If the 1% Wants Class Warfare, Maybe It's Time to Start Fighting Back

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/02/18-12


The first casualty of the class war won’t be the “economic extinction” of the super-rich; it will be the disappearance of the middle class. (Photograph: Paramount Pictures 'The Wolf of Wall Street')

The White House administration official who proposed taking on “income inequality” as the dominant theme of Obama’s second term must have thought the move was at least halfway clever: I mean, try as the Right may to argue against the administration’s preferred mechanisms to undo income inequality, honestly, what kind of jerk would straight-up defend it?

Well, it turns out there are two kinds. Call them the emotional alarmist and the pseudo-scientific apologist. Both variations were on display in the past week, in the form of zillionaire Tom Perkins and economist-to-the-zillionaires, former Romney adviser Greg Mankiw. Both Perkins and Mankiw are correct to be worried about how the widening income gap might inspire more class consciousness. They’re just wrong about which side is the underdog.

Perkins, the venture capitalist and emotional alarmist, has been in the news quite a bit lately, due to his Wall Street Journal letter-to-the-editor comparing agitation about income inequality to declaring war on the wealthy. Specifically, declaring World War II: Perkins warned that “‘progressive’ radicalism” is the “descendent” Kristallnacht.

The ensuing uproar had Perkins rethinking his vocabulary but not backing down from the imagery. “Kristallnacht should never have been used,” he said in the splashy aftermath of the assertion. “I regret the use of that word. I don’t regret the message at all.” In other words: I’m sorry I used a term that refers to the early stages of the Holocaust, but we’re in the early stages of a Holocaust. At a Fortune magazine event last Thursday that took its name from the larger point of his original screed – “The War on the 1%” – he went a step further. Higher taxes, he said, will lead to the “economic extinction” of the 1%. So there you go: he didn’t mean genocide, he meant something worse. At least as far as Tom Perkins is concerned.

[ck4829]

1. And there are several ways we can go about this

One, we can pressure legislators to target offshore tax shelters, to support social programs, etc.

They are trying to divide us, pitting private employees against public employees by ranting about how public employees are more secure is one of the ways they go about this. Recognizing this is the first step, the second is finding and supporting those people who run companies, who are rich, and know they aren't the only person who matters; the people who actually care for their employees, don't pay the lowest wage possible, and are actually looking for innovations instead of having more money than they know what to do with (CostCo vs Wal-Mart is an example of this).

[marmar]

2. The Bastille needs to be stormed. K/R.

[2pooped2pop]

3. this n/t