In the Wall Street Journal last week, a writer whined that Republicans, at least, had not resorted to "class warfare" in the debt ceiling/budget debate. More of this sentiment can be had from Daniel Henninger, deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page.
Mr. Heninger is not opposed to class warfare, mind you: very recently, he blamed the working class' faltering morality for their lower-drifting standard of living. But Mr. Henninger is a hypocrite and a mouth piece, and what can one expect of an employee of a (formerly great) paper now owned by that ultimate advocate of class warfare , Rupert Murdoch?
Yes, teachers unions have harmed education. We all get that, Mr. Henninger. That does not mean that banks and insurance companies and big pharma have not abused the power of their purchasing power in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate to declare war on their customers.
The fact is, there IS a class war going on, and banks that pushed "liar's loans" are no less at war with the general public than tobacco companies that used cartoons to sell cigarettes to poor children and lied under oath about the results of their own research into cancer, all the while shifting the health cost of the addiction onto the taxpayer.
You don't have to call that class warfare. But it fits.
Or Golden Sacks, which managed to get taxpayers to bail them out (directly, and through AIG) into a year of great profits, while our local banks had to stop making car, house and business loans. Golden and others tranched their way into unforgivable risk with our money. Lost it. Then got us to pay them back. Some of them should be in jail, and that they are not is because they have wealth and power.
You don't have to call that class warfare. But it fits.
That the wealthy class cries out that their victims should not indulge in "class warfare" is an old tactic, often employed: "Thou shalt not speak any truth that I label the speaking of which as immoral." This gives the wealthy ownership of the playing field, and the rules, while they rip us off and try to get us to stop talking about how they have rigged the system.
It is sophistry, casuistry and it should be confronted as such.
We call foul. Corporate kleptomaniacs are hurting America. It was George Bush and his gang, not Barrack Obama, who put this country into this great financial peril. It is the bitterness of the right wing, exposed too often as amoral extortionists (Enron was NOT the exception), that we hear now in these laments about class warfare.
Yes, we need education reform. We also need bank reform. We need campaign finance reform. We need Clarence Thomas off the Supreme Court. And we need real journalism in America.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Bush was a shitty president. He started us down the path to financial peril. But then Obama took the reins, kicked the horse in the flanks as hard as he could, and took off downhill at a gallop. If you're still blaming Bush, you've got your head in the sand. What a well educated fool you are.
Your writer is not all that well-educated. But he does have observations that span decades.
As for Obama whipping the horse into a frenzied gallop in the same direction as Bush, I think most would disagree. The left does not think he has fought hard enough for their misguided policies. The right inexplicably feels he has done too much, though any rational review of the facts would indicate Obama has done more to reign in deficits and create order out of the chaos of the Bush years than anyone could have expected (Dick Cheney: Deficits don't matter.")
The nation, this economy, this body politic, is not a horse by any analogy. It is far more like an oil tanker moving at 24 knots. Bush turned it toward the rocks after the Clinton years. It takes a long time, and great distance, to slow down. Even more to turn around.
Obama inherited two wars, a meltdown in the financial system, entitlement programs that were breaking the bank, an economy sputtering to a halt, huge banks in a near fatal hangover from a binge on power and greed, a Supreme Court that has lost any sense as to how the law impacts and is impacted by the environment it is supposed to govern, and a political system that fosters mediocrity and ignorance in every electoral swing as the common good is trampled by "where's mine?!?"
Obama has always held that Congress has a job to do and should do it. The left says this is lack of leadership, and the right says he is failing to act. In fact, his methods have accomplished much that is visible, and prevented some disasters that because they were not experienced, tend to be discounted.
I believe Obama may go down in history as the greatest president since Lincoln, and I say this on a day of a severe stock market dive (long overdue, by the way.) But maybe not. Maybe all of you are right, that Obama can't lead, that we are doomed, and that it's always the other guy's fault.
Post a Comment