Damn Straight It's Class Warfare- Guess Which Class Is Winning

[T.Ruth2power]

Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

This conversation keeps coming back to mind because, in the last couple of weeks, I have been on one television panel after another, talking about how questionable it is that the country is enjoying what economists call full employment while we are still running a federal budget deficit of roughly $434 billion for fiscal 2006 (not counting off-budget items like Social Security) and economists forecast that it will grow to $567 billion in fiscal 2010.

When I mentioned on these panels that we should consider all options for closing this gap — including raising taxes, particularly for the wealthiest people — I was met with several arguments by people who call themselves conservatives and free marketers.

One argument was that the mere suggestion constituted class warfare. I think Mr. Buffett answered that one.

Another argument was that raising taxes actually lowers total revenue, and that only cutting taxes stimulates federal revenue. This is supposedly proved by the history of tax receipts since my friend George W. Bush became president.

In fact, the federal government collected roughly $1.004 trillion in income taxes from individuals in fiscal 2000, the last full year of President Bill Clinton’s merry rule. It fell to a low of $794 billion in 2003 after Mr. Bush’s tax cuts (but not, you understand, because of them, his supporters like to say). Only by the end of fiscal 2006 did income tax revenue surpass the $1 trillion level again.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/business/yourmoney/26every.html?ei=5090&en=0cf877b05b918674&ex=1322197200&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

Here's What Class Warfare Looks Like

Among the most darkly grotesquely absurdities of contemporary political life is that class warfare is used to describe marginal tax increases for rich people and calls for mild redistribution to the working class. Here's what it actually means. These are janitors in Houston who make $20 a day with no health insurance. Their labor is physical, the chance for workplace injuries massive, and the desire for better conditions natural. So they struck. And the police came in with horses.

For those curious, horses are used for two reasons: The first is the enhanced visibility their height offers police. The second is because they're animals, not machines. Implicit in the use of the horse is that it is not fully in the officers control and could, at any time, take one errant step and crush you. They terrify in a way motorcycles or, say, stilts, don't. True to form, the horses trampled scores of the strikers, injuring a handful, including an 83-year-old man.
Video @

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=11&year=2006&base_name=heres_what_class_warfare_looks

Anyone here who is of means but does not succumb to elists ideals? Sure. And perhaps some who only succumb to a few of them. That's where the discussion gets interesting...

So any of you care to join in on a discussion of the relevance and meaning of class warfare and what ideals are elitist and what are not?

For those who suggest there is no class warfare that it is somehow a relic of a bygone era rest assured it is being waged upon all of us whtether we choose to acknowledge this or not.

[rusty quoin]

1. Oh yeah, it is a class war. They started it. n/t

[T.Ruth2power]

2. 'People hate this kind of talk. Raw truth is never popular.'

I've decided that the right wing is correct on this: There is a class war, but they and their political allies are the ones who have declared it. As Episcopal Bishop John Chane said at a recent Sojourners/Call to Renewal chapel service: "We've gone from a war on poverty to a war on the poor."

Last year, Susan Pace Hamill, a University of Alabama tax law professor, took a sabbatical to earn a Master of Theological Studies degree. She wrote her thesis on "An Argument for Tax Reform Based on Judeo-Christian Ethics." In it she applied "the moral principles of Judeo-Christian ethics" to Alabama's tax system, seeing reform as "a critically important step toward ensuring that Alabama's children, especially children from low-income families, enjoy an opportunity to build a positive future."

Those "moral principles" came into sharp focus in three news stories this summer. The first related directly to Alabama and its Republican governor's proposal to reform the state tax system. The other two showed the same principles on the national scale. One was about the exclusion of 7 million low-income working families—and their 12 million children—from the child tax credit that other families are receiving. The other was the latest IRS annual report, showing huge increases in the wealth of America's 400 richest taxpayers.

In all three, the moral contradictions are too great to ignore. The deepening injustice of America's growing wealth chasm is increasingly impossible to justify. It's becoming a moral, and even a religious, issue.

-Jim Wallis at

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0309&article=030951

[New Dawn]

3. The richest 0.1% of Americans own as much wealth as the bottom 40%

The top 10% also own 85% of the wealth.

Americans can either choose to resist, or continue to be dominated.

[lonestarnot]

6. Resist how?

[anigbrowl]

8. By any means necessary. If Obama wins in November, we give that a try. Otherwise...

...it may become necessary to exercise our second amendment rights more assertively.

[lynnertic]

13. oooooooooooo

don't go there

besides the 1st amendment is mightier than the 2nd.

[havocmom]

9. for starters: we have to stop letting them turn against each other with wedge issues

WE have the power of sheer numbers, but they keep us all tied up with fighting amongst ourselves, so we never really get that power charged up. If we did, we could eat the rich in short order.

I'll take one with chips. ;)

[Fly by night]

10. My solution: Eat the rich

[lonestarnot]

12. Do we have to eat them? LOL

Ackety.

[Fly by night]

15. No. But I want them to know just how hungry we are for change.

I do believe they'd make good dog food. And as DUers know, I LOVE puppies.

[DBoon]

4. it's not a war

a conflict this one-sided is called a "slaughter"

[texshelters]

5. The wealthy media owners perpetuate the lies about wealth

Remember way back in the debates when Edwards was talking about income inequality and made some good points, and Bill Richardson said, "We don't need to talk about class warfare here." Richardson lost my vote right there. This article and picture is great. Now the right-wing nuts and media are calling Obama a class warrior because he dares to suggest that CEOs make too much money and don't pay their share of taxes. Whatever you think of Obama, he's no George Bush.

More at this link, it's funny:

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=266473317&blogID=403424021&Mytoken=6CE98662-6D19-42B9-9825808D4DB425357477074

Peace,
Tex Shelters

[lynnertic]

14. The photo is of a resort and neighboring favela in Brazil

I beleive.

[rucky]

16. Could've just as easily been in Florida. n/t

[Crabby Appleton]

21. Yes, it is. nt

[Asgaya Dihi]

7. It's far from new

This has been going on for ages and the drug war was a good part of what got it established. It provided the excuses for the militarization of our police and for us getting used to exceptions to what had before been considered to be rights. I wrote two posts not too long ago which explored some of it. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5763043&mesg_id=5763316">This one talks about the basics of how the racial imbalances developed with a particular example though there's a lot more to it, and http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2496606&mesg_id=2496606">this one explored it in a much broader historical sense.

We're just starting to notice now because it's not just the traditional poor being hit but us as well. It's nice that people are finally starting to notice but it's really not new and it's kind of sad that it has to happen to us also before we decide to care. The groundwork for this has been being laid for decades and people have been trying to tell us that. Rather than listen too many cheered "tough on crime" and voted for it, as long as it was the other guy being hit rather than us and the markets all looked good.

[Hydra]

18. That's my favorite rant

"Why does it have to affect you before you do something about it?"

The poor have been ground under the boot of the "elite" since perhaps the frmation of this country- Shay's rebellion was not seen by most people as a call for justice so much as a call for stronger government to squash the people who dared ask for fairness.

Still, the end of my rant remains the same- if it HAS to affect a person before they decide to do anything about it, let's hurry this process of throwing people to the bottom along.

The sooner we're all in the same boat, the better.

[bdamomma]

11. it is a class war.

and we are the ones who pay for their sick indulgences. :grr:

[blindpig]

17. They started it.

Their existance as a class makes it so.







http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/02/20/poster_narrowweb__300x395,0.jpg

But only we can finish it. What are we waiting for?

[JHB]

19. That's just because you're an anti-business far-left radical dreaming of a socialist utopia

...like Eisenhower.



See also related thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3410762

(who will be lucky to get 50 posts between them)

[alfredo]

20. My poster on this subject

[lonestarnot]

22. OMG! Post a warning!

:puke: :hi:

[alfredo]

23. No, that isn't Jaba the Hutt.

[lonestarnot]

24. Certainly looks like him!

[alfredo]

25. But Jaba has some redeeming values.

[lonestarnot]

26. Wasn't he green?

[alfredo]

27. His makeup artist was color blind and was too proud to admit it.

[lonestarnot]

28. Kick