Yes It’s a Class War
by Joe Segal
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” Warren Buffet, Investor
Conservative billionaires. Their mission since Reagan has been to undo everything FDR and LBJ did and remove taxation of the rich as an obstacle to their hoarding. 1st they took over the means of persuasion FOX, and AM radio all to stop the government from being able to stop them.
They did nothing to help reduce poverty and expand the middle class, not one thing. They believe persistent poverty is necessary to facilitate their great amounts of wealth so there must be a permanent underclass in America.
The Democrats have not done enough to expand on the advances of FDR and LBJ and have too often bought into the trickle-down neoliberal “the era of big government is over” disastrous policies. Policies like deregulating banking which was devastating to the middle class and poor, tax cuts to the rich which reduced their need to reinvest money in labor and growth, and cutting instead of expanding the social programs for the least fortunate and most vulnerable.
And I’ve been told that President Biden was the most progressive president since FDR with the Chips Act, the appointments to the NLRB which regulates union issues, and to the FTC which was actively engaging in antitrust legislation. To me this sounds a lot like being the thinnest kid at fat camp.
Mind you the Chips Act creates good-paying jobs for thousands of workers which is good for them but is not an immediate help to the rest of us. And while protecting unions is hugely important, and it was great to see President Biden on the picket line, only six percent of Americans are in unions in the private sector, it used to be about thirty-five percent.
None of those policies impacted the broad swath of Americans that the New Deal and Great Society programs had. Not even the ACA “Obamacare” which ensured some 50 million more Americans has come close. It was an insurance industry reform bill that for sure is saving many lives but at the same time is not even close to universal healthcare. Candidate Biden ran on a public option that would have reduced even more deaths and suffering but never mentioned it after winning the presidency.
Had we fought for the full Build Back Better legislation with the full force of the White House, Congress, and outside political citizen pressures and not given in to defeat so easily, one could fairly pronounce the beginning of the end of neoliberalism in America. That didn’t happen.
You may say I’m a radical with pie-in-the-sky utopian ideas like everyone deserves healthcare when they need it regardless of income or wealth and healthcare and education are human rights.
You might say we can’t afford a universal healthcare system when every other advanced economic nation in the world has had one for many years. The only ones who can’t afford the US to enact universal healthcare are the large health insurance corporations and their plutocratic CEOs.
You might call me naive for suggesting we all deserve lifelong access to and benefits from public education and that our entire nation’s security actually depends on it. And that national education is “too expensive”, I am afraid we are about to see the bill come due on the lack of it over the next four years.
You might say I’m a crazy lefty for thinking that life is hard enough already, with cancer, car crashes, addictions, loss of loved ones, and just everyday human sorrows, without having to jump through hoops to be deemed worthy of having food, shelter, and healthcare. Especially after $50 trillion was siphoned up to the top 1% wealthiest few at the top in the last 50 years. *see Times article by Rand Corporation researchers.
You might be one of the people telling me “Joe, we can’t afford to give free things to people, and everyone loves the dignity of work and wants to work for what they get.” I’d say everyone wants to do meaningful work they choose, not soul-crushing backbreaking work they feel trapped into.
And I’d also say that the wealthy in this country, over sixty percent get their wealth from inheriting it which isn’t working for it at all, they make most of their wealth off of the capital gains from assets like stocks and investment property.
I’m certain they are not punching a time clock and putting in sweat and muscle into that income either. On top of that our government which is ostensibly you and me, gives the very wealthy trillions of dollars by having the FED distribute it to banks to loan out and buy bonds which inflates their assets like stocks and property. They literally make money doing nothing.
You might be one of the people who adamantly cling to the belief that with a high stock market & low unemployment level and a new manufacturing boom, we should ignore the 50 to 60% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck or the 1 in 5 who can’t afford the meds their doctors prescribe. “Everyone has some stocks now, Joe” I was recently admonished.
Well really no everyone doesn’t have some stocks. And the top wealthiest 1% have 50% of all public shares. The top 10% of wealthiest investors have 93% of all shares!
So why are we all so militantly comfortable with crumbs and with our brothers and sisters suffering in poverty and renting subsistence survival with the few good working years of our lives with little left to show for our labor but some memories?
I may be wrong, and I freely admit it. But, I think most people who think this is in the comfortable top 10% of the economy with comfortable levels of stocks in their 401Ks, a house, and maybe wealth they’ll leave to their children. Something not everyone can claim.
I say we should never ignore the suffering of millions of people because its politically expedient for our political partisan ideology. The stakes are too high.
We as human beings I believe have a moral duty to do no harm or minimal harm possible and seek the greatest good for the greatest number of people to the best of our abilities to do so.
Government and in my view humanity should operate by a standard of what relieves and reduces the most harm & suffering to the most people possible and what increases freedom happiness and the flourishing of the most people possible.
It’s like those old number lines our teachers taught us with in school. We want to move towards the greater good and away from the greatest harm.
To establish this best moral approach to our self-governance we need to scientifically identify the areas where we as a people are experiencing the greatest harm and set out to reduce that.
Again this can’t be a matter of opinion or ideology. It must be based on verifiable statistical data to the best of our ability to do so.
Then we should be examining solutions for reducing those harms that other nations have tried and implemented and experiment with applying them here until we adapt, adjust, and improve, or if it completely fails discard that solution and try something else.
Borders/ImmigrationHealthcare
Reproductive rights
Educational access
Housing
Energy production
Criminal justice
Food
Media and information
Military
Childcare
Eldercare
Workers rights
These are some of the main areas that impact the level of suffering and success we experience or can experience.
