It’s Official: Rich Declare War on the Middle Class

[marmar]

Published on Sunday, November 14, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
It’s Official: Rich Declare War on the Middle Class

by Robert Freeman


For the past thirty years the rich have been waging war on the middle class. It’s been astonishingly effective, partly because it has been undeclared. But even that pretense is now being abandoned. The President’s National Deficit Commission has effectively declared that the rich will now go after what is left of working and middle class wealth and will take whatever steps are necessary to seize it. If allowed to succeed, their plan will reduce Americans to a state of serfdom.

Ronald Reagan began the war on the middle class with his “supply-side” economics. Its very purpose, according to David Stockman, Reagan’s Budget Director, was to transfer wealth and income upwards. It cut the marginal tax rate on the highest income earners from 75% to 35% while dramatically expanding spending for war. The results were two-fold: massive federal debt and an astonishing rise in the share of income and wealth going to those who were already the wealthiest people in the world.

The national debt quadrupled between 1980 and 1992. George W. Bush would repeat Reagan’s policies and double it again between 2000 and 2008. Meanwhile, the share of national income going to the top 1% more than doubled, from 9% to 24%. The share going to the top one-tenth of 1% of income earners more than tripled. We now have the most unequal distribution of income in the developing world and the inequality is growing rapidly.

Shifts of this magnitude over such short periods of time have never been seen in American history. With the rich getting much, much richer, its means that everybody else is getting poorer. And in fact, real wages for median workers are lower today than they were in 1973. Indeed, while the inflation-adjusted income of the bottom fifth of workers fell by $6,900 between 1979 and 2007, the top 1% saw its annual income increase by $741,000! ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/14-1

[polichick]

1. Great piece - and when anyone speaks of this in public, they're accused...

...of playing class warfare - as if that's to be dismissed.

k&r

[glitch]

3. or of being conspiracy theorists...

which as time goes by becomes more and more disingenuous.

[polichick]

4. Yes, that too - anything to shut 'em up. nt

[robertpaulsen]

50. George Carlin had a great analysis of that phenomenon.

"I don't really, honestly, deep down believe in political action. I think the system contracts and expands as it wants to; it accommodates these changes.

I think the civil rights movement was an accommodation on the part of those who own the country. I think they see where their self-interests lie; they see a certain amount of freedom seems good. An illusion of liberty.

---

The limits of debate in this country are established before the debate even begins.

And everyone else is marginalized and made to seem either to be communists, or some sort of a disloyal person; or 'kook' - there's a word - and now its 'conspiracy', see.

They've made that something that should not be even entertained for a minute! That powerful people might get together and have a plan! 'Doesn't happen! You're a kook! You're a conspiracy buff'!"

http://americanjudas.blogspot.com/2010/01/it-is-official-cock-up-not-conspiracy.html

[laughingliberal]

11. Yes, Dear. It's only class warfare when we fight back. nt

k & r

[Mumblefratz]

27. Amen to that ...

sooner or later people will wake up. Hopefully they'll do so in time to protect Social Security.

However Republicans aren't the only ones responsible. Don't forget that Clinton signed NAFTA which started the outsourcing of America.

Corporatist Democrats are a bigger danger than Republicans. The silver lining in the cloud of the 2010 elections is how badly the Blue Dogs were decimated.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

79. Clinton had no choice on signing NAFTA...

... those of us that followed it, from the time of Poppy Bush and our "ad hoc" ambassador to Mexico, David Rockefeller, know that Poppy Bush used a maneuver called "fast tracking", meaning no matter who is in the White House, it gets signed into law within 6 months.

The only items that Clinton and Gore could change were environmental stipulations on plants being set up in Mexico. The rest of it was out of their hands.

[Sherman A1]

88. Precisely

I don't believe that the masses will wake up to what is and has happened. The GOP who speaks for the wealthy are masters as packaging a concept and marketing, so I believe that we are pretty much screwed.

[Citizen Worker]

51. Yes, and when the republicans shout from the floor of the house or senate, "you're inciting class

warfare," the democrats cower and retreat never to utter it again.

[femrap]

63. the dems play their role

so well....give them an Oscar. Widdle scaredy wabbits hopping off stage left.

[femrap]

62. I'm so angry after

reading this. I don't want to be a fucking serf. The entire history of the world is about Class Warfare....the rich killing the poor. A few exceptions of note, however.

There are wealthy people out there who believe their taxes should be increased because they know that people can be pushed only so far before a rich person's blood flows in the street.

[dkf]

2. Actually they bypassed the American middle class and replaced us with poorly paid foreign workers

We signed off on our own demise by going crazy on these cheap goods.

The rich are making money by paying minimal labor costs to people other than us.

[polichick]

6. Good point - I have never understood why people don't see...

...what they're doing in buying foreign-made stuff from the Walmarts of the world. Better to buy one U.S. made shirt than six from China.

[SocialistLez]

74. I really don't think consumers have much control

It's the businesses, CEOs, etc that decide where products are made.

[CrispyQ]

46. "We signed off on our own demise by going crazy on these cheap goods."

Have you seen the movie "Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price"?

It's a fascinating movie everyone should watch. They cover many different aspects of Walmart from how they decimate local economies to how they discourage collective bargaining to their influence on the factory floors in China. In the segment about how they ruin local economies, they interviewed a young woman who lost her job because the small business she was working for had to close due to the opening of a Walmart store. Then she admits that she shops there & that her actions partly contributed to her current situation. :crazy: :crazy: :crazy:

[Plucketeer]

48. WE LITERALLY....

cut off our own noses to spite our own faces. Forty years ago you had to look a bit tofind a "Made In China" sticker. Nowdays you have to look like hell, to find a Made In The USA tag!


GOP JOBS PROGRAM

[StarsInHerHair]

82. but remember in the 1990s Walmart's logo was "Made in Amer-

ica, Made Proud", that's what they said to get their foot in the door, THEN they switched over to Made in China; it began in Arkansas didn't it?

[L0oniX]

5. K & R

[liberal N proud]

7. What I don't understand is the middle class who keep enabling this

Those who vote republican are enabling the rich to have their way with us.

Why do these morons keep voting against their own best interest?

[polichick]

8. They are fooled by things like Bible thumping, flag waving, and the...

...demonization of anything "liberal" or "socialist."

[glitch]

9. Propaganda and the authoritarian mind.

With a bit of election fraud for good measure.

[polichick]

10. That authoritarian mind makes them so easy to fool! nt

[ProfessionalLeftist]

18. answer was in a previous post...

"...Republicans, who are masters of deceptive marketing, seized on Obama's most appealing qualities and turned them upside down. Their propaganda cast him not as soft but as a power-mad (black) leftist, destroying democracy with socialist schemes. The portrait was so ludicrous and mendacious, the president's party hardly bothered to respond. Egged on by the Republican Party and Fox News, right-wing frothers conjured sicko fantasies and extreme accusations: the president is not only a black man (bad enough for the party of the white South); he is not even American. The vindictive GOP strategy is racial McCarthyism, demonizing this honorable man as an alien threat, just as cold war Republicans depicted left-liberal Democrats as commie sympathizers..."

LINK: http://www.thenation.com/article/156384/obama-without-tears

IE: People are misled by Republicorprat propaganda and they vote accordingly.

[StarsInHerHair]

83. "seized on Obama's most appealing qualities and turned them"

upside down"-Democrats have seen the GOP do this for at least 2 DECADES, they are adults-when will they decide to act like it & effectively counter the endless bullshit streaming from the mouths of the Right? This is a major reason why people watch the Daily Show & Colbert, because those shows are willing to play clips of Cons saying what they claim they never said. Tough if some here don't like Jon Stewart anymore, I think he had an off-kilter couple of moments but no one else seems willing to catch the GOP lying on film like he does; he did a brilliant job when W claimed he 'never said stay the course', he just collected a ton of times W said it & played them.

Any Dems who play unprepared & get that 'deer in the headlights' look I have a difficult time taking seriously, the Right isn't exactly innovative in what they do. I think those Dems are DLC & do far more harm than good. It's time Dems play like adults & stand up for the nation, Repugs sure as hell don't care about America, they even admitted this when McCain said it in the Right's special way of letting smart people know what they're really about, by accusing Dems, when they're most absolutely guilty.

[mwb970]

23. They are so easily tricked, it's unbelievable.

The plutocrats are so lucky to have such a sizable cadre of American citizens who are religious, uninformed, and addicted to the right-wing media echo chamber. The perfect dupes! They think they're voting to kill all the gay people, or whatever, when they're actually voting to cut their own throats. And all along, they have no idea they are being used in this way!

Liberal leaders can't do the same thing, even if they wanted to. Their followers are smart and well-read, and therefore much harder to fool than the home-schooled, three-times-a-week churchgoers and Palin lovers in the tiny towns and trailer parks.

[femrap]

64. We live in Dumfukistan! nt.

[lunatica]

26. They catapult the propaganda from kindergarten on

Those of us who see what the truth is, whether partially or completely, have had to question 'common wisdom' and actively search for the truth. This country is as brainwashed as any other in history. If you don't believe it try telling everyone you know about how the Corporations have taken over. They'll yawn right in your face and call you a nut. They may even feel sorry for you for being so deluded.

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

28. Here is my simple take on it ...

They still believe that they can "be all that".

Examples of what I have heard some say, paraphrased, of course.

I will someday start a business ... don't tax my "present self", because my "future self" will be rich.

I will win the lottery ... and be one of the blessed, I must watch out for my (imagined) interests now.

They know what they have now is not the best, it is not what they really want. But their future self may
get all the rewards and riches they deserve.

Then add in racism, gender bias, a unexplained religious fervor. Heat, stir, blended for your republican enjoyment.

[liberal N proud]

39. No reality for the reality TV folk

Those who are hooked on reality TV but can't accept the fact of their own reality, living on fantasy.

[pitohui]

43. yeah it's the new pie in the sky when you die

these guys think someday they'll be rich which is a joke, most of them have no honest way to earn real money and the dishonest way (being in construction/real estate) has just come crashing down for their remaining lifetimes

people who are actually smart enough to go to college, get real degrees, etc. already know there's no meritocracy out there, they know how hard it is to make something of yourself...but these real estate scammers have never done anything that is "hard," much less graduate from college, so they can kid themselves that merit is rewarded

it's much harder for the engineer who has multiple degrees and experience to feel merit is rewarded when his job is outsourced, he KNOWS how much effort and work went into building a career that ultimately is prob. going to leave him "too expensive" hence unemployable in his 50s...

but you can always sell a stupid person on the fantasy that one day he'll be rich

[Tatiana]

29. I think to a certain extent, some middle class folk think they will be wealthy someday.

So they vote Republican thinking that they will be able to benefit from the favorable policies for the wealthy at some point. Of course, these dimwits don't realize that the very policies that favor the extremely wealthy are also what is keeping them from ever attaining upward mobility.

[liberal N proud]

38. That is the American Fantasy

Not the American Dream

[awoke_in_2003]

67. Carlin nailed it...

"It's called the american dream- you have to be asleep to believe it"

[ladjf]

33. I'm not joking when I suggest that perhaps middle and lower income

people may posses some ancient subliminal fealty to the rich (nobility) class. They seem to sincerely believe that the rich deserve to be treated better than everyone else.

[liberal N proud]

40. Like the surfs to their king?

Aspiring to the aristocrats.

[ladjf]

47. Exactly! Somehow, they made have been trained over hundreds

of years that the rich aristocracy are actually superior and that's why they are rich and powerful.

The middle and lower income in the Southern U.S. during the 19th Century, enthusiastically went to war against the Federal Gvt. to "preserve their Southern way of life", i.e. slavery and to protect the wealth of the rich class. Why would they fight and die for the rich?

[October]

56. Totally agree!

I've always heard and still see postings here that many middle class people think they will one day be rich... and so vote as though they already are. I have such difficulty accepting that -- however, I have actually MET (and am related to) people who seem to think that the business owners, rich guys, etc. deserve MORE.

WHERE does that come from?

[ladjf]

59. For thousands of years, the rich and powerful have bombarded

the lower classes with propaganda designed to assure that the lower classes would continue to serve the rich. That type of continuous manipulation would be difficult to throw off.

[ArcticFox]

70. All people have a king complex

Even the very rich. They just have fewer people to bow down to.

[JanMichael]

86. I think that might be called "atavistic" or primal behavior. nt.

[SocialistLez]

90. OR they stupidly believe one day they will be rich.

There is also the meme that rich people work SOOOO much harder than everyone else.

:rofl:

[Kievan Rus]

35. When the average American cares more about Paris Hilton than how their Senator votes...

what do you expect?

The Roman Emperors understood the power of bread and circuses. And so do the corporate overlords.

[liberal N proud]

41. But I think that is just a symptom of the illness

There must be something drawing them to the pudding. I think there are several good explanations above, one or maybe all play a part in the mindless support from some to give the reigns over to the rich as is done time and time again.

[pitohui]

42. stupid people are incapable of recognizing their own best interest

that's sort of part and parcel of being stupid

[October]

57. My own brother

would never join a union because he saw that as "unfair" to the owner of the business.

He and his children have done without for YEARS -- because of his foolish allegiance to the guy with MORE.

[NewJeffCT]

55. 18% of Americans think they are in the richest 1%

and I bet quite a few more think they're in the top 2-3%, so they think they're "almost" there...

Get a vast majority of that 18%, plus you thump enough bibles and wave enough flags to get 50% +1 vote.

[Greyhound]

12. K&R. And their defenders are here daily defending their parasitic masters.

[ixion]

13. k/r

Fight the Power! :grr:

[Initech]

14. Declare war? They won it!

[pacalo]

15. It's not going to be such a pretty picture for the greedy ones

when those who are no longer able to afford just the vital necessities are left no choice but to steal to survive. That trickle-down effect they are thoughtlessly working toward creating defies common sense. Their precious assets won't be any fun for them if they are among the few surrounded by a majority who don't even have the bare necessities. Could they be that stupid?

Why are they aiming to take away from the middle class & poor? And don't those obscenely wealthy people who balk at paying higher taxes -- & that $700 million, or billion(?), for their govt. freebie is ADDED to the budget -- use the same roads, govt. facilities, police/fire dept.'s., etc., that the peons use?

Greed is constricting common sense when the majority of people, mostly on the scraping-to-get-by level, are squeezed like bloodless turnips while the obscenely rich collect multiples of mansions & luxury items to sate their egos.

:grr:

[NoSheep]

54. That's already happening...(as you know)

[readmoreoften]

16. Working class. The term "middle class" is in part how they won the war.

Working class means you have to sell your labor for a living--can't live on capital/inheritance. What is the "middle" class? Usually workers who had good unions. In traditional leftist economics, the "middle class" are small business owners, merchants, and high-level professionals (who support the upper classes (corporate lawyers, brokers, etc.).

[socialist_n_TN]

36. Agree with this. Because of the demonization of...............

everything "socialist" we can't even use the TERM working class anymore without the companion qualifier "middle class" EVEN THOUGH MOST, IF NOT ALL, OF THE MIDDLE CLASS IS WORKING CLASS. Working class sounds too "Marxist" to exist on it's own.

[OlympicBrian]

17. Even ivory towers have foundations at their base...

Even ivory towers have foundations at their base...and that's what the ultra-rich forget. An unsustainable budget plan, and millions of angry, unemployed citizens is not a solid foothold--and hence, ivory towers will topple.

The Debt Commission Report draft is a symptom of the system we have set up over the past few decades, I call that system, the "US Corporatocracy":

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9554944

The Debt Commission needs to start at square one, and provide the steps they skipped; the first of which is tables and graphs of projected revenues, based on existing marginal tax brackets plus a set of new ones for the ultra-rich, well beyond the 35 percent top bracket which exists now--including the assumption of capital gains being treated as ordinary income.

[marmar]

25. D'accord.

nt

[femrap]

65. This Debt Commission is

here to do one thing only....put the final nail in the coffin for the average American. The tax rates for the ultra-wealthy go down in their plan. For the middle class, up. No more mortgage interest write-off. No more child credit (which could result in fewer children in families possibly). It reads like a horror story.

All sacrifices by the workers, elderly, and poor. All gains go to the Wealthy. I'm surprised they didn't advocate bringing back Debtor's Prisons....just wait!

[Catherina]

19. Heh

Rec'd

[sam sarrha]

20. The richest 1% have 42% of all financial wealth, 6 times what the bottom 80% hold at 7%..so the top

top 20% hold 93% of Americas financial wealth.. that is why there is a recession, there isnt any money left for the majority to spend

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

[the redcoat]

21. Awesome article, thanks for sharing. nt

[laughingliberal]

22. K & R nt

[TBF]

24. K&R nt

[Crystal Clarity]

30. Great article but,

too bad the MSM where most people get their news will not 'go there'. It's infuriating. :grr:

[Scruffy1]

31. the myth of the middle class is a lot of the problem

Even the poor consider themselves a part of the "middle class". The only meaningful difference between the middle class
was stability of employment for much of our history. The genius of the neocons was to convince the middle class that the poor were why their taxes were high, inflation was eating them alive and minorities were the enemies. A middle class person is a poor person who has a job and a poor person is a middle class person who has lost his job. Today their are so many jobs paying less than what is needed to live we have created a larger class of working poor. This suits the plutocracy just fine.

[me b zola]

32. K&R

[Marr]

34. I often wonder if this is just the way things are going to be for a few centuries.

This great wealth disparity was basically the accepted norm in the US until the New Deal was put into play, and WW2 left the US as the world's only industrial power, with a Communist foil to play against. The average person's improved standard of living in the US and western Europe seems to have turned out to be little more than a sales pitch against the red team, and it's been disintegrating rapidly since the USSR started collapsing.

Europe seems to be holding onto their standard of living much better than we are, being blessed with more modern constitutions that aren't centered around protecting the wealth of an elite few, but look at us. The US raced right back to robber baron times in the space a couple of decades.

[DirkGently]

37. This is the conversation the entire country needs to be having right now.

[katty]

44. of course and the best way is to effectively collapse the middle

class, any security nets that are hanging on by a thin thread for the middle class and the poor.

[grahamhgreen]

45. Tax the filthy rich. All other plans are side items.

[davidwparker]

49. The answer, of course, is for the party to nominate real

progressives and have the fortitude to stop supporting, and voting for fakes, regardless of the (D).

Party purging needs to take place. There is 2 years before the next House restructuring.

[Deep13]

52. Marking for future reference. nt

[NoSheep]

53. I can't WAIT to have thanksgiving with my relatives who vote against their interests and mine :-(

It's a nightmare.

[Kaleva]

58. I thought the war was official some 4,000 years ago already.

[leeroysphitz]

60. The war is over. We have lost, but...

there will be chances for payback.

[B Calm]

68. When working class people vote for the assholes who want to

give the rich bastards who sent our jobs overseas another tax cut, you absolutely know the war is over and the rich won!

[bc3000]

61. What about that poll that said that the rich favor removing tax cuts for the rich?

It's hard to blame it on the rich when people making over 250k think their taxes should be raised.

[awoke_in_2003]

66. and we only notice now...

because they are coming after the middle class. The rich won the war against the poor a long time ago.

[WillyT]

69. HUGE K & R !!!

:kick:

[prodigals0n]

71. The rich DECLARE war on the middle class?

Listen, I hate to be the one to break this to you but the rich haven't declared war on the middle class. The war is over and the rich have already won.

[Doubting Thomas]

72. It's only class war...

When the lower classes fight back.

[Overseas]

73. K&R ! Great article. /nt

[paulkienitz]

75. it began before Reagan

The first major salvo was California's notorious Proposition 13. It was a sneak attack of sorts, in that the regressive nature of it kicked in only slowly over time.

[xchrom]

76. Recommend

[amborin]

77. K&R

[Patchuli]

78. I think we should officially fight back

Remember, there's a hell of a lot more of us!

[asdjrocky]

80. Problem is, it's been going on since the founding of this country.

People that write about this here and elsewhere are obsessed with the idea of this all starting 30 years ago with Reagan. That would be wrong. Reagan did a lot to help it along but let's face it, Kennedy gave huge tax cuts to the rich.

This war, the rich against the rest, has been going on from the day the Declaration was signed, and the fact that people are coming around to the notion only now, shows how lost the cause if for us.

[harmonicon]

81. "Middle Class"?

You've got to be kidding me. There is (practically speaking) no middle class. There are the rich and the poor.

[Yavin4]

87. And The Debtors Who Think That They're Middle Class

The most Orwellian phrase in our language is Homeowner which describes someone who owes the bank thousands of dollars.

[harmonicon]

89. Exactly.

If someone is in debt, they are not middle class. The term has real meaning in history (people like bankers, now so maligned as the filthy rich, were the middle class), but it's lost all meaning in the US these days. The greatest triumph of the rich in the class warfare was convincing poor and working class people that they were middle class. I assume this started in the 40's or 50's, but I know it's only become worse since I was a kid in the 80's. For some reason saying you're somewhere below "middle class" is like admitting to being a criminal; so effectively did Reagan demonize the poor.

[Bennyboy]

84. K and R

[Yavin4]

85. The Rich's War Against The Middle Class Ended with PATCO

We've been occupied ever since.