American conservatives love to attack anyone who raises the issue of worsening economic inequality for waging “class war.” Their compulsion to keep repeating that phrase is revealing in itself; it’s like the serial killer in a movie who can’t help returning to the scene of the crime. Because the only class war being waged in 21st-century America is the relentless, all-fronts struggle conducted by the rich against the poor.
Within the last week, we have learned that poverty remains at near-record levels in our supposedly affluent nation. Even amid a so-called economic recovery, nearly 22 percent of the nation’s children live in poverty, and the overall number of poor people reached an all-time high, at 46.5 million. Income inequality, meanwhile, is roughly twice as bad as it was in the 1970s, reaching a level never seen before in this country or any other industrialized nation. The top 1 percent of Americans now bring home almost 20 percent of the country’s annual income, and have seen their tax bills decline by almost half. Britain, which has pursued similar tax-cutting policies over the last 30-odd years, finds itself a distant second in inequality, with its top 1 percent of earners commanding about 10 percent of total income. So while we may be behind the Brits in public health, life expectancy and almost every other quality-of-life indicator, we still totally kick their asses when it comes to disgusting rich people.
Read the rest of the O'Hehir piece and think about the role our union leadership has played in the class war, especially in the ceding of ideological ground to the free marketeers.
Of course, if you have union leaders who see themselves as part of the elite here to negotiate the terms of exploitation of their members rather than protectors of the rank and file, perhaps the ceding of ideological ground to the free marketeers on so many different issues has been purposeful and conscious.
I tend to think the union elites and the corporate elites all play fight in public for us, then go back to the dressing room and yuck it up over cocktails and cocktail weenies.
In other words, they're bought off and the whole game is rigged.
But 13 years watching Randi Weingarten spin her horse@#$% has made me cynical.
There is a class war and our union leaders are on the wrong side. They have a role to play in the scenario and they play it well: manage the membership so it doesn't get out of hand.
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly right. They're all on the same side.
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