I have written about “class warfare” and the misuse of this term by the American Conservatives quite a bit in the past. The issue reared its head up again over the current economic debates in Washington recently. Yesterday, Paul Ryan stated:
Class warfare may make for good politics, but it makes for rotten economics. We don’t need a system that seeks to divide people. We don’t need a system that seeks to prey on people’s fear, envy and anxiety.
While he is correct about class warfare not necessarily being good politics, his statement is one of misdirection. President Obama finally stated, “This is not class warfare. It’s math.” He is completely correct, on most accounts. But, I’m not really focused on President Obama’s speech today or his new fiscal proposals. I’m really focused on the rhetoric, tactics and aims of the GOP, especially the Tea Party.
Class warfare is taken from the title of a book of interviews with Noam Chomsky in 1996. Prior to this publication, the term was “class conflict.” Class conflict is a Marxist term. There are several forms of class conflict: direct violence, indirect violence, coercion, or ideology. All of these ideals are concerned with poverty, labor conditions, union power, starvation, government propaganda, and similar themes. All of these ideals are concerned with the wealthy forcing the less wealthy to support their system of power.
Even this whole “Big Government is the problem” ideology is antiquated and unsubstantiated. The Tea Party and their candidates continually insist, “the government is the problem.” Or that “Big government is the problem.” They constantly claim that taxation should be minimal. So, they want a nonexistent government and almost no taxation? They are seriously advocating that the United States be run like Somalia?
As of July 2003, Somalia had no national government. In 1986, income tax in Somalia was between 0% and 19%. In 2003, the sales tax rate was 10%. Really? This is the nation we want to aspire to be? Somalia?
They also claim that National Health Care is oppressive and destroys freedom and financial growth. They claim that unions and labor organizations stifle the economy. They claim that outsourcing labor is responsible for the destruction (or erosion) of the middle class.
There is a country that has no “at will” employment. Employees are guaranteed 24 paid vacation days per year, though most get 4 to 6 weeks. Maternity leave and working conditions are legislated at a high level. This country also opened up six more factories in a cheaper country this year, so far. Germany is hardly the same picture as Somalia. They make cars that automatically avoid accidents (if the driver isn’t paying attention) and parking lots that automatically stack cars underground. Germany also has 6.1% unemployment.
Are we really to believe that there is “sound reasoning” behind the GOP/Tea Party ideology? And back to the Conservative rhetoric: Class warfare? Really? They also claim to be against “Big Government” – yet, they want the government to legislate who can get an abortion, who can get married, what religions are valid – and they want the state to execute people. How much more power can you give the government over the right to take people’s lives? The point of all this is not to turn the American Democrats into saints, or even to validate them as effective or even validate them as valid… only to point out that the American Conservatives are full of empty rhetoric.
A few weeks ago, the American Conservatives claimed that Congresswoman Waters advocated violence by stating, “The Tea Party can go straight to hell...” in response to a Tea Party members’ statement that the Democrats were plantation overseers. On Sunday, Andrew Breitbart stated that the American Conservatives/Tea Party were armed and ready for conflict with the “Liberals” – and claimed American military would support them.
I’m under attack all the time. They call me gay, there are death threats… There are times where I’m not thinking as clearly as I should, and in those unclear moments, I always think to myself, ‘Fire the first shot.’ Bring it on. Because I know who’s on our side. They can only win a rhetorical and propaganda war. They cannot win. We outnumber them in this country, and we have the guns… I’m not kidding. They talk a mean game, but they will not cross that line because they know what they’re dealing with.
….
And I have people who come up to me in the military, major named people in the military, who grab me and they go, ‘Thank you for what you’re doing, we’ve got your back.’ And, so … So…
They understand that. These are the unspoken things we know, they know.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHslkhZWzUQ
Just to be clear… Breitbart elaborates more here:
He says, “… to be clear … I’m talking about civil war … ”
If American Military officials are telling him they will support an armed insurrection against American citizens, they are committing high treason. If he is complicit in the act, he should be tried for it, too. This is a high crime. One of the highest. And this guy is an asshat. He edited videos that destroyed community service organizations and sabotaged Shirley Chisholm’s career, by selective editing. He is not a journalist, he is a propagandist.
When Breitbart states that military officials have confided in him that they would support an armed insurrection, where is the support of the Patriot Act and Homeland Security procedures that the Tea Party so consistently endorses? I think Dick Cheney should Waterboard Breitbart until he names every single military officer that confided in him to endorse high treason.
At the very bottom of it all… the Tea Party and the GOP are all empty rhetoric. We already know they hate science, so there is no science behind their claims. They hate half of America, at least. They consistently espouse Marxist rhetoric to condemn Marxism, Communism, Socialism, and even most forms of Capitalism… really, the Tea Party prove more every day that they are nothing but contemporary, American Fascists.
Finally, what ever happened to Sarah Palin? I know I shouldn’t care… but Palin quotes are the gift that keeps on giving.
Saying it is “unfair for Florida taxpayers to subsidize drug addiction,” Gov. Rick Scott on Tuesday signed legislation requiring adults applying for welfare assistance to undergo drug screening.
To be fair, Rick Scott is just addressing a serious problem. People on welfare are using drugs and the tax payers are subsidizing it.
Gov. Rick Scott: People that are on welfare are higher users of drugs, than people not on welfare. But the bottom line is this: “You know”
So, welfare recipients had to pay for their own drugs tests. The preliminary results came out recently. Welfare drug-testing yields 2% positive results. As Rachel Maddow pointed out, that is lower than the Florida state average of illegal drug users. So, where did this come from?
Well. I recently got into a debate with a colleague who stated that the Left is constantly claiming that Americans are not intelligent enough to know what is best for themselves. This may actually be true. I actually thought about it, and it may not only be true that the Left does this, but it may be true that Americans are too stupid to do what is best for themselves. We are constantly told what certain foods are doing to us and we keep consuming them. Now, America has an obesity epidemic. Americans are increasingly unhealthy.
What is of greater concern and deeply, more insulting, is how the Conservatives in America constantly insinuate, or even blatantly claim that the poor are “shiftless and lazy.” We see it all over the Right-Wing agenda: The poor are parasites, draining the life-blood out of America. They rile up their base by talking about cutting taxes by cutting social welfare programs because these are unnecessary expenditures.
Conservatives have claimed that Unemployment Insurance demotivates people to work. Basically, the claim is that people who need Unemployment Insurance would rather take a modest income (paltry would be a better adjective) rather than working for an honest income. They claim that people on welfare are drug addicts. The overt image is one of minorities, using illegal drugs and alcohol, making babies and collecting welfare and food stamps.
A CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll shows 39 percent of those surveyed say they’re very confident they’ll be able to keep up their quality of life. That’s down from 45 percent a year ago.
And from the Suze Orman article:
Orman believes the hope of someday owning a home, of working one job for life and retiring at 65 has been crushed by the financial crisis.
From the Reuters report:
Record debt, persistent joblessness, millions of underwater mortgages and a stock market that hasn’t gone anywhere in 10 years: For today’s kids who are entering the job market, it’s hardly a recipe for future success.
What really concerns me is how we perceive the American Dream. Why has “The American Dream” come to mean owning stuff? And when did that happen? It appears today, that the American Dream is to own a home, a few automobiles, a high income, a prestigious degree… and all the things that entail this lifestyle. When and why did this become the American Dream?
The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, also too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.
The preceding passage is not from a Liberal Progressive, or Leftist pundit. It was not stated by a Communist, nor a Socialist. It is not Left-wing propaganda. It is from the man that coined the term, “The American Dream.”
I ran across another article of a police officer shooting an unarmed man. It was in Georgia. Sadly, this is not really “news” anymore. It is more of a regular occurrence. The point of this entry is not to rail against police, though.
On August 11, 2011, BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) blocked cell-phone services to hinder protests at the BART station. According to the San Francisco Examiner, more BART protests are on the way. The protests are because of the 2009 shooting of Oscar Grant at a BART station and a July 3 shooting that is still under investigation. Even bigger news were the riots that consumed the entire country of England, starting in London. One of the assumed causes (or at least the spark that started) the London Riots of 2011 was the shooting of Mark Duggan by police during an attempted arrest.
There are two main issues with all of this that remain problematic with me:
First, speaking from personal perspective, I think the claims that man of these people are so concerned to be inaccurate, at best. These people are out protesting, or rioting, in Oakland and Berkeley over these shootings. Where are these people and their concerns regarding the low educational rates in these communities? Or the predatory lending? Or the lack of opportunity? Or the disproportionate prison populations? These people are so concerned about equal treatment for the Black and Latin populations, but they are not outraged that Blacks and Latinos are not receiving an equal opportunity for education or employment, and they are not outraged at the immense (and expanding) prison population? Do they really care? Or do they just want to cause disruptions?
The other problem I have is not too simple: Basically, it boils down to where to place “blame” or direct outrage . . . and I feel the procedures and training are the problem, not the people.
Police in the United States are trained quite extensively on handling firearms. This is good. They could probably even use more training. Firearms are deadly. The impact of using a firearm for a police officer can be immense. The people who claim it is a trivial matter are ignorant. Police officers must submit their firearm after discharging it into a person. There is always an investigation. There is always a psychiatric referral. Sometimes, even in a justified shooting, police officers are so effected at having ended a life they resign, or take desk duty. Majority of the police officers in America are not murderous thugs (as many claim).
Aside from all of that, police training in hand to hand combat is minimal. I’m sure it varies from place to place, but it is not extensive training in subduing a suspect without harming them. This is not unrealistic. Many martial arts have quite effective methods of disarming another person. In this vein, what about training for situational stress? I know police officers are trained to handle situational stress on many levels. This doesn’t change the fact that when the adrenal glands start increasing production, logic thought becomes clouded, at best. And we know from looking at military organizations, training can increase effectiveness of reactions in high adrenaline situations.
Instead of increasing training, we are seeing funding being cut for police organizations and civil servants. How are police supposed to increase training with decreased funding? And how effective are police going to be with lower incomes and higher stress?
Police officers are charged with upholding the law. When we feel they overstep these bounds, we are rightly outraged. But where should our outrage lie? Sometimes, it would be properly placed on a corrupt officer. Other times, could it be the training and policy that is the cause of this situation? What does raging against the police officers accomplish?
It accomplishes one clear objective: An “us against them” mentality. This summer, London was an image of the worst results. People calling the police names and protesting and rioting does nothing but inflame the police officers. Then the police become naturally defensive. Then the communities that are already distrustful are prone to more mistreatment by the same police. Then politicians get more support to cut more funding from police departments. And it spirals more and more…
One result that is quite clear, is no one is getting mad at the system that created this situation. No one is mad at the people who profit the most from this system. The wealthy can actually just sit back and watch everything unfold. Riots rarely spread into wealthy communities. Police rarely mistreat the wealthiest and most powerful citizens.
Imagine what effect it would have if, in this situation, the people rose up in support of more police training. And the (armed and trained) police supported the people, the same people they are sworn to “protect and serve.” Imagine how effective these protests would be if they were supportive of the police, but demanded better policy to prevent these tragedies. Imagine what a difference in tone there would be if the outrage and the blame was not individualize, but in the structure of the problem. Imagine how terrified the wealthy would be if the bottom 80% of our society decided to work together.
What I do know is that this situation is incredibly fortunate for the reactionary forces that seek to maintain control. The police are having their funding cut, instead of raising taxes on the wealthy. The people who most need social services are also having their services cut. Together, these are 80% of the population. And the anger is being directed inward, within the bottom 80%. And the top 20% are left largely unaffected… if not profiting.
All of this was really meant to say:
If I am ever gunned down by a police officer, please do not protest, demonstrate, or riot, against the police. Instead, work with the police and protest, demonstrate and riot against those who are the common enemy against the civilian population and the police: the oligarchs that want to cut income levels for the bottom 80% and keep everyone out of their stuff.
William has a job. He makes $15 an hour and works 40 hours a week. Sometimes he gets 5 hours overtime in a week. That is a gross income of $600 a week, before overtime. He makes time and a half for overtime. In a week he works overtime, he has a gross income of $712.50 in a week. That is a gross income of $2,850 per month.
William has two children and a wife, Mary. His wife has a gross net income of $360 a week. Her gross income is $1,440 per month. Together, William and his wife, Mary, gross $4,290 a month. That is $51,480 per year. Taxed at 15%, this leaves them with a net income of $43,758 per year.
Their rent on a two bedroom apartment is $1500 a month, or $18,000 per year. The insurance for his family, that William now has to pay into, costs him $300 per month, or $3,600 per year. William and Mary both need a vehicle to get to and from work. William’s car payments are pretty low, at $200 per month. Mary’s are $180 per month. This is a total of $4,560 per year. Their car insurance premiums cost them a total of $1800 per year, combined. Utilities cost them between $80 and $300 per month. Averaging $100 per month, that is another $1,200 per year. This leaves William and Mary with a net revenue of $16,398 per year, assuming they do not buy clothes, gas, tolls, medical co-pays… or anything else. ($43,758 - $27,360)
Joseph is a CEO at a prominent corporation. His annual net salary is $255,000 per year. Joseph took out student loans for his MBA and is in debt for $200,000. He has to pay $300 per month in student loans. He has a BMW that he leases for $500 per month. His home mortgage is $2,500 per month. His car insurance on his leased car is $2,100 per year (as terms of his lease require a premium coverage.) His utilities cost him $500 per month. His wife stays at home to take care of their 2 children. So, these costs take away just under $50,000 from his net salary… leaving him with $205,000 in income.
