"They Only Call It Class War If We Fight Back:" 6 Ways The Rich Are Waging Class War Against America

[Hissyspit]

http://www.alternet.org/story/152512/6_ways_the_rich_are_waging_a_class_war_against_the_american_people?page=entire

AlterNet / By Joshua Holland

6 Ways the Rich Are Waging a Class War Against the American People

Denying the very existence of an entire class of citizens? That's waging some very real warfare against them.

September 25, 2011 |

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But there's another way of looking at “class war”: habitually vilifying the unfortunate; claiming that their plight is a manifestation of some personal flaw or cultural deficiency. Conservatives wage this form of class warfare virtually every day, consigning millions of people who are down on their luck to some subhuman underclass.

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Of course, there are always people who game the system, but they represent a tiny minority of recipients; a Massachusetts study found that fully 93 percent of all cases of “welfare fraud” were committed not by the “undeserving poor,” but by vendors – hospitals, pharmacies, nursing homes, etc.

Smearing those who face real structural barriers to achievement or who will inevitably face real and random misfortunes in a “dynamic,” capitalist society – that's some real class warfare. Here are six excellent examples of the form.

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2. Unemployment Benefits Have Created a 'Nation of Slackers'

Media Matters says, “It's taken three years, but America has finally graduated from being 'a nation of whiners' in 2008 to 'a nation of slackers' in 2011 — at least, that's what Rep. Steve King (R-IA) believes we've accomplished.” King, a right-winger's right-winger, took to the floor of the House to deliver this word-salad:

REST OF LIST AT LINK

[ixion]

1. so working yourself to death is now called slacking...

got it. :sarcasm:

[pampango]

2. I'd have moved #6 to the top but it is a great list.

1. Registering the Poor to Vote is 'UnAmerican'
2. Unemployment Benefits Have Created a 'Nation of Slackers'
3. You Can't Really Be Poor if You Have a Color TV!
4. Food-Stamps: 'A Fossil That Repeats All the Errors of the War on Poverty'
5. 'The Main Causes of Child Poverty Are Low Levels of Parental Work and the Absence of Fathers.'
6. Taxing Working People Less Than the Rich Is 'Perverse'

Pedaling these myths have enabled the right to cut taxes for the rich and corporations and shred the safety net which has created record levels of inequality.

[cutlassmama]

3. That's about right. To read the reich-wing bs on other boards they vomit

these 6 daily.

[mdmc]

4. r

[bobthedrummer]

5. K&R n/t

[alfredo]

6. Job creators?

[ljm2002]

7. I think the underlying problem here...

...is the narrative. As in: the right wing has a narrative to sell, and they promote it endlessly; while the left wing has no such narrative and even if they did, they have few ways to promote it.

Yes, we now have Current TV -- but my cable does not offer it in their lineup. (Yes, I've written them asking them to carry it). Our politicians do not have a coherent set of policies, much less a coherent narrative to offer.

People respond to narrative. It's what we use to make sense of a big, complex world. If a narrative is offered, people have more of a tendency to accept its premises than if disjointed facts are offered. So while the right wing lies and distorts, they do so in the context of a narrative, and people who don't spend a lot of time analyzing the political landscape tend to accept the narrative as "common sense" because it is carefully crafted to be seen as such. It is also carefully crafted to play on people's deep-seated fears and prejudices. We are afraid of being out on the streets, therefore we work, therefore it becomes easier to blame those who are out on the street as people who won't work. We are afraid because our wages are decreasing and there are fewer jobs, therefore it becomes easy to promote the idea that there are people out there (liberals, of course) who want to destroy jobs by oppressing the "job creators" with "unreasonable" rules and regulations. And to promote the idea that unions are bad because they get overly high wages and (gasp!) even pensions for their workers, thus stealing from all the other workers. Twisted, yes, but it's the narrative that binds it together and makes it into a coherent framework where the right can promote their idiotic and destructive ideas.

We can call people stupid for accepting this narrative, but we'll never make any inroads that way. What we need is our own narrative. People do have deep-seated fears, and we need to address them. Our narrative must include the fat cats and how little regard they have for the well-being of the rest of us. We need to take it down to individual stories, both showing the excesses of the fat cats and the deprivations of the common people, and the correlation between the two. People have a natural class consciousness, as demonstrated by the success of stories like "Pretty in Pink" (just for one, albeit dated, example). But we are only allowed to have that consciousness in limited contexts, like teenage romances, and never in the context of overall social reality.

Oh well, enough for now.

[Kat45]

8. Just put that on my Facebook page.

I tend to get a lot of response to political articles I post there, most in agreement, and arguments from one wingnut.

[bobthedrummer]

9. bttt n/t