[P2P-F] Fwd: Occupy Wall St--it's everywhere where corporate power shapes our lives, so you can occupy it in your hometown too!

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rabbi Michael Lerner <rabbilerner at tikkun.org>
Date: Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 12:41 AM
Subject: Occupy Wall St--it's everywhere where corporate power shapes our
lives, so you can occupy it in your hometown too!
To: Michelsub2004 at gmail.com


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  to heal, repair and transform the world       *A note from Rabbi Michael
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*A note from Rabbi Michael Lerner*: The prophet Isaiah stood outside the
ancient Israelite Temple and denounced those fasting on Yom Kippur who
nevertheless were participating in an immoral society.  Said Isaiah (in a
statement that is now read in synagogues around the world on Yom Kippur
morning though its message mostly ignored when it applies to some Jews'
participation in some of the most exploitative practices of Western
capitalism or in support for the current right-wing government of Israel
even as it engages in oppression of Palestinians): *Look! On the very day
you fast you keep scrabbling for wealth; On the very day you fast you keep
oppressing all your workers. Look! You fast in strife and contention. You
strike with a wicked fist. You are not fasting today in such a way As to
make your voices heard on high.Is that the kind of fast that I desire? Is
that really a day for people to "press down their egos"? Am I commanding you
to droop your heads like bulrushes And lie around in sackcloth and ashes? Is
that what you call a fast day,The kind of day that the God of the Burning
Bush would wish? No! This is the kind of fast that I desire: Unlock the
hand-cuffs put on by wicked power! Untie the ropes of the yoke! Let the
oppressed go free,And break off every yoke! Share your bread with the
hungry. Bring the poor, the outcasts, to your house.When you see them naked,
clothe them; They are your flesh and blood; Don't hide yourself from them!
Then your light will burst through like the dawn; Then when you need healing
it will spring up quickly; Then your own righteousness will march ahead to
guard you. And a radiance from YHWH will reach out behind to guard you.
Then, when you cry out, YHWH will answer; Then, when you call, God will say:
"Here I am!" If you banish the yoke from your midst, If you rid yourself of
scornful finger-pointing And words of contempt; If you open up your
life-experience to the hungry
And soothe the life that has been trampled under foot, Then even in darkness
your light will shine out And your moments of gloom turn bright as noonday.
Then the Breath of Life will always be your guide, Will soothe your own life
in your own times of dryness And strengthen your bones when they are weary.
Then you shall be like a garden given water, Like a wellspring whose waters
never fail.Those who spring from you shall rebuild the ancient ruins And you
shall lay foundations for the coming generation.You shall be called "Those
who mend torn places,"
You shall be called "Those who build lanes to live in." If you refrain from
trampling my Renewal-time (lit.: Shabbat) And from being busy-busy on My
holy day; If you will not only call Renewal-time* delightful But also turn
far from your usual way And set aside your business and your chatter To be
yourselves the rays by which God's Holiness Can turn this world into a
radiant joy ---Then indeed you will find delight in YHWH.
For then --- when you have joined the lowly ---I will set you all with Me,
Astride the heights of earth.Then --- when you feed others --- I will let
you eat your fill From what is truly due you as the heirs of Jacob. Now! For
this word come from the Mouth that Breathes all life.* (ok, Arthur Waskow's
translation is a bit of interpretation and commentary too--but it's totally
accurate to what Isaiah was really saying, and what most Jews and Christians
and everyone else ignores when they think of what their religion or
anti-religion is trying to tell them).
 My teacher Abraham Joshua Heschel called upon us to "pray with our feet,"
and what that means concretely is that we need to be out there demonstrating
with those who are challenging the economic and political rape of middle
income and poor people by the corporate elite and their allies in both major
political parties. And we have a way to do that immediately: join the Occupy
Wall St. movement wherever it is taking place or create it in your own
location (even just five people and a picket sign will be a good start).
Wall St. is everywhere--in the office of your elected representatives who
refuse to challenge the corporate domination of the political and economic
system, in the local newspapers and t.v. and radio channels that ignore the
growing outrage or only allow its expression from the Right while ignoring
the Left, in the school systems and universities that whine about budget
cuts but do nothing to train young people in how to understand the actual
class war being directed against them by the corporate elites (much less how
to organize to protect themselves and each other), in the minds of your
neighbors and colleagues and co-workers who tell you that demonstrations
don't accomplish anything and who urge you to be "realistic" by supporting
the "lesser evils" of politics even though those "lesser evils" gave
trillions to the corporate elite and still only advocate wishy-washing
recovery programs that will not hire the unemployed or protect those being
thrown out of their homes or provide a serious health-care-for-all program
and who refuse to protect the environment in any serious way. Wall Street is
everywhere, so you don't have to go to NYC to be part of the demonstrations.
Do it where you live!!!
        One of those locations is the tent city being created today (Oct. 6)
in Washington D.C.'s Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. (at 13th St. and
Pennsylvania Avenue NW. I was scheduled to speak at it till two falls last
week left me with 2 slightly fractured ribs, so I'm unable to fly to D.C.
but will participate in events in the Bay Area. But if you can possibly get
to Freedom Plaza in D.C. or Wall St. in NYC, you will be participating in
precisely the kind of Yom Kippur prayer and fast that Isaiah understood God
to be wanting from us (or Goddess, or the Spirit of the Universe, or the
ultimate ethical order, or however you want to language it).
       But of course, it's a long struggle, and not much can happen without
the immediate demonstrations linking to a larger political vision. We've
developed that and YOU can help the demonstrators learn about that larger
vision--bring their attention to the Spiritual Covenant with America, the
Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,
and our approach to 'homeland security' as best achieved through a strategy
of generosity embodied in the Global Marshall Plan. All of these can be read
and down-loaded at www.spiritualprogressives.org. And you could make a
significant contribution to all that is happening now if you were to become
the articulator of that larger vision which we've been presenting in Tikkun
and is codified in the Network of Spiritual Progressives. You and we could
make an immense contribution to all that is happening if you would become an
activist among the activists--bringing to them the needed worldview without
which these demonstrations will not lead to anything of lasting
significance. YOU, not an angel, not a new Martin Luther King, Jr., not a
brilliant orator, but just YOU, you and me and the rest of us who have been
thinking about these ideas for a long time and have all the information on
line at www.tikkun.org and in past issues of the magazine. These next few
years are our moment, if we take them. Otherwise, they may be the moment of
a very horrible alternative. So this is the atonement, repentance, and
tikkun olam, the transformation and healing of the world, that we can be
engaged in, and now is your moment and mine. (And this reminds me, I sent
you a letter a few days ago--let Natalie at tikkun.org know if you don't get it
by middle of next week, please).
    Ok, that's my introduction to Henry Giroux's article. Giroux often
writes in Tikkun magazine, so I thought you might want to read his latest
article on occupying Wall Street.
         Blessings,
        Michael   (Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor, Tikkun magazine and chair,
The Network of Spiritual Progressives).
 *Got Class Warfare? Occupy Wall Street Now!*
Thursday 6 October 2011
by: Henry A. Giroux, Truthout | Op-Ed

 Protesters from the Occupy Wall Street movement, the United Federation of
Teachers and members of other unions at Foley Square in New York, on October
5, 2011. (Photo: Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times)
  *We're young; we're poor; we're not going to take it anymore. -Occupy Wall
Street chant*
Class warfare has once again entered the vocabulary of mainstream national
politics, but this time with a strange twist. Right-wing politicians such as
Paul Ryan and various high-profile conservative media pundits and
corporate-funded think-tank spokespersons have made visible what ruling
classes have long tried to bury beneath the discourse of meritocracy and the
myth of the classless society - that is, the harsh consequences of class
power, hierarchical rule and savage inequality.
According to the ruling elite, the real class war is being waged against the
belief in free and unfettered markets, the reign of unchecked capital, a
culture of individualism and happiness itself - in spite of the fact that it
is precisely these beliefs that serve the interests of Wall Street elites
who brought the world to the brink of ruin in 2008. Arthur C. Brooks, the
president of the ultra-right American Enterprise Institute, says it all in
defending the legitimating and empty ideology of the rich and elites in his
comment: "Free enterprise brings happiness; redistribution does not. The
reason is that only free enterprise brings earned
success."(1)<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=DW3UU9oz9M1nDV%2Fyj0HzFy6fq4KpXop%2F>
In
this insipid comment, railing against inequality amounts to railing against
earned success. But the secret order of politics that haunts this statement
is a fear of democracy matched only by a hysteria that fuels an unabated
belief in the virtues of a plutocracy and a disdain for democratic ideals.
The appeal to "earned success" and individual entrepreneurial rings hollow
given the millions of dollars in bonuses paid to failed CEOs and hedge fund
managers and an economic recovery that has only benefited banks. With CEOs
taking in millions in salary and bonuses while major corporations are laying
off thousands of workers each month, the assertion that an unrestricted
market is the only mechanism ensuring one's hard work pays off appears both
disingenuous and desperate. What Brooks willfully omits is that any society
in which morality disintegrates into self-interest and cruelty is celebrated
as a central element of a market-driven social order has nothing to do with
either freedom or democracy.
As thousands of young people are marching against corporate power and
rallying in protest against the symbols of Wall Street greed across the
United States, the political and economic elites respond by engaging in a
form of class warfare and clinging to the celebration of the shark-like
culture of casino capitalism, revealing all too clearly their own criminal
behavior and how it represents a major threat to American democracy.
Of course, ruling elites have had good reason in the past to discredit or
neutralize the concept of class warfare because it made visible vast
differences of power and inequality between ruling elites and corporations
and just about everyone else, especially the working classes and poor. It
also functioned to focus attention on the violence and social costs of
ongoing class warfare waged by the rich, along with the human suffering and
dire material consequences of such struggles. After all, historically, the
concept of class warfare conjures up images of American workers fighting
collectively and valiantly to secure fair wages, safe working conditions,
decent housing and control over their own labor. And the costs were often
high. The struggle for decent working conditions and basic economic and
labor rights was often met with the brutal acts of violence on the part of
employers, rogue detective agencies and the National
Guard.(2)<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=mw75rAT3G1bkf%2B30HoIqmi6fq4KpXop%2F>
A
few historical examples include the Ludlow Massacre in which the Colorado
National Guard used a machine gun to fire randomly into the tent city
erected by the striking coal miners. Nineteen people were
killed.(3)<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=P61QqpicMnsGmrJ3MujlYi6fq4KpXop%2F>
The
same script, involving state and corporate violence against workers and
their families, also played out in different incidents in the Spring of 1920
in West Virginia in what is known as the Matewan Massacre and the Battle of
Blair Mountain. Hoover-type thuggery also resulted in a government attack on
what was known as the Bonus Army in the early 1930s in which the Army shot
and wounded 55 veterans. These are just a few of the many and more
well-known conflicts waged against working people to protect class privilege
over the course of the 20th century.
At the current moment, class warfare has taken a different, if not more
expansive, turn. With the triumph of finance capital and the emergence of a
second Gilded Age, conscripted thugs, the police and National Guard do not
constitute the vanguard or first line of class repression. Physical force,
though hardly absent from scenes of protests, takes second place to the war
being waged everyday at the level of policy, culture and politics. Labor now
is viewed as a disposable population - pensions are decimated, increased
health insurance costs are passed on to employees, unemployment benefits are
slashed and jobs are outsourced so that capital can relocate "itself to
wherever labor is most
exploitable."(4)<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=m1DhBFWidc%2BDSpYiLdzKJy6fq4KpXop%2F>
With the advance of corporate and financial power, violence now comes in the
form of corrupt legislation and a political ideology that strips government
of its universal social protections; removes government oversight; builds on
fear; decimates the power of unions; defunds public institutions; and
expands the culture of cruelty, fraud and avarice through policies that
perpetuate a crushing
inequality.(5)<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=1B8A5PnInE%2Bb4djptuC4cS6fq4KpXop%2F>
Of
course, this same movement expresses no opposition to "big government" when
it promotes militarism, gives tax breaks to the rich, enacts laws that
deregulate corporations and defunds valuable social programs.
Also See: Henry A. Giroux | Zombie Politics, Democracy, and the Threat of
Authoritarianism<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Zhr%2BnT%2B2d1zlLtEtZq0qJC6fq4KpXop%2F>
Meanwhile, a supine and hypertrophied mass media feed the general populace a
toxic mix of propagandistic hate, racism, immigrant baiting and labor
bashing. The power of the rich and their disdain for vulnerability are
strengthened by these emotive discourses, along with the support of a gun
culture and unthinking consumption of hyper-violence saturating various
screen cultures. Scorn for public servants feeds an authoritarian populism
and hijacks democratic language, ideals and social relations.
The dominant media are no longer the mouthpiece of the moral majority and
the gatekeeper of the status quo - they are now firmly on the side of the
ultra wealthy and the mega corporations. How else to explain the media's
contempt for reason and critical inquiry as they turn news into
entertainment and the call for balance into a form of anti-intellectual
dribble? At best, the dominant media attempt to neutralize the issue of
class inequality, making it largely invisible. At worst, they serve as
active accomplices in promoting class warfare through their embrace of
neoliberal values and refusal to engage any serious issues that might reveal
the terrible human and social costs of the class warfare now being waged by
the rich.
We have reached a moment in history when ruling class hysteria has reached
an all-time high in its aggressive attempts to prevent the federal
government from exercising any form of regulation that might make it
accountable to the American people. At the same time, Republican class
warriors and their corporate backers seek to hollow out the social state by
labeling a government that provides social protections and works in the
interest of the public good as evil, repressive and expendable. Robert
Kuttner, the co-editor of "The American Prospect" gets it right when he
argues:

One of our major parties has turned nihilist.... Government itself is the
devil.... Whether the target is the Environmental Protection Agency, the
Dodd-Frank Law or the Affordable Care Act, Republicans are out to destroy
government's ability to govern.... the right's reckless assault on our
public institutions is not just an attack on government. It is a war on
America.[6]<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=ThZrviiygWcEdWqHF2%2BoNi6fq4KpXop%2F>

The most visible face of this war appeared with the economic crisis of 2008
in which Wall Street crooks packaged mortgage debts they knew would fail,
implemented widespread fraud on the American public through the promotion of
liar's loans and created a business culture that William Black has called "a
criminogenic environment" - an environment that spreads fraud through the
lack of regulation and the promotion of a compensation system that creates
perverse incentives in which cheaters prosper, "markets become perverse" and
honesty is treated as a
liability.(7)<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=6%2F%2BW17lck%2FKB%2BLVFIL%2BoMS6fq4KpXop%2F>
And while the historical circumstances producing modes of class warfare have
changed, the basic contours of the struggle have been consistent and
highlight an ongoing and unjust division between a bloated class of
capitalists and financiers on the one hand, and the rest of society largely
subject to the reckless policies of the rich and excluded from the vast
wealth, resources and benefits enjoyed by the top one percent of American
society on the other. Even a child's reading of history makes clear that
class warfare neither is nor was about the rich being positioned as victims.
It was more often than not about the use of fraud, violence and force on the
part of the ruling elite to control the instruments and sites of power,
extending from the workplace and financial institutions to local, state and
national governments. Anything could be justified in order to secure their
wealth, profits and privileges, even if such practices reproduced vast
economic, social, political and cultural inequalities and deadly social
costs. Historically, it is clear that class warfare often meant that ruling
classes, elites, government officials and corporations did not hesitate to
use violence to legitimate capitalism, while also maintaining the status quo
and repressing any vestige of worker resistance - however just the demands
of workers and other groups might have been.
But power is not just about using an instrument of force. It is also
deployed through culture, educational institutions, political institutions
and a range of other apparatuses to ensure that the privileges and vast
inequalities promoted policies that benefit the rich also keep the
dispossessed and disadvantaged securely in their place. The injuries of
class, as Richard Sennett and Jonathan Cobb have pointed out, are often
hidden, buried beneath the loss of dignity and hopelessness produced by
policies that lead to massive poverty, deadly levels of unemployment,
inadequate health care, failing schools, political corruption, and a range
of other social and economic injustices. But lately, the empirical registers
of class warfare have become increasingly
clear.(8)<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=E0RuhcsRcKjcNlY32pLM2C6fq4KpXop%2F>
The
richest 1 percent in the 1970s only took in about "8-9 percent of American
total annual income," whereas today they take in 23.5
percent.(9)<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=gWvP7Q6lPrZ7pz6uXiZt0C6fq4KpXop%2F>
Furthermore,
as University of California-Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez states in his
study of inequality, 10 percent of Americans as of 2007 have taken in 49.7
percent of all wages, "higher than any other year since
1917."(10)<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Ezr04dTUxZ%2BTXnSq65NEyC6fq4KpXop%2F>
In another statistic cited in an editorial in The Huffington Post, 74 of the
richest people in the United States make "$10 million in weekly pay ...
[and] made as much as the 19 million lowest-paid people in America, who
constitute one in every eight
workers."(11)<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=I9oKxwjT2kjV3O4xaXu%2FTS6fq4KpXop%2F>
Consider
the fact that the net worth of the wealthiest Americans is $1.5 trillion,
more than the combined net worth of the poorest 50 percent of the
population, or some 155 million people
combined.(12)<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=e6EbLlFY3be7VmnqZ8cPzS6fq4KpXop%2F>
David
DeGraw points out, "The economic top one percent of the population now owns
over 70% of all financial assets, an all-time
record."(13)<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=AkWtTwF0A8%2B5KIgdiY7lBi6fq4KpXop%2F>
As
Joseph E. Stiglitz makes clear, "In terms of wealth rather than income, the
top 1 percent control 40 percent. Their lot in life has improved
considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12
percent and 33 percent."(14)<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=gNPrtnKACNO3o8k%2BdBbNni6fq4KpXop%2F>
According
to Robert Reich, one stark measure of the inequality that marks American
society today is evident in the fact that "The 5 percent of Americans with
the highest incomes now account for 37 percent of all consumer purchases."
(15)<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Coj2pVj7bDgf7nVSK8datC6fq4KpXop%2F>
Needless
to say, the upward distribution of income and wealth is taking place at a
time when economic growth has stalled; unemployment has soared;
incarceration is booming; crucial infrastructures have fallen into grave
despair; and millions of Americans have lost their houses, jobs, health care
and hope.
Warren Buffet is certainly right in claiming that there is class warfare in
the United States and the rich are winning. while at the same time claiming
that his billionaire friends "have been coddled long enough by a
billionaire-friendly
Congress."(16)<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=6IuU1GK62sIDQfCatIOyLC6fq4KpXop%2F>What
Buffet misses in spite of the best of intentions is that his billionaire
friends and their allies actually now control Congress and are not merely
the recipients of its largess. There is no longer any distinction between
political and corporate sovereignty. We now have a corporate-controlled
state, not a democratic mode of governance. The rich and corporate elite
control the system of government and leave a poisonous imprint upon national
political culture, perhaps most notably a vociferous disdain for the common
good. Matched only perhaps by the clamoring of right-wing ideologues in
favor of unchecked militarism and an ideological blindness to the basic
ideals of a viable democracy, the voices of everyone else appear muted even
as those populations who suffer the greatest costs are rendered utterly
invisible.
Political and economic corruption breeds civic indifference and a death
dealing cynicism. As more and more citizens are devoid of basic rights,
jobs, opportunities and social protections, human resources are squandered.
Social investments in education, technology and infrastructure are abandoned
in the name of market efficiency; and the state is reconfigured so as to
shun its welfare obligations and largely governs through its punishing
institutions such as the courts, criminal justice system and prisons. As the
foundations of social protections and security are eroded through the
mechanisms of inequality, social problems are viewed exclusively as the
responsibility of individuals, scorned as a matter of failed character and
increasingly treated as a matter of law and order. How else to explain a
criminal justice system notable for its racism and reeking of savagery and
cruelty - one in which more than two million people are incarcerated? Or the
use of prison practices, such as the extensive use of solitary confinement,
which "many believe, amount to
torture"?(17)<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=gMFuEBYOcH6bf7hShFU55y6fq4KpXop%2F>
Or,
for that matter, the public support and more recently barbarous celebration
of the ongoing use of capital punishment, even though new DNA testing has
proven the innocence of many death row inmates and the often racist failure
of the criminal justice system itself.
Yet, class warfare in its updated versions may be even more ruthless and has
become more difficult to hide, despite efforts by a corrupt political
culture to distract the electorate away from its most destructive
consequences. As these practices become more visible, they have not as yet
been met with a sustained challenge. Where is the moral and political
outrage over the fact that the war on poverty has been translated into a war
on the poor, especially poor minorities of class and color? Where is the
public indignation over the fact that homelessness is now viewed as a
violation of civic order and misfortune is now defined as a threat to law
and order? Under casino capitalism, widespread injustice is buttressed by a
culture of cruelty in which kindness, compassion and a responsibility for
others has given way to a flight from ethical considerations. The
abandonment of an ethics of care and trust-all is evident in a hardening of
the culture and the growing view that decency, trust and civic obligations
are liabilities. Barbarism is now the preserve of the rich not the poor; it
is visible in the self-interest, greed and a survival-of the-fittest
mind-set that continues to advance modes of agency and policies that further
shred the social contract and reek with the arrogance of power.
In a deregulated and privatized regime of casino capitalism, the bonds of
solidarity are eroded and shared responsibilities are replaced by shared
fears and increasing levels of violence. How else to explain the lack of
moral outrage in the face of the official sanctioning of state violence and
torture by ruling elites such as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney? Private
concerns now trump public issues and all remaining public spaces are more
and more turned into sites of surveillance, detention, containment,
incarceration and
disposability.(18)<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=NtFQPPtwY09WW42IzOoDZi6fq4KpXop%2F>
Profits
for the rich soar as the swollen military-industrial-carceral state
reinforces the political and economic policies of the rich.
The figures mentioned above and the policies that produce such grievous
social costs and inequalities stagger the mind and are completely at odds
with any viable notion of what a democracy should look like or what it means
to take seriously the well-being of all members of a society and the
importance of the social contract. And these figures and policies that
produce them do not even come close to capturing adequately the amount of
human suffering and the destructive social costs that many adults and young
people experience as a result of class warfare and its ever deepening and
rigid class divisions. But they do sound an alarm and suggest the need for
further analyses that connect economic policies to ethical considerations of
the effects such policies have on those who are caught in an ever-expanding
web of human despair and misfortune. It is a curious indication of the
rising culture of fraud and cruelty in American society that when the
discourse of class warfare is invoked by the rich and powerful it almost
never mentions the effects that harsh policies produced by the rich have on
the children of this nation.
The spirit of idealism, solidarity and compassion associated with the
promise of a democracy appears to be approaching a vanishing point in
America today. We have two conservative mainstream political parties, one
that seems wedded to corporate interests and a culture of cruelty, and
another that has remade itself into a centrist-right party that nonetheless
extends and legitimates many of the policies of George W. Bush. Both parties
occupy the same side of the class divide, and the conditions of young people
are considerably worse as a result of the policies of both parties. What
does it say about a society when the elected government invests close to $4
trillion of taxpayer dollars in two wars, offers generous tax cuts for the
rich and bails out corrupt banks and insurance industries, but does not
provide a decent education and job training opportunities for youth - and
particularly its most disadvantaged youth?
The ideals that inform a substantive democracy are utterly at odds with a
society that spends $6 billion a year for training Afghan military and
police, but fires thousands of firefighters, teachers and other public
servants; guts food stamp programs; and refuses to provide health care for
millions of children. We drive up the deficit; cut important social
programs; and, under the current leadership in a stranglehold by
Republicans, attempt to balance the budget on the backs of young people,
working people, the poor and the elderly.
The shameful condition of America's youth exposes not only their unbearable
victimization, but also those larger social and political forces that reveal
the callous hardening of a society that actively produces the needless
suffering and death of its children. This is the real face of class warfare.
The moral nihilism of a market society; the move from a welfare to a warfare
state; the persistent racism of the alleged "raceless" society; the collapse
of education into training and test-taking - all work together to numb us to
the suffering of others, especially children. The real face and registers of
class warfare can be found in statistics for which every American citizen
should feel a sense of moral and political outrage. According to recent US
census data, there are 16.4 million poor children in America. Of these, as
Marian Wright Edelman points out, "More than one million children fell into
poverty between 2009 and 2010; almost a half million fell into extreme
poverty."(19)<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=kUek1pyGHZgKFV4k2TsLny6fq4KpXop%2F>
One
in five, or 21 percent, of all children live in families with incomes below
the federal poverty level, which is $22,050 a year for a family of four.
Approximately 90 percent of all black kids will be on food stamps at some
point in their lives. And the long-term effects of poverty on children are
extensive. As the National Center for Children in Poverty makes clear:

Poverty can impede children's ability to learn and contribute to social,
emotional and behavioral problems. Poverty also can contribute to poor
health and mental health. Risks are greatest for children who experience
poverty when they are young and/or experience deep and persistent poverty.
Research is clear that poverty is the single greatest threat to children's
well-being. But effective public policies - to make work pay for low-income
parents and to provide high-quality early care and learning experiences for
their children - can make a difference. Investments in the most vulnerable
children are also
critical.[20]<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=TXyP6IeAXKMZH9Ll%2BIzRCy6fq4KpXop%2F>

Yet, from the ways in which the dominant media portray the current state of
affairs, one would think it is the rich elite and powerful corporations that
are the victims of class warfare, not the children who are defenseless
against a savage economic system that currently benefits a privileged few at
the very top of the economic ladder. Of course, the rich will say that any
criticism of their wealth and policies undervalues their hard work and
invaluable contributions to economic progress. What is often left out of
this insipid and embarrassing logic is that, rather than promote economic
progress, they have used their wealth - often made not through hard labor,
but through financial transactions and trades that border on corruption - to
promote economic ruin for vast numbers of people in the United States.
Rather than producing jobs, they have bankrupted the economy through
financial mismanagement and corruption, imposing a staggering burden on
small businesses, people with mortgages, the middle and working classes and
young people who can look forward to a future of unparalleled debt, low wage
jobs and little hope.
Trickle-down economics - as one of the legitimating ideologies of market
fundamentalism - is really about trickling down to nothing the residual
services for the poor, elderly, working class and young people. In the midst
of a crushing economic recession, hedge fund managers, banks and
corporations have produced soaring profits, made partly through government
bailouts. Yet, they continue to hoard their money. It has been estimated
that corporations are sitting on over two trillion dollars in assets, while
at the same time increasing their capital by cutting further back on jobs
rather than creating them. And the country's millionaire politicians mimic
these practices of the hoarding corporations. According to the Congressional
Budget office, "a dollar dedicated to the middle class grows the economy
three times faster than a dollar devoted to the rich. Yet, Republicans would
still give the highest earners another tax cut." All the while, "Executive
and CEO salaries increased by 23 percent in
2010."(21)<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=oVdMyS47DTK1gimN8qfsTC6fq4KpXop%2F>
Moreover,
as Elizabeth Warren has reminded us, nobody gets rich simply by their own
initiative. Individual success cannot happen without the existence of a
viable social contract that puts in place the conditions that enable
personal initiative to take place, never mind succeed. She writes:

There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody! You built a
factory out there, good for you! But, I wanna be clear. You moved your goods
to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest
of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of the police
forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to
worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory
and hire someone to protect against this because of the work that the rest
of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something
terrific or a great idea, God bless, keep a big hunk of it, but part of the
underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for
the next kid who comes
along.[22]<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=eaOo96%2B925ghCeDaLfYivi6fq4KpXop%2F>

Class warfare in America is not about the abuse heaped at the rich and
powerful - it is about history being written time and again by the victors.
It is about elite universities and foundations incubating anti-public
intellectuals to further legitimate a war against democracy; public goods;
the commons; and, most of all, young people and other groups now deemed
expendable. And part of this class warfare is a war against young people in
the form of a culture of illiteracy actively produced through the
disinvestment and privatization of public education so that it becomes
impossible for young people to recognize what the abuse of power and
privilege look like and how this abuse is bearing down on their lives and
future. It is an illiteracy that seeks to prevent them from addressing what
it might mean to become critical and engaged citizens capable of holding
official power accountable.
The same culture of illiteracy also operates through the dominant media and
other cultural apparatuses. It is a war waged not only via the state,
economic and educational institutions, but also through a wider cultural
apparatus in various sites that provide the discourses, narratives and
frameworks that make the rich and powerful corporations unaccountable, in
spite of the damage they do to democratic institutions and those
marginalized by race, class and age. As Stanley Aronowitiz has pointed out
in his brilliant book, "How Class Works: Power and Social Movements," class
relations are woven into the fabric of American life and, yet, such
relations are all but written out of American history, erased from dominant
media accounts and disappeared into the language of meritocracy, morality
and character.(23)<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=KAiasVTJ%2BJEbjWvgEBhKKS6fq4KpXop%2F>
Class is a powerful category for understanding society, politics, history
and justice in ways far removed from official accounts, particularly those
recently rewritten by the Paul Ryans of the world. Against Ryan and his
wealthy friends and corporate allies, class needs to once again become a
central category and discursive tool for understanding the injustices being
waged in such a ruthless fashion against young people and other members of a
declining and decaying social order.
Class needs to be reclaimed as a crucial critical and political category to
be used by all of those groups - including workers, young people, people of
color, women and the elderly - against those in power who now view such
groups as either feckless consumers or human waste. The inequities
reproduced through class warfare in the name of economic progress must be
taken seriously by social movements that are struggling to ensure that young
people have a future in which democracy is central rather than marginal to
their lives. We are currently catching a glimpse of the potential for
resistance in the Occupy Wall Street protests being waged by young people in
New York and other cities across the United States. For these youth, class
warfare resumes its historical meaning in protesting corporate greed, high
unemployment, corporate-based education and social inequality, among other
issues. Rather than limit their protests to a single issue, they have come
together to condemn mass injustices stemming from an economic system that
"places profits over people, self-interest over justice and oppression over
justice."(24)<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=wSNkIszAUcO9dRNEFhoPvi6fq4KpXop%2F>
In their recent manifesto, the Occupy Wall Street protesters have marshaled
their critical ire against a failing political/economic system that poisons
the food supply, takes bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, sells out
privacy as a commodity, produces unprecedented disparities in income and
wealth, blocks alternate forms of energy, participates in the torture and
murder of innocent civilians overseas and develops economic policies that
produce catastrophic financial crises the world over.
The dominant media claim these groups are incoherent and unorganized, while
ignoring that they are pushing against the entire system of corporate greed
and making clear what the face of class warfare really looks like, as it is
being conducted by financial elites and their allies against the American
public and the very nature of democracy itself. Progressives should welcome
the injection of youthful protest into the national landscape because it
makes visible what is often rendered invisible - how material and
ideological relations can be structured to promote not only anti-democratic
tendencies, but a culture of fraud, cruelty and barbarism.
Class warfare, as appropriated by the rich and powerful, empties democratic
politics of any meaning. It reproduces, rather than confronts, the economic,
social and political deficits eating away at the ideals of democracy. Yet,
it is important to recognize that the elite takeover of the language of
class warfare should not simply be surrendered to those committed to an
Orwellian distortion of its meaning. Class as a category and mode of
politics should matter to everyone because it makes visible power relations
that are often hidden from public view. Any viable notion of political
struggle needs to affirm the reality of class politics and use it as a
category for reinvigorating democratic struggles with a renewed sense of
urgency. In part, this means certifying the value of class politics as part
of a broader struggle committed to the development of wider social movements
and substantive political transformations in the interests of human
solidarity, equality and freedom.
The Occupy Wall Street protests may be the beginning of such a movement, one
in which the future becomes alive with a new understanding of justice,
equality and freedom and a willingness to fight for the promises of a
radical democracy. Maybe the Tahrir Square and Arab Spring movement has
finally ignited the passion and promise of youth, encouraging them to act in
the interest of building a far more just and sustainable future than the one
we have created for them.
Also See: Occupied Wall Street
Journal<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=zOvx0DOz9Jf8Of55nVXkXC6fq4KpXop%2F>
Footnotes:
1. Arthur C. Brooks, "American's new culture war: Free enterprise vs.
government control," The Washington Post, (May 23, 2010), p. B01.
2. The are numerous histories that chart these struggles. A good place to
begin is with Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States (New
York: Harper, 2010).
3. On the Ludlow Massacre, see Howard Zinn, The Politics of History (Urbana
and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1990 [1970]), pp. 79-101.
4. Philip Green, "Farewell to Democracy?" Logos 10:2 (2011), online
here<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=fqXWGFy%2BSH%2BKlH7IDs3M3y6fq4KpXop%2F>
.
5. Roger Bybee, "Rep. Paul Ryan's Class War," In These Times (September 27,
2011), online here<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=lUzJYgvGrwsmUu9k1UB1My6fq4KpXop%2F>.
A very different but important critique of economic and social inequality
can be found in Richard Wilkenson and Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level: Why
Great Equality Makes Societies Stronger (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009). See
also Robert Reich, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future (New
York: Knopf, 2011) and Tony Judt, Ill Fares the Land (New York: Penguin,
2010).
6. Robert Kuttner, "Land of the Free, Home of the Turncoats," American
Prospect 22:8 (2011), p. 3.
7. Bill Moyers, "Interview with William K. Black," Bill Moyers Journal
(April 23, 2010), online
here<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=aBnW%2Ff7AiDcsjTKBwfK5CS6fq4KpXop%2F>
.
8. Richard Sennett and Jonathan Cobb, The Hidden Injuries of Class , rev.
ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1993).
9. Robert Reich, "Unjust Spoils," The Nation (July 19, 2010), online
here<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=qL4%2BPDpLNP0xOZHWdeKvLf6dgFrDOMJW>
.
10. Maxwell Strachan "15 Facts About US Income Inequality That Everyone
Should Know (CHARTS)," Huffington Post (September 19, 2011), online
here<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Pze0dYoxKMuIWh94vCmJDy6fq4KpXop%2F>
.
11. Editorial, "New Figures Detail Depth of Unemployment Misery, Lower
Earnings For All But Super Wealthy (VIDEO)," Huffington Post (November 2,
2010), online here<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=ugRctRYxg0MU9kLmrRiAxi6fq4KpXop%2F>
.
12. David DeGraw, "The Richest 1% Have Captured America's Wealth - What's It
Going to Take to Get It Back?," Alter Net (February 17, 2010), online
here<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=zS39AeJi8Wuw%2BvSHdmy8Gi6fq4KpXop%2F>
.
13. Ibid.
14. Joseph E. Stiglitz, "Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%," Vanity Fair (May
2011), online here<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=CtTxAWt4EaR%2BHoyvEB7CxS6fq4KpXop%2F>
.
15. Robert Reich, "Inequality Has Wrecked the Economy," Reader Supported
News (September 5, 2011), online
here<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=rGUiliYW9bo6hPYwOpT12y6fq4KpXop%2F>
.
16. Warren Buffett, "Stop Coddling the Super Rich," New York Times (August
14, 2011), p. A21.
17. Jonathan Schell, "Cruel America," The Nation (September 28, 2011),
online here<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=qZOXKJBferkYvzZCBFlgoi6fq4KpXop%2F>
.
18. See, for instance, Zygmunt Bauman, Collateral Damage: Social
Inequalities in a Global Age (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2011).
19. Marian Wright Edelman, "Is Our Nation on the Titanic?" Children's
Defense Fund (September 23, 2011), online
here<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=ZWgMYgPw2vku4k1lNmEFqC6fq4KpXop%2F>
.
20. See National Center for Children in Poverty online
here<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=zInwlUy5SFjqhfr9S%2BbRUi6fq4KpXop%2F>
.
21. Robert Weiner and John Horton, "End Trickle Down Economics to Pay Off
Debt," Miami Herald (July 11, 2011), online
here<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Zc5%2FzC0QGaA2t1z2RpwSti6fq4KpXop%2F>
.
22. Elizabeth Warren, "Nobody Gets Rich on Their Own," video posted on
Truthout<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=9qGrUvP68%2F2LEZbfbb0oCy6fq4KpXop%2F>
.
23. Stanley Aronowitz, How Class Works: Power and Social Movement (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2003).
24. Chris Bowers, "First Official Statement from Occupy Wall Street," Daily
Kos (October 1, 2011), online
here<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=YgWGTa3ybSgHFG%2FhllCrLy6fq4KpXop%2F>
.

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