Sunday, September 25, 2011

CLASS.

A Moment of Clarity. 
 

Words. For Your Consideration...

"On Monday, defending his plan to raise taxes on the rich to pay for job creation, President Obama said: “This is not class warfare, it’s math.”

No, Mr. President, this is class warfare — and it’s a war you’d better win. Corporate interests and the rich started it. Right now, they’re winning. Progressives and the middle class must fight back, and the president should be clear whose side he’s on.


...Between 1979 and 2007, the income gap between the richest 1 percent of Americans and the poorest 40 percent more than tripled. Today, the richest 10 percent of Americans control two-thirds of the nation’s wealth, while, according to recently released census data, average Americans saw their real incomes decline by 2.3 percent in 2010. Though our economy grew in 2009 and 2010, 88 percent of the increase in real national income went to corporate profits, one study found. Only 1 percent went to wages and salaries for working people.

Last year, American companies posted their biggest profits ever, and bonuses for bank and hedge fund executives not only reached record highs, but grew faster than corporate revenue. Meanwhile, almost one in 10 Americans is unemployed, and 15 percent live at or below the poverty level.

As a progressive activist who has marched against many wars, I try to avoid militant rhetoric. But only “class warfare” accurately describes a situation in which 400 people control more wealth than the poorest 150 million Americans combined. If “class warfare” isn’t the richest of the rich fighting tooth and nail against unions and any tax increases while record numbers of people lose their homes, what is?

...At the Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York this past week, former president Bill Clinton said: “Whether you can win or not in a fight that’s worth fighting, get caught trying.” Instead of denying that there’s a class war in America, Obama must come out swinging for the good guys. History — and voters — will catch him in the act and reward him. And millions of Americans could be inspired to try, in their own way, to topple our economy’s brutal inequality..."

THE WASHINGTON POST: President Obama shouldn’t be afraid of a little class warfare





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