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Class warfare

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winston53660

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It was those violent overtones that endeared "class warfare" to the right and spared it the fate of Marxist jargon like "proletariat," "class struggle" and "the masses." Even the left has bailed on those expressions. They're only about a quarter as common in the pages of the New Left Review as they were in the 1970s. But "class warfare" has been on a tear in the language of the right — it's used five times as often in The Wall Street Journal now as it was 40 years ago. In fact, the phrase has actually become more frequent as the marginal tax rates went down. It's sort of a revenant, a specter that haunts the English language whenever appeals for making the rich pay more are heard in the land.

Unlike Most Marxist Jargon, 'Class Warfare' Persists : NPR
 
winston53660 said:
It was those violent overtones that endeared "class warfare" to the right and spared it the fate of Marxist jargon like "proletariat," "class struggle" and "the masses." Even the left has bailed on those expressions. They're only about a quarter as common in the pages of the New Left Review as they were in the 1970s. But "class warfare" has been on a tear in the language of the right — it's used five times as often in The Wall Street Journal now as it was 40 years ago. In fact, the phrase has actually become more frequent as the marginal tax rates went down. It's sort of a revenant, a specter that haunts the English language whenever appeals for making the rich pay more are heard in the land.

Unlike Most Marxist Jargon, 'Class Warfare' Persists : NPR
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Thanks for that info Winston. That is fascinating. Amazing that the right wing increases class warfare on the working class but declares war on the concept of class warfare itself and tries to pretend it is something waged on them when they are the ones waging it.

It is highly similar to the right wing war on the term RACISM and how they want, not to get rid of racism, but to get rid of the use of the term itself.
 
haymarket said:
Thanks for that info Winston. That is fascinating. Amazing that the right wing increases class warfare on the working class but declares war on the concept of class warfare itself and tries to pretend it is something waged on them when they are the ones waging it.

It is highly similar to the right wing war on the term RACISM and how they want, not to get rid of racism, but to get rid of the use of the term itself.
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Exactly. It is the more conservative elements who are actually waging class warfare. Jon Stewart highlights this as well as anyone:

Fox News called it "Class Warfare," with one pundit even calling Buffett a Socialist, which got a hilarious reaction from Stewart:

"You really have no f**king clue what Socialism is, do you?"

(snip)

Fox News hosts showed how they believe differently. They claim that Obama's plan is "demonizing" the rich and the "private jet class." Another argument is that it wouldn't even "make a dent" in our debt.

In the second segment, however, Stewart shows how the same pundits feel about the same taxes being implemented on the poor. It turns out they don't have the same "why bother" attitude, as another montage showed, when it comes raising their taxes or cutting their programs.

Jon Stewart Takes On Fox News' 'Class Warfare' Claims (VIDEO)
 
Bill Moyers summed it up pretty well back in '02...

The vast inequality of this new Gilded Age didn't just happen. Nature didn't ordain it, the market didn't require it, and Adam Smith's invisible hand doesn't sustain it. What happened is the rich declared class war and spent what it took to win.

Not exactly a new story, of course, but the extraordinary new concentration of wealth and power created a juggernaut that makes it harder and harder for democracy to work for all. The rich buy the laws and loopholes they want from Congress, and from the White House, they buy executive protection of their privileges. So government winds up promoting the extremes instead of moderating them.

Look at the bill the House of Representatives recently passed to reform accounting and financial disclosure in the wake of Enron. Despite everything we learned about the gang from Houston, the bill does not close the revolving door between accountants and their clients, nor will it prohibit accounting firms from making millions by selling consulting services to the same companies they audit. Critics now call it the "Ken Lay Protection Act."

And what happened the other day when the Senate voted on regulating energy derivatives, those mischievous devices Enron used to manipulate prices and gouge customers? Why, Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, that old and faithful friend of Enron, managed to scuttle it.

Then there's the new farm bill that will give more than $50 billion in new subsidies to the richest and largest farms in America. And the new energy bill that takes your tax dollars and transfers them to the richest energy companies in the country.

Remember our recent story about how Enron used stock options to avoid paying taxes in four out of the last five years? Well, even as we talk, the White House and business lobbies, with Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman as their point man, are working to block reform of stock options.

Yes, the rich declared class war and won.

All that's left is for politics to divide up the spoils.
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Class Warfare, Class Warfare..
Sounds familiar
http://www.debatepolitics.com/economics/107010-class-warfare-reality-hoax-29.html#post1059808056

mbig said:
I hope we can Reverse somewhat the Class Warfare Viciously Waged and won by Ronald Reagan.
Who Lowered top marginal income tax rates from 70% in 1980 to 28% in 1988.

Including
Tax Reform Act of 1986 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The top tax rate was lowered from 50% to 28% while the bottom rate was raised from 11% to 15%. Many lower level tax brackets were consolidated, and the upper income level of the bottom rate (married filing jointly) was increased from $5,720/year to $29,750/year. This package ultimately consolidated tax brackets from fifteen levels of income to four levels of income.[1] This would be the Only time in the history of the U.S. income tax (which dates back to the passage of the Revenue Act of 1862) that the top rate was reduced and the bottom rate increased concomitantly. In addition, capital gains faced the same tax rate as ordinary income.
[......]
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Boo, you folks miss the common thread between those two points.... Allowing people to make as much or as little of themselves as they choose to.

Let me give you an example....

We have four teenagers from similar middle class families going to the same high school..... Ann, Fred, Brenda, and Kyle. Ann gets pregnant by her boyfriend on the night of her junior prom, drops out of school, and ends up a drug addict selling her body to pay the rent. Fred doesn't pay much attention in school, graduates at the bottom of his class, and bums around in a series of no-future, minimum wage jobs. Brenda graduates, goes off to college, meets Bob, they get married and have a family of their own. Kyle graduates, gets a degree in a high tech field and comes up with a new audio format that will revolutionize the music industry, making him a millionaire almost overnight. Four kids with a common background who have all gone diffent directions in life because of the choices they made. The Liberal viewpoint says that we should prop Ann and Fred up because they're below the margin; yet they're there because of decisions that THEY made. Likewise the Liberal viewpoint is that we should TAKE from Brenda/Bob and Kyle because they have been successful. That's HORSE****. Each of them had the same opportunity. They CHOSE to make different things out of that opportunity. Now they get to live with the positive or negative consequences of those choices.
 
These are the same things that wealthy, powerful people have been doing for thousands of years. Keep people disorganized, ignorant, and in debt. We don't own anything, and law looks the other way when there's money on the line. Violence has always been the tool of the powerful, violence and disinformation.

Class warfare isn't some new, Marxist concept. It's what people have been doing to each other for thousands of years. For the first time, in the last 500 or so years, it's become less and less one sided in favor of the wealthy and powerful.
 
Tigger said:
Boo, you folks miss the common thread between those two points.... Allowing people to make as much or as little of themselves as they choose to.

Let me give you an example....

We have four teenagers from similar middle class families going to the same high school..... Ann, Fred, Brenda, and Kyle. Ann gets pregnant by her boyfriend on the night of her junior prom, drops out of school, and ends up a drug addict selling her body to pay the rent. Fred doesn't pay much attention in school, graduates at the bottom of his class, and bums around in a series of no-future, minimum wage jobs. Brenda graduates, goes off to college, meets Bob, they get married and have a family of their own. Kyle graduates, gets a degree in a high tech field and comes up with a new audio format that will revolutionize the music industry, making him a millionaire almost overnight. Four kids with a common background who have all gone diffent directions in life because of the choices they made. The Liberal viewpoint says that we should prop Ann and Fred up because they're below the margin; yet they're there because of decisions that THEY made. Likewise the Liberal viewpoint is that we should TAKE from Brenda/Bob and Kyle because they have been successful. That's HORSE****. Each of them had the same opportunity. They CHOSE to make different things out of that opportunity. Now they get to live with the positive or negative consequences of those choices.
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What has all that got to do with the rich using their wealth to buy legislation that benefits their own tiny minority at the expense of the vast majority?

No matter what a government may do, or not do, can prevent people from making bad choices in life.

But continuing your line of thought... IF... the jobs market paid a wage sufficient to raise a family with just one parent working, perhaps all four children would have turned out just fine. But what the hell, send the jobs to China... they work cheap.
 
:lamo You guys are actually quoting Stewart and Moyers while acting like you are having a grownup discussion. Toss in some Michael Moore quotes and we can flag this entire thread as "the home for the pathologically insane".

We have a president that thinks taking money away from the owners of successful companies and redistributing it to welfare slugs is a form of economic stimulus. We all know why he is proposing that stupid policy.......it plays well in libtardland. His entire campaign is being molded around the redistribution of money from one class of voters to another. He needs to buy the votes of the less successful and his class warfare policy is just the ticket for those folks. These are the same people that contributre NOTHING to the funding of the very entitlements that puts food on their table, a roof over their head, two or three flat screens in their house, free medical care, etc. ....... but that isn't enough. Those folks will only feel better if they know other people aren't living a better life than they are. Yeah, it's class warfare and it's not new ..... it's a shame BO has made this his chief campaign strategy. On the other hand what else can he run on ...... his record sucks so much even Jimmy Carter is grateful BO came along to make Carter's record look peachy when compared to BO's.
 
conservativeguy said:
:lamo You guys are actually quoting Stewart and Moyers while acting like you are having a grownup discussion. Toss in some Michael Moore quotes and we can flag this entire thread as "the home for the pathologically insane".

We have a president that thinks taking money away from the owners of successful companies and redistributing it to welfare slugs is a form of economic stimulus. We all know why he is proposing that stupid policy.......it plays well in libtardland. His entire campaign is being molded around the redistribution of money from one class of voters to another. He needs to buy the votes of the less successful and his class warfare policy is just the ticket for those folks. These are the same people that contributre NOTHING to the funding of the very entitlements that puts food on their table, a roof over their head, two or three flat screens in their house, free medical care, etc. ....... but that isn't enough. Those folks will only feel better if they know other people aren't living a better life than they are. Yeah, it's class warfare and it's not new ..... it's a shame BO has made this his chief campaign strategy. On the other hand what else can he run on ...... his record sucks so much even Jimmy Carter is grateful BO came along to make Carter's record look peachy when compared to BO's.
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When using terms like "litardland" and accusing others of not having a grown up discussion do you actually expect to be to be taken seriously?
 
winston53660 said:
When using terms like "litardland" and accusing others of not having a grown up discussion do you actually expect to be to be taken seriously?
Click to expand...

I suspect not.
 
conservativeguy said:
:lamo You guys are actually quoting Stewart and Moyers while acting like you are having a grownup discussion. Toss in some Michael Moore quotes and we can flag this entire thread as "the home for the pathologically insane".

We have a president that thinks taking money away from the owners of successful companies and redistributing it to welfare slugs is a form of economic stimulus. We all know why he is proposing that stupid policy.......it plays well in libtardland. His entire campaign is being molded around the redistribution of money from one class of voters to another. He needs to buy the votes of the less successful and his class warfare policy is just the ticket for those folks. These are the same people that contributre NOTHING to the funding of the very entitlements that puts food on their table, a roof over their head, two or three flat screens in their house, free medical care, etc. ....... but that isn't enough. Those folks will only feel better if they know other people aren't living a better life than they are. Yeah, it's class warfare and it's not new ..... it's a shame BO has made this his chief campaign strategy. On the other hand what else can he run on ...... his record sucks so much even Jimmy Carter is grateful BO came along to make Carter's record look peachy when compared to BO's.
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When a dog pees on your bushes, he's not committing vandalism. He's just being a dog...
 
Easy Rider said:
No matter what a government may do, or not do, can prevent people from making bad choices in life.
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TRUE. The problem is that the government currently employs massive amounts of legislation with no purpose other than ensuring that those people do not have to suffer the consequences of those bad choices. Welfare, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, etc....

Easy Rider said:
But continuing your line of thought... IF... the jobs market paid a wage sufficient to raise a family with just one parent working, perhaps all four children would have turned out just fine. But what the hell, send the jobs to China... they work cheap.
Click to expand...

So, you want the minimum wage to be sufficient to ensure that a single parent family can raise multiple children? That is about the most ridiculous thing I have heard in a very long time. To do so, the prices that places would have to charge for their goods and services would skyrocket, bringing us right back to where we are now.

As for sending the jobs to China; I'm totally against outsourcing. However, I'm also against telling an employer they have to pay someone $17.75 am hour to stand there and check out groceries or to oversee the pumps at a self-service gas station; which is what you seem to want. The minimum wage should not ever be looked at as a LIVING wage. That's most certainly NOT how I have ever looked at it, even when I worked for it.
 
winston53660 said:
When using terms like "litardland" and accusing others of not having a grown up discussion do you actually expect to be to be taken seriously?
Click to expand...

When I read stuff like this....

It is highly similar to the right wing war on the term RACISM and how they want, not to get rid of racism, but to get rid of the use of the term itself.
Click to expand...

..... I figure this isn't a serious conversation.
 
Tigger said:
TRUE. The problem is that the government currently employs massive amounts of legislation with no purpose other than ensuring that those people do not have to suffer the consequences of those bad choices. Welfare, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, etc....
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To suggest that ALL the people that benefit from those programs have made "bad choices" is just plain wrong. I will agree that some of the Welfare programs need a whole lot of cleanup work and there's far too many people scamming Social Security's Disability program. The only problem I have with Unemployment Insurance is when the government increases the national debt to pay for it instead of ensuring that sufficient jobs are available to reduce the need for it to levels that can be readily funded without raising taxes.




Tigger said:
So, you want the minimum wage to be sufficient to ensure that a single parent family can raise multiple children? That is about the most ridiculous thing I have heard in a very long time. To do so, the prices that places would have to charge for their goods and services would skyrocket, bringing us right back to where we are now.
Click to expand...
Who said anything about the Minimum Wage? Not me. But I was there in the late '70's and early 80's when the government permitted several MILLION automotive jobs to go to Mexico under the guise of Free Trade. Did that reduce the price of cars? NO!

Tigger said:
As for sending the jobs to China; I'm totally against outsourcing. However, I'm also against telling an employer they have to pay someone $17.75 am hour to stand there and check out groceries or to oversee the pumps at a self-service gas station; which is what you seem to want. The minimum wage should not ever be looked at as a LIVING wage. That's most certainly NOT how I have ever looked at it, even when I worked for it.
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The current Minimum Wage is $7.25/hour, $15k a year. Don't know about you, but I don't consider that especially onerous.. even for bagging groceries. I wouldn't care to think about trying to live on that...
 
Paschendale said:
These are the same things that wealthy, powerful people have been doing for thousands of years. Keep people disorganized, ignorant, and in debt. We don't own anything, and law looks the other way when there's money on the line. Violence has always been the tool of the powerful, violence and disinformation.

Class warfare isn't some new, Marxist concept. It's what people have been doing to each other for thousands of years. For the first time, in the last 500 or so years, it's become less and less one sided in favor of the wealthy and powerful.
Click to expand...

We probably all owe our good fortune to the so-called rich and powerful. I don't think even millionaires are as rich as they once were because of all the various taxes and regulations that coincide with everyone's real take home wealth. A lot of the so-called wealthy are merely stockholders, some of the stockmarket involves regular people's 401K plans which most companies contribute to as part of the employee's benefit package. I had a pension that was entirely paid for by my employer. No employee contribution.

What about guys like George Soros & Warren Buffett? They are super wealthy, but they don't give extra on their tax returns even though there's a spot for it right on the tax form. They say they don't because a tax increase should be for all the wealthy. I think they are saying this because they want to look altruistic with someone else's money.

Everybody has to realize that the wealthy are the contributors, and the poor are pretty much non-contributory. How much can we give to the poor? We tried giving them housing loans, and they quit paying on their mortgages. So we had to bailout the banks. GM/Chrysler were making uncompetitive cars, so we had to bail them out, or did we? I say the unions should have had to make some concessions in the auto-bailout, although I think they should have just gone belly up and done whatever it took to become competitve with Honda's and Toyota's. What percentage do the workers pay towards their healthcare benefits in GM/Chrysler plants compared to what the stockholders pay towards it? How much do the workers pay towards their retirement?

Obama is very redundant about the wealthy needing to pay their fair share. He is contributing to the class warfare bigtime. The rich aren't going to do a lot of hiring when they have no idea how much their taxes are going to go up. With the new healthcare bill they know already that the premiums are going up. The business of doing business has more regulations since Obama took over.

My question is how many people are going to hide their income, so they will have no obligation to pay towards the premium portion of their health insurance. I'd say even more people who work for cash will be working minimum wage jobs, and not reporting that they have someone in the household that makes way over the minimum amount they can earn to get the Earned Income Credit. Possibly a lot more people will be living with Mom, or someone other than who they really live with. This has also been going on since so many of these programs have been implemented. It's called beating the system. Many of the poor who are 2nd and 3rd generation welfare/food stamps/Medicaid recipients pay little or no taxes. It's a lifestyle. Mostly the poor are no longer ashamed to be collecting money they didn't earn because the rich don't pay "no taxes". Unfortunately, Obama is reinforcing this notion endlessly. The poor donot need to be encouraged that they are just poor through no fault of their own, and society owes them. It's all very nicey nice to feel sorry for the poor, but it like anything can be overdone, and we're there.
 
It's only "class warfare" when the lower classes start protesting their living conditions. At all other times it's called business as usual.
 
Temporal said:
It's only "class warfare" when the lower classes start protesting their living conditions. At all other times it's called business as usual.
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It's never really class warfare. It's every person looking out for him- or herself. Period. Including the poor. The liberal non-poor's so-called social justice advocacy and altruistic notions are still tied to their intrapersonal sense that that attitude makes them "good" people.

Psychological egoism has no use for "class warfare" accusations.
 
Neomalthusian said:
It's never really class warfare. It's every person looking out for him- or herself. Period. Including the poor. The liberal non-poor's so-called social justice advocacy and altruistic notions are still tied to their intrapersonal sense that that attitude makes them "good" people.

Psychological egoism has no use for "class warfare" accusations.
Click to expand...

It's interesting that you think you know what every protester on Wall Street is thinking, and the source of their motivations.

Proof or it's hot air.
 
There is no class warfare. There are people who want what others have and can't figure out how to get it without the help of the government. If they want the same things they might consider going back to school and studying a bit harder then working a bit harder. The only divisor right now is Obama who is trying very hard to pit one group against the other by pitting their base needs and desires like in a dog fight. The media seconds his efforts because "it sells" and fools accept it thinking they will get something from it.

Increasing the tax on businesses will make the businesses raise their prices, but then you as a worker won't be getting a raise anytime soon to keep up with the inflation, so you will actually be worse off if it happens than if it doesn't. It is simple logic. Don't believe me, fine, keep your head in the sand.
 
Paschendale said:
These are the same things that wealthy, powerful people have been doing for thousands of years. Keep people disorganized, ignorant, and in debt. We don't own anything, and law looks the other way when there's money on the line. Violence has always been the tool of the powerful, violence and disinformation.

Class warfare isn't some new, Marxist concept. It's what people have been doing to each other for thousands of years. For the first time, in the last 500 or so years, it's become less and less one sided in favor of the wealthy and powerful.
Click to expand...

why are so many uber wealthy types far left? and have politics 180 degrees from the rich right wingers?
 
mbig said:
Class Warfare, Class Warfare..
Sounds familiar
http://www.debatepolitics.com/economics/107010-class-warfare-reality-hoax-29.html#post1059808056
Click to expand...

so what-you make the assumption that its normal for the rich to pay confiscatory tax rates forgetting that we didn't have such rates for more than half our country's history and the concept of income redistribution is really less than 100 years old.

There should be no tax on income and there should be no presumption that the rich have a duty to pay the freight for the unproductive
 
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