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« at the request of ms. blood | Main | audblog audio post »

zagg warfare

July 1, 2003

After reading this discussion I thought now would be a good time to abuse my guest dru privileges.

I find it astounding that there is such a clamor against any Democrats about "waging class warfare" when there's the tiniest questioning of tax cuts or talk of extending welfare benefits (hardly radical demands I might add). The Dem will immediately show contrition, tone down the "fiery" rhetoric and painfully explain why class division shouldn't be sowed. Somehow hinting at any sort of rift between the rich and poor in this country is something we're supposed to be ashamed of and avoid. We don't want to be soiled by being dragged into a debate about class. And yet this in turn insulates the Right itself from being accused of waging actual class warfare when they do dole out massive tax cuts that only benefit the wealthy while shredding every last program that might benefit us.

"Just to underline the point, the version of Bush's tax cut that became law did away with a $400 child tax credit for 6.5 million low-income families. Republican leaders in Congress said they couldn't "afford" the $3.5 billion to pay for this. But they did manage to find enough for the "Hummer deduction"--which allows business owners to deduct up to $100,000 for the cost of a vehicle, as long as it weighs at least 6,000 pounds," according to Socialist Worker.

I linked to this NY Times article over at randomWalks. The upshot of the piece is that the " 400 wealthiest taxpayers accounted for more than 1 percent of all the income in the United States in the year 2000, more than double their share just eight years earlier."

It's exhibit # 343,862 in how the disparity between the rich and poor in the U.S. has been accelerating at an astounding rate without much notice being paid at all. You've got a microscopic elite at the top with who wealth is accumulating while being siphoned away from millions of others. Simultaneously you've got the same people grabbing Iraq's oil, pumping it, selling it and using the proceeds to line their pockets and to pay other U.S. corporations to rebuild Iraq. Iraq's wealth is being stolen from them to benefit the rich here, just as they are getting tax breaks, laying us off and otherwise continuing to thrive.

Also over at rW, we were talking about Orwell. He wrote something I find fairly apt in describing the phenomenon people identified of the blame being placed on the poor for being poor. This is from his "The Road to Wigan Pier."

"When I first saw unemployed men at close quarters, the thing that horrified and amazed me was to find that many of them were ashamed of being unemployed. I was very ignorant, but not so ignorant as to imagine that when the loss of foreign markets pushes two million men out of work, those two million are any more to blame than the people who draw blanks in the Calcutta Sweep. But at that time nobody cared to admit that unemployment was inevitable, because this meant admitting that it would probably continue."

I guess my point is that not only is there classism, but there's class.

Also, I love this sentiment as expressed by Nurse Ratched:

"Our society will not function properly without people to deliver the water, drive the taxis, staff the hotels, sell the retail products, cook the food, stock the stores, patch the potholes, etc., and there are very few instances in which any one of those people ought to be required to have more than secondary education, and every one of them ought to be respected for getting up and going to their jobs and putting in the time and effort to contribute."

The one thing I would add is that it's not just that workers should be respected, but that the relationship you've identified represents actual power. Workers collectively withholding labor is the most powerful tool we've got in fighting for a better society.

In this country it's how we've won the right to unionize, the 8-hour workday, social security, Medicare, Medicaid and welfare. In Europe such actions brought about universal health care. Even now, in France, strike waves of 100,000s have gone out to fight to retain pension benefits.

And when these actions move from strictly economic to political, even greater reforms can be won. In Argentina 18 months ago, the major labor federations launched a series of general strikes that brought down five presidencies in a matter of weeks. And in South Africa, the federation of trade unions was vital in bringing down the government and ending Apartheid.

Of course that's one reason the U.S. is so vexing today. The labor movement is not fighting at all, which is part of why Bush has been able to get away with so many of his cuts.

Posted at July 1, 2003 10:34 AM

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Comments

the unions are corporations now, and behave as such. i just got the third solicitation in a row in my mail for an SEIU Visa Card. i mean, come the fuck on.

as a self-perpetuating corporate bureaucracy that at one time was supposed to be a worker's organization, my union exists and functions solely to enrich and continue its own existence. this manifests in many unpleasant ways, which i haven't the strength to go into just now, but the days of joe hill and matewan are long gone. workers don't need unions, they need anarchism. they need a fucking GENERAL STRIKE.

my two favorite words in the english language.

Posted by: r@d@r at July 1, 2003 11:55 AM

susan - my sentiments exactly.

zagg - yes! i agree with your disagreements, thanks for helping me clarify my thoughts on the issue.

i love coming here and discussing things with smart people who like to get their hands dirty! it's so refreshing after trolling around all the white-collar "within-the-system-liberal" web logs. [bless 'em, couldn't do without 'em, but my they can be dry.] this place is juicy!!!

Posted by: r@d@r at July 3, 2003 1:29 PM