From The Ramparts

Class Warfare in The US

                                                                      From the Ramparts
                                                                   Junious Ricardo Stanton
                                                                   Class Warfare in the US

    “For the first time since the 1940s, the real incomes of middle-class families are lower at the end of the business cycle of the 2000s than they were at the beginning. Despite the fact that the American workforce is working harder and smarter than ever, they are sharing less and less in the benefits they are creating. This is true for white families but even truer for African American families whose gains in the 1990s have mostly been eliminated since then. Source: Jared Bernstein and Heidi Shierholz, State of Working America ” Socialism? The Rich Are Winning The Class War: Facts Show Rich Getting Richer Everyone Else Poorer Bill Quigley 10-25-10

    AmeriKKKans have been conditioned and brainwashed to believe we live in a free and open society, that there are no rigid or hereditary class divisions in this country. Yes we begrudgingly admit that racism still exists but for the most part AmeriKKKans delude themselves into thinking upward mobility is a given and socio-economic class has no baring on how high and far you go here.  That may have been true in earlier times for large numbers of people thanks to hard fought gains in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by the organized labor, civil rights and feminist movements, but no more. Keep in mind even during those times,  the reactionary oligarchs and kleptomaniacs who own and  run the country put up fierce resistance in order to maintain the status quo and their control of it. Over the years they’ve made some concessions in order to co-opt any radical movements that emerged such as organized labor, the communists and civil rights but for the most part they kept control of the reins of power and wealth. Thiey just did it with the so called "Tea Party"  movement. The billionaire Koch brothers secretly funded parts of the movement and steered it to the Republicans so they count win an the rigged two party (one agenda) system. The elites win either way and will continue their onslaught on the masses.
   
 I have been saying on my Internet radio program and my From The Ramparts podcasts  the US has devolved into a fascist banana republic. What make us a banana republic? Deeply rooted conditions such as humongous  wealth and income inequities and disparities, a government totally controlled by corporations, special interests and a criminal financial elite, rigged political elections either by out and out voter fraud like we witnessed in 2000, 2002 and 2004 or  where the candidates are bought and paid for by special interests as in every election in US history. Of course a banana republic also is a ruthless police state where the police both open and secret (FBI, CIA,  NSA etc) work in collusion with a putrid  judicial system to spy on, intimidate and abuse the public at will. We just saw another blatant example of that with the Johannes Mehserle sentencing last week. I could go on but by now you get my drift.
   
Today in the US we are experiencing an egregious system of  economic apartheid where the wealth and income gaps are wider now than at any time since the 1920's. “The official US poverty numbers show we now have the highest number of poor people in 51 years. The official US poverty rate is 14.3 percent or 43.6 million people in poverty. One in five children in the US is poor; one in ten senior citizens is poor. Source: US Census Bureau. One of every six workers, 26.8 million people, is unemployed or underemployed. This ‘real’ unemployment rate is over 17%. There are 14.8 million people designated as 'officially' unemployed by the government, a rate of 9.6 percent. Unemployment is worse for African American workers of whom 16.1 percent are unemployed. Another 9.5 million people who are working only part-time while they are seeking full-time work but have had their hours cut back or are so far only able to find work part-time are not counted in the official unemployment numbers. Also, an additional 2.5 million are reported unemployed but not counted because they are classified as discouraged workers in part because they have been out of work for more than 12 months. Source: US Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics October 2010 report. The median household income for whites in the US is $51,861; for Asians it is $65,469; for African Americans it is $32,584; for Latinos it is $38,039. Source: US Census Bureau.” Socialism? The Rich Are Winning the US Class War: Facts Show Rich Getting Richer Everyone Else Poorer by Bill Quigley October 25, 2010 www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/
   
Wealth and income are definitely not equal in the US, in fact the rich are getting richer daily while the poor are getting the shaft at every turn. “In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one's home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%. ...  In terms of types of financial wealth, the top one percent of households have 38.3% of all privately held stock, 60.6% of financial securities, and 62.4% of business equity. The top 10% have 80% to 90% of stocks, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75% of non-home real estate. Since financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets, we can say that just 10% of the people own the United States of America.
     “In 2007, the average white household had 15 times as much total wealth as the average African-American or Latino household. If we exclude home equity from the calculations and consider only financial wealth, the ratios are in the neighborhood of 100:1. Extrapolating from these figures, we see that 70% of white families' wealth is in the form of their principal residence; for Blacks and Hispanics, the figures are 95% and 96%, respectively. And for all Americans, things are getting worse: as the projections to July 2009 by Wolff (2010) make clear, the last few years have seen a huge loss in housing wealth for most families, making the gap between the rich and the rest of America even greater, and increasing the number of households with no marketable assets from 18.6% to 24.1%.” Who Rules America Wealth Income and Power G. William Domhoff September 2005 updated September  2010 http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
 
  These horrendous disparities in wealth and income are not by accident, they are by design. The oligopoly, the rich folks who own and run this country have influenced and bribed the politicians to the point the politicians knowingly facilitate the greatest wealth transfer  in the history of the world. Now that the mid-term elections are over, it will be business as usual as the money grubbers and cowards in Congress plot and plan to revamp Social Security in the name of fiscal responsibility. “President Obama announced the new  National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform on February 18 to address astronomical federal budget deficits. There has been considerable speculation that this commission will target current and future benefits for Social Security recipients to achieve its goals. Why would this be the case? We need look no further than the treatment of major retirement funds over the past 20 years to get the answer. When the mob needed cash, it looted the Teamsters retirement fund. When large corporations or government entities get in trouble, they effectively borrow from their employee retirement funds by delaying required payments or otherwise gaming the programs. This provides a source of ready cash, a quick vehicle to cover management errors, or jack up their bonuses.
    “Think of the Social Security Trust Fund (trust fund) as the most lucrative retirement fund in the country, the ultimate pot of gold, and you'll immediately understand why it is that for decades, big business has plundered the trust fund. How does this happen?”  The Money Party Deficit Reduction Scam and Social Security at www.opednews.com/articles/The-Money-Party-Deficit-Re-by-Michael-Collins-101109-476.html  
   
The Kleptocrats want to cut Social Security and ultimately privatize it so their Wall Street cohorts can get their hands on the money in the “Trust Fund”.  Just imagine how bad off we’d be now  if George W Bu$h has succeed in privatizing Social Security after he “won” in  2004. The elites plan to plunder and pillage the lower classes  would make their robber baron ancestors proud. The elites bribe the politicians to cut their own taxes while imposing draconian austerity conditions on the rest of us. It amounts to white collar crime, robbing and stealing in the name of fiscal responsibility, balancing the budget while bailing out the banksters and increasing their won aggravate wealth.  And this is just the tip of the iceberg. I’ll share more of their class warfare schemes in future articles.

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 8:31 AM