Why is it impossible to have an open debate about the class warfare going on?

[IDHow]

Whenever someone mentions the class warfare being waged in the US by the 1%, people talk as if it doesn't exist. It's like saying the weather doesn't exist. The class warfare is real, the ridiculous branding of "communism" or whatever when someone cares for the 99% is atrocious and it is decimating the 99%.

[Naturyl]

1. It's thoughtcrime.

There is no class warfare. There has never been class warfare. The MSM Ministry of Truth has spoken. Capitalism is doubleplus good.

[begin_within]

2. The upper class wants no discussion of "class warfare," while everything they do is class warfare.

Almost everything the Republicans, conservatives and upper class do politically is some form of class warfare to benefit their class. Yet any push or effort of any kind that even comes close to class warfare to benefit the middle class or poor is automatically denounced as "class warfare" and therefore not allowable in a supposedly "classless society." It's just another tactic that they use to further entrench their power while keeping the other classes at bay. They make up the rule that "class warfare" is disallowed in America (while it is at the core of nearly everything they do themselves).

[TacticalPeek]

3. Because then we would win.

Silence is golden.

[leftstreet]

4. Americans don't really understand class

In fact, they're taught to view it as an adjective

She's classy!

How low-class!

The only thing you can do is convince people they're NOT part of a mythical 'middle class'

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. +1000 It's been the paradox since the 1880s

and yes you cannot be part of the middle class if you make 25K a year (that would be WORKING CLASS), or if you make 150K year, that would be UPPER CLASS.

Both are middle class, it is part of the creed.

[IDHow]

13. The social mobility in the US

keeps going down the tube as long as there's denial about the very real class-based society we live in. The higher the inequality, the less social mobility. And let's not try to pretend it's all "globalization" and the "international economy" which have caused this, and which some try to wash their hands with and portray there's nothing that can be done about it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. It is partly globalization

but it is alos an alost complete demobilization of labor. IN fact, we should EMBRACE globalization. They have globalized work, we have to globalize unions...

Gompers talked about International Federations in the 1880s... well we need to make those REAL...

Oh and expect the usual suspects to FIGHT this tooth and nail, it removes cheap labor.

[IDHow]

21. Yes, but the focus on globalization

is in a way to try to portray the situation as something that is uncontrollable, and that's unacceptable. The "globalization" is of course a weapon for the corporate elite against the working class and was always meant to be just that. But the war against the unions, especially under Reagan, and in general the vicious attacks on the great society started with real power in the 1970s and is continuing to this day. They are not satisfied until every union and every part of the safety net is destroyed. They own the country and they feel entitled to own all wealth as well, not just 90%.

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. The counter revolution started in 1948 (Right to work states)

it became obvious by the 1980s... just saying.

As to the focus... there are reasons why... but first people need to understand what is going on, and then ACT ON IT.

[flamingdem]

5. Class War (Progreso Weekly)

http://progreso-weekly.com/2/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2038:class-war&catid=37:neighbors-to-the-south&Itemid=56

By David Brooks

Four years ago, Warren Buffett, the third richest man on the planet, said, "Of course there is a class war, but it's my class, the rich class, that is waging the war, and we're winning."

This mid-term election in the United States is a front of the class war. Business interests and the wealthy have declared war against anything that dares to impose controls on them, limit their activities or touch their fortunes, and they say so, explicitly and openly.

The vast majority of funds that are invested in what is already the most expensive mid-term election in history (it is expected to exceed, perhaps by far, 3.5 billion dollars) comes from billionaire donors, companies and groups representing the wealthy class.

For example, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has invested some $75 million in this election, almost all to support Republican candidates. In January, Chamber president Thomas Donohue said his association intended "to carry out the biggest and strongest voter-education effort and promotion of issues in our nearly one-century-old history." He is keeping his promise.

The organization American Crossroads, a project of Karl Rove, former campaign and political strategist for George W. Bush, receives donations of up to one million dollars from wealthy donors to support conservative candidates across the country.
===============

Thus, many commentators, like Robert Reich, professor of public policy and former Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton, conclude that, on Nov. 2, "Americans will decide whether to transfer even more of our government to companies that have been plundering the United States."

It is worth remembering that the recent years have been very good for the wealthy. In 2007, the richest 1 percent of households concentrated 23.5 percent of national income, the highest concentration since 1928 (one year before the start of the Great Depression). Although the richest lost some of their fortunes in the last recession, they are already recovering it. In 2009, the level of inequality between the richest and the others reached its highest point since the survey began tracking household income in 1967, reported Reuters.

Apparently, many of the country's wealthiest interests do not want to cede anything. The offensive against Barack Obama and his Democratic Party seems odd to some, since the right-wing accusations that it is "socialist" lack any basis in fact; rather the opposite. MORE AT LINK

[scarletwoman]

6. The Owner Class doesn't allow such talk. And the Political Class, being beholden to the Owner Class,

won't abide such talk, either.

[The Magistrate]

8. Exactly, Ma'am: You Beat Me To It

People co-operate themselves, though: folks living pay-check to pay-check, hand to mouth even, will say with ringing conviction they are 'middle-class'....

[scarletwoman]

14. Being fed a steady diet of false narrative will do that.

Our devotion to our mythology is our undoing.

[The Magistrate]

17. True, Ma'am, But One Is Supposed To Learn and Draw one's Own Conclusions

Part of it is the idea that anyone (which really means everyone) can 'get ahead' if they are good enough and energetic enough. This means that anyone who does not 'get ahead' is a failure, a person who failed the test, and is of lesser worth. To admit one has not 'got ahead' is to own oneself to be a moral and social failure, inferior in quality as a human being.

An old, openly class-ridden society has none of this. No serf ever looked at himself in a still pool and said 'If I'd just tried harder, I would have been a Duke, dammit!'

[leftstreet]

18. lol

'If I'd just tried harder, I would have been a Duke, dammit!'

How true!

[IDHow]

20. The American Dream

serves the purpose of the owner class.

As they say, it's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it!

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. Ironically our caste society

goes back that far... as well as the unconscious master -servant relationship and the worship of wealth. After all for Calvin if you were wealthy you were already saved. How do you know that? God has graced you.

Ah some of the fun things one reads!

[Naturyl]

15. Yep, bingo.

One must not speak of such things. It's outside the realm of acceptable discourse.

[Bigmack]

7. Because a large percentage of American people can't debate anything...

let alone wrap their heads around anything more complicated than TV reality show.

Dumber than a bag of hammers.

[Starry Messenger]

10. It's part of the mythology of this country that class doesn't exist.

Shit like that just comes back to bite you on the ass though. Class conflict is getting starker and starker here and we are going to see uprisings like in Europe...maybe not today, but it's coming.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. You really want that debate? You will have to do it

outside the Main Stream media, otherwise known as the Paper of Record.

There was MORE discussion of this when we had a WORKING CLASS press, which we don't. But we'd also need to have a working class, which mythically we don't.

Everybody is middle class... get your rose colored glasses here!

Fer the record, when people ask me... I tell the truth. I am WORKING CLASS and proud of it damn it!

[Johonny]

12. If your aren't wealthy then Rand Paul says you are a slave

and you should be a happy slave.

[EFerrari]

19. Franklin Lopez opens his show with "Good morning, slaves."

He's into that anarchist, black bloc thing that people say doesn't exist.

[Duke Newcombe]

24. Because it's only "class warfare" when the wrong class fights back.