Thom Hartmann: Civil War - The Makers vs The Takers?

[thomhartmann]

Fox News says that America is headed for a new civil war - a war between this nation's makers and takers. The only problem - Fox has it's sides mixed up. Fox so-called News is predicting a civil war in America. In an article published on Fox News.com - Arthur Herman warns that history is about to repeat itself and Americans will soon take up arms against each other. But this time it won't be North versus South. It will be the Makers versus the Takers. As Herman writes: "Call it America’s coming civil war between the Makers and the Takers. On one side are those who create wealth, America’s private sector - the very ones targeted by President Obama’s tax hikes... On the other are the public employee unions; left-leaning intelligentsia who see the growth of government as index of progress; and the millions of Americans now dependent on government through a growing network of government transfer payments, from Medicaid and Social Security to college loans and corporate bailouts and handouts..." In other words - a war between the rich people like Mitt Romney, the Koch Brothers, and Sheldon Adelson - who Fox says are the so-called Makers - pitted against so-called Takers - or the rest of us Americans who aren't rich - the vast majority of us who go to work every day and will someday live off the Social Security we've paid into all our working lives.

It's pretty obvious why Fox is doing this. Fox is owned by billionaire Rupert Murdoch, and run by multimillionaire and former Nixon and Reagan strategist Roger Ailes - it's pretty much the official mouthpiece for the billionaires' and their Republican Party. So, of course, Fox would want their working class viewers to believe that fabulously rich people like Ailes and Murdoch, and their buddies who sit in corporate boardrooms, as the noble "Makers" And they also have a vested interest in branding Americans who are retired or down on their luck as "Takers" - to justify breaking up public unions, dismantling social safety net programs, and convincing Americans to ignore ACTUAL economists who are saying that taxes need to be raised on the wealthy and government spending needs to increase - like Dwight Eisenhower, Jack Kennedy, and Richard Nixon all did - to put the unemployed back to work. After all - if the banksters and health insurance executives succeed in privatizing Medicare and Social Security - then that means a boat-load of new profits as they can skim billions off the top. So we know why Fox is doing this \\

But what's really important here is this - Fox is partially right...only they have their two labels reversed. The makers are people who MAKE things - the workers - and not people like Mitt Romney who haven't ACTUALLY made anything in their lifetimes. The makers are ALSO people who help the workers make things - people like teachers, cops, and firemen - unionized public sector workers who ensure that our communities are safe, clean, and educated - and that our markets have rules. On the other hand - the Takers are people who TAKE things, like the billionaires who live high on the hog while their workers are making things. The prime example of a Taker is a capitalist. The dictionary definition of a capitalist is somebody who makes money with capital - they invest money and live off their investments. While most working Americans think that they're capitalists because they live in a nation that has some capitalists, in reality there are very, very few true capitalists in America - people who live off investments.

Someone like Mitt Romney who takes money - usually by squeezing out the fruits of other people's labor, as he did at Bain Capital - invests it - and waits around for other people to do all the work making things to ensure that investment is profitable - all the while Romney sits on his butt by the swimming pool collecting his dividend checks. Look at this chart - it shows that working Americans have increased their productivity over the last several decades - they're MAKING more and more things. But notice how, around the time of Reagan - workers' pay started flat-lining. Why is that? Because all the extra income that the MAKERS - the laborers - SHOULD have earned because of their extra hours and rising productivity - was TAKEN by corporate executives and pirate equity hustlers like Romney. Fox News calls those executives Makers - but as this chart clearly shows - they're ACTUALLY TAKERS.

And it also shows why so many working Americans - the ones who actually MAKE things - have to take government benefits - since their wages have stagnated and the CEO TAKERS no longer pay them enough money to keep up with the rising costs of food, energy, healthcare, housing, and education. And on the flip-side, are we really supposed to believe that oil barons who TAKE 40 billion dollars in taxpayer subsidies and then pollute our skies and don't contribute one dime to help treat the explosion of cancers, asthma, and other diseases in our communities - are MAKERS? And, are we supposed to believe that defense contractors who TAKE no-bid contracts to build cruise missiles and drones - and lobby for perpetual war that TAKES the lives of Americans - are MAKERS, too? And, are we supposed to believe that Pirate equity managers - like Mitt Romney - who TAKE other peoples money - buy factories - TAKE away Americans jobs - and then sell the factories back for a profit - are MAKERS, too? They're not - they're TAKERS.

This whole idea of makers versus takers is rooted in the philosophy of Pyschopath Ayn Rand - who instead of calling working people "takers" - like Fox News does - called them "looters." In her book, Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand envisions a world in which the billionaires - the so-called makers - go on strike and leave the running of society to the looters. She imagines that everything would collapse. That's absurd - turning them into worker-owned co-ops and doing what they know how to do best - and that's manufacture things - make things. The truth is - without the REAL makers - without working people - then the billionaire takers would be up a creek without a paddle: forced to make their own meals, drive their own cars, clean their own houses. Can you imagine the horror?!

So, Fox says we're headed for a civil war. In fact - as Warren Buffet said - there is class warfare in America - and, as he pointed out, its his class that's winning. It's time for the REAL working-class MAKERS to wake up and realize how they're being gamed, robbed, and lied to by the billionaire takers!

The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV & FSTV "live" 9pm and 11pm check www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings

[freshwest]

1. Perfect analysis and reporting. Thanks for synopsis, thomhartmann. K & R

[joycejnr]

2. This is an obvious blueprint for...

the Conservative Takeover.

You'd almost think they know how the voting tabulations will come out!

[jjewell]

3. Well put, well said, well done, Thom...

The rich better hope and pray that no real class warfare ever takes place in America.
The Guillotine was created for just such an occasion. (Ask Marie Antoinette)

Throughout history, every time the "Aristocracy" goes too far in 'stepping on the little people',
the people rise up and the "Aristocracy" loses.

"Those who fail to learn from the past, are condemned to repeat it..."

[HopeHoops]

4. Great analysis.

[fasttense]

5. Are the Koch brothers going to get out from behind their security guards and fight millions?

Are those lazy, fat rich people going to get up and fight? They wont even join the military, how are they ever going to get off their lazy butts and fight a civil war?

The only way for them to fight is if they hire people. So, then really it wont be between the lazy uber rich and the common man, it will be between hired guns or mercenaries and the common man. But you can't always trust a hired gun. They come from the common people and are only fighting for money. People usually don't risk death and mutilation for money. It's ideas that people really fight for. And ideas are everywhere. That hired gun may get another idea bedsides fighting for some rich fool. He may get the idea to fight for democracy. Then where will all those lazy rich people be? There are only a few of them but there are a lot of us.

Fox is really silly if they think those lazy fat rich people are going to get out from behind their security guards and fight a civil war. No, what is more likely is that the millions of common people that those lazy rich have stolen from will drag them out in the street. And that's what those uber rich are really afraid of.

[zeemike]

6. Well done Mr Thom.

Well said and well explained in simple terms even a teabagger could understand...if he would listen.
You are my intellectual hero....for just this reason...the ability to explain it in a simple but powerful way.

[bvar22]

7. DURec!

Thom is On Target,
as usual.


You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
[font size=5 color=green]Solidarity99![/font][font size=2 color=green]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/center]