Class Warfare

By Jim Hightower, Creators Syndicate. Posted March 12, 2009.

Are right-wingers really claiming that the U.S. has never been riven by class resentment? Get out your history books.



David Brooks was upset. You can tell when this conservative and rather-professorial columnist for the New York Times gets upset, because his words almost sag with disappointment -- you can practically hear the tsk-tsks and the heavy sighs in each paragraph. When most commentators on the right see things that offend them, they get snarling mad; Brooks gets sad.

What saddened Brother Brooks this time was Barack Obama's budget. In a recent column, he noted that the $3.6 trillion total is "gargantuan" (we columnists are paid to make keen observations like that), but what really upset him was that the tax burden to finance universal health care, energy independence and other big initiatives in Obama's budget "is predicated on a class divide."

With heavy sighs, Brooks expressed great despair that "no new burdens will fall on 95 percent of the American people," adding with a tsk-tsk that "all the costs will be borne by the rich and all benefits redistributed downward."

Leaving aside the fact that such things as health-care coverage for every American and a booming green energy economy will benefit the rich as well as the rest of us, Brooks' column was echoing a prevalent theme in all of the right's attacks on Obama's economic proposals: Class War! Indeed, the Times' columnist even suggested (sadly) that Obama's budget was fundamentally un-American: "The U.S. has never been a society riven by class resentment," he sniffed. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/131083/hightower%3A_conservatives_are_blind%2C_deaf_and_dumb_to_class_warfare/

[ixion]

1. Sorry Mr. Brooks... the US has been riven by class resentment

since the industrial revolution, which might also be called, "The Enslavement of the People" revolution.

[raccoon]

2. Jim Hightower rocks! nt

[grasswire]

3. a nice paragraph

"While our schools, media and politicians rarely mention it, America's history is replete with class rebellions against various moneyed elites who act as though they're the top dogs and ordinary folks are just a bunch of fire hydrants.

Check out the Tenant Uprisings of 1766, Shay's Rebellion in the 1780s, the Workingmen's Movement of the 1830s ... on into the post-Civil War populist movement that confronted the robber barons, the bloody labor battles at Haymarket and Homestead in the late 1800s, Coxey's Army in 1894, the Bonus March of 1932, the Penny Auctions by farmers in the 1920s and '30s, the rise of the CIO in the Depression years ... and right into modern-day fights involving environmental justice, fair trade, women's pay, workplace safety, tenant rights, janitors, farmworkers, union-busting, bank redlining, consumer gouging, clean elections and so forth."

There it is. Precedent.

[southernyankeebelle]

4. OH THE OUTRAGE BY THE REPUBLICANS AND I SAY

F THEM. I JUST GOT OFF THE PHONE WITH A VERY CLOSE FAMILY FRIEND THAT VOTED FOR OBAMA AND NOW SHE THINKS SHE MADE A MISTAKE. WE REALLY GOT INTO. SHE SAID THAT ISN'T FAIR THAT SMALL BUSINESS SHOULDN'T BE TAXED ON HEALTH CARE IF A PERSON LEAVES THEIR BUISNESS AND THEY HAVE TO PAY 25% OF THEIR HEALTH CARE. I TOLD HER I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT HIS PLAN WAS YET. AND THAN SHE SAID WELL WHY SHOULD THE RICH PAY FOR FAT AND LAZY PEOPLE WHO DON'T WANT TO DO BETTER. THAT WAS IT FOR ME. I SAID THE RICH NEVER BITCHED WHEN THEY WERE GETTING RICHER OFF THE MIDDLE CLASS AND NOW THEY ARE ASKED TO PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE. FINALLY I SAID I DON'T KNOW IF YOU ARE RICH OR MIDDLE CLASS OR WORKING POOR THAT DON'T WANT WHAT IS BEST FOR THEIR OWN FAMILY. THAT IS LIFE AND EVERYONE LOOKS FIRST TO THEIR OWN FAMILY AND THEN SPREND OUT TO THEIR FRIENDS AND THEN TO THE BIGGER COMMUNITY.

[Tyler Generation]

6. Excuse me

[vinylsolution]

5. Jim Hightower is one....

... Texan we could trust to do the right thing in Washington.

One of a very few ten-gallon hats with any useful content!

All power to ya, Jim!

[yurbud]

7. right wingers seem to be focusing ire on stimulus not bailouts--at least the pundit class is

even some rank and file republicans are seeing that there is one set of rules for helping the wealthy and another for helping average Americans.