We control the Senate because of the victory of an ex-Republican by 7000 votes in Virginia.
That Senator has become an eloquent spokesman for our Democratic POPULIST message, publishing this editorial on the pages of the Wall Street Journal within 2 weeks of his election (If you want to see what kind of conservative rage he stirred up, try reading the published responses to his op-ed):
Class Struggle
American workers have a chance to be heard.
BY JIM WEBBWednesday, November 15, 2006
The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes.
Incestuous corporate boards regularly approve compensation packages for chief executives and others that are out of logic's range. As this newspaper has reported, the average CEO of a sizable corporation makes more than $10 million a year, while the minimum wage for workers amounts to about $10,000 a year, and has not been raised in nearly a decade. When I graduated from college in the 1960s, the average CEO made 20 times what the average worker made. Today, that CEO makes 400 times as much.
In the age of globalization and outsourcing, and with a vast underground labor pool from illegal immigration, the average American worker is seeing a different life and a troubling future. Trickle-down economics didn't happen. Despite the vaunted all-time highs of the stock market, wages and salaries are at all-time lows as a percentage of the national wealth. At the same time, medical costs have risen 73% in the last six years alone. Half of that increase comes from wage-earners' pockets rather than from insurance, and 47 million Americans have no medical insurance at all.
Manufacturing jobs are disappearing. Many earned pension programs have collapsed in the wake of corporate "reorganization." And workers' ability to negotiate their futures has been eviscerated by the twin threats of modern corporate America: If they complain too loudly, their jobs might either be outsourced overseas or given to illegal immigrants.
This ever-widening divide is too often ignored or downplayed by its beneficiaries. A sense of entitlement has set in among elites, bordering on hubris. When I raised this issue with corporate leaders during the recent political campaign, I was met repeatedly with denials, and, from some, an overt lack of concern for those who are falling behind. A troubling arrogance is in the air among the nation's most fortunate. Some shrug off large-scale economic and social dislocations as the inevitable byproducts of the "rough road of capitalism." Others claim that it's the fault of the worker or the public education system, that the average American is simply not up to the international challenge, that our education system fails us, or that our workers have become spoiled by old notions of corporate paternalism.........
....(snip)......
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009246 Here are 7 influential
conservatives who renounced the Republican Party and openly
supported Democratic victory in 2006:
Time for Us to Gohttp://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0610.forum.htmlHere's the editorial the American Conservative, based in Alexandria, Virginia, published days before we won control of the Senate by 7000 Virginia votes:
The GOP Must Gohttp://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_11_20/feature.htmlDo you think 2008 will be a piece of cake?
Do you think it will be easier than 2006?
Do you truly want independents and disillusioned Republicans to stay in their own pastures?
Can American democracy survive 4-8 years of Giulliani, Romney, McCain, or Huckabee in the White House?
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