K
Kickin' Ass and Takin' Names
Guest
Bush's Class Warfare
by Peter Dreier
Just a week before Christmas, President Bush gave corporate America
two big presents. On Tuesday, his Federal Communications Commission
changed the rules to allow the nation's giant conglomerates to further
consolidate their grip on the media by permitting them to purchase TV
and radio stations in the same local markets where they already own
daily newspapers. As a gift to the country's automobile industry,
Bush's Environmental Protection Agency ruled Wednesday, over the
objections of the agency's staff, that California, the nation's
largest and most polluted state, and 16 other states, can't impose
regulations to limit greenhouse gases from cars and trucks that are
stronger than the federal government's own weak standards.
So far, no major politicians or editorial writers have labeled these
actions "class warfare," although this is precisely what Bush is
engaged in -- helping the already rich and powerful at the expense of
everyone else. Class warfare is, in fact, the very essence of Bush's
tenure in the White House. In thousands of ways, big and small, Bush
has promoted the interests of the very rich and the largest
corporations. Corporate lobbyists have the run of the White House.
Their agenda - tax cuts for the rich and big business, attacks on
labor unions, and the weakening of laws protecting consumers, workers
and the environment from corporate abuse - is Bush's agenda.
For example, Bush has handed the pharmaceutical industry windfall
profits by restricting Medicare's ability to negotiate for lower
prices for medicine. He targeted huge no-bid federal contracts to
crony companies like Haliburton to supply emergency relief,
reconstruction services and materials to rebuild Katrina while
attempting to slash federal wage laws for reconstruction workers. He
repealed Clinton-era "ergonomics" standards, affecting more than 100
million workers, that would have forced companies to alter their work
stations, redesign their facilities or change their tools and
equipment if employees suffered serious work-related injuries from
repetitive motions. He opposed stiffer health and safety regulations
to protect mine workers and cut the budget for federal agencies that
enforce mine safety laws. Not surprisingly, under Bush, we've seen the
largest number of mine accidents and deaths in years. Bush's Food and
Drug Administration lowered product-labeling standards, allowing food
makers to list health claims on labels before they have been
scientifically proven. His FDA chief announced that the agency would
no longer require claims to be based on "significant scientific
agreement," a change that the National Food Processors Association,
the trade association of the $500 billion food processing industry,
had lobbied for. Bush resisted efforts to raise the minimum wage
(which had been stuck at $5.15 an hour for nine years) until the
Democrats took back the Congress earlier this year.
Virtually every week since he took office, the Bush administration has
made or proposed changes in our laws designed to help the rich and
powerful while harming the most vulnerable people in society and
putting the middle class at greater economic risk. The list of horrors
can be so numbing that one can lose sight of the cumulative impact of
these actions. Taken together, they add up to the most direct assault
on working people, the environment and the poor that the country has
seen since the presidency of William McKinley over a century ago.
Bush has been a persistent practitioner of top-down class warfare ,
but the media rarely characterize his actions that way. In contrast,
when progressive activists, unions, environmental groups, community
organizations and politicians support legislation and rules to redress
the balance of power and wealth, they are inevitably described as
engaging in c lass warfare . Top-down class warfare seems to be OK,
but bottom-up class warfare is apparently a no-no.
The class warfare rap is now being used against John Edwards, when he
talks about challenging the power of the insurance and drug
corporations. In a recent speech, Edwards said that his campaign was
about challenging "the powerful, the well-connected and the very
wealthy." But wary of being criticized for fueling class resentments,
even Edwards felt it necessary to say "This is not class warfare. This
is the truth."
Yes, the truth is that the rich have been at war with the rest of the
country. It isn't a question of ""rich against the poor," which is
often how leftists describe things. That leaves out most Americans.
Its the very rich versus everyone else.
As Robert Kuttner observes in his new book, The Squandering of
America, from 1966 to 2001, the wealthiest one-tenth of all Americans
captured the lion's share of society's productivity growth. But it was
the top one tenth of 1 percent that gained the very most. Those
between the 80th and 90th percentiles about held their own. Those
between the 95th and 99th percentiles gained 29 percent, while those
between the top 99 and 99.9 percentile, gained 73 percent.
"But," Kuttner writes, "it was those at the very pinnacle -the top one
tenth of 1 percent of the population - one American in a thousand -
who gained a staggering 291 percent."
Wealth has become even more concentrated during the Bush years. Today,
the richest one percent of Americans has 22 percent of all income and
about 40 percent of all wealth. This is the biggest concentration of
income and wealth since 1928. In 2005, average CEO pay was 369 times
that of the average worker, compared with 131 times in 1993 and 36
times in 1976. At the pinnacle of America's economic pyramid, the
nation's 400 billionaires own 1.25 trillion dollars in total net worth
- the same amount as the 56 million American families at the bottom
half of wealth distribution.
Meanwhile, despite improvements in productivity, the earnings of most
workers have been stagnant, while the cost of health care, housing,
and other necessities has risen. The basics of the American Dream -
the ability to buy a home, pay for college tuition and health
insurance, take a yearly vacation, and save for retirement - have
become increasingly slippery. And for the 37 million Americans living
below the official poverty line - $17,170 a year for a family of three
- the dream has become a nightmare.
In many ways, America today resembles the conditions in the late 1800s
that was called the Gilded Age. It was an era of rampant, unregulated
capitalism. It was a period of merger mania, increasing concentrations
of wealth among the privileged few, and growing political influence by
corporate power brokers called the Robber Barons. During the Gilded
Age, new technologies made possible new industries, which generated
great riches for the fortunate few, but at the expense of workers,
consumers, and the environment. The gap between the rich and other
Americans widened dramatically.
It was also an era of massive immigration to the US from people
fleeing political persecution and economic hardship. In the growing
cities of the early 20th century, there were terrible poverty, child
labor, sweatshops, slums, and serious public health crises, including
major epidemics of contagious diseases.
But out of that turmoil, activists created a "Progressive" movement,
forging a coalition of immigrants, unionists, middle-class reformers,
settlement house workers, muckraking journalists, clergy, and upper-
class philanthropists. They fought for, and won, better working
conditions, better housing, better schools, and better public services
like sanitation and public health laws. Those reforms began at the
local and state levels, but eventually laid the foundation for a wave
of reform at the federal level - the New Deal.
In 1939, in the midst of the Great Depression, the balladeer Woody
Guthrie wrote a song about bank robbers and outlaws. "Yes, as through
this world I've wandered, I've seen lots of funny men," Guthrie wrote,
"Some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen."
Throughout his Presidency, Bush has used his pen to sign regulations
and laws that make the rich richer, allow big business to pollute the
environment, reduce wages, and rip-off borrowers and consumers.
But Americans finally seem to have caught on. Iraq, Katrina, Enron,
the current wave of foreclosures, and other events have helped wake
them up to the reality that Bush's top-down class warfare has done
great damage to our country. We now may be on the brink of another
progressive era. Bubbling below the surface is a new wave of social
activism.
Today's progressive movement is almost invisible to the mainstream
media, but it is obvious to anyone involved in the struggle for social
justice. It has many of the same elements as 100 years ago. There is a
new wave of activism across America among labor unions, community
organizations, environmental groups, immigrant rights activists, and
grassroots housing and health care reformers. In the last decade, for
example, more than 150 cities, dozens of counties, and now one state
(Maryland) have adopted "living wage" laws to lift low-wage workers
out of poverty, the result of solid organizing efforts by networks of
unions, religious congregations, and community groups like ACORN and
the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy. Environmentalists and
unions - who were barely on speaking terms for many years - are now
forging alliances to push for "green" jobs and waging joint campaigns,
such as the coalition of Teamsters and environmental activists working
together to clean up the Los Angeles/Long Beach port, the nation's
largest port and also its most polluted, and unionize the immigrant
truck drivers.
Like the Progressive and New Deal eras, there is now a growing number
of politicians at the local, state and national level who help give
voice to this burgeoning movement. When they do, they are accused of
engaging in "class warfare." They should wear it as a badge of honor.
Peter Dreier is E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics, and
director of the Urban and Environmental Policy program, at Occidental
College in Los Angeles.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/22/5961/
by Peter Dreier
Just a week before Christmas, President Bush gave corporate America
two big presents. On Tuesday, his Federal Communications Commission
changed the rules to allow the nation's giant conglomerates to further
consolidate their grip on the media by permitting them to purchase TV
and radio stations in the same local markets where they already own
daily newspapers. As a gift to the country's automobile industry,
Bush's Environmental Protection Agency ruled Wednesday, over the
objections of the agency's staff, that California, the nation's
largest and most polluted state, and 16 other states, can't impose
regulations to limit greenhouse gases from cars and trucks that are
stronger than the federal government's own weak standards.
So far, no major politicians or editorial writers have labeled these
actions "class warfare," although this is precisely what Bush is
engaged in -- helping the already rich and powerful at the expense of
everyone else. Class warfare is, in fact, the very essence of Bush's
tenure in the White House. In thousands of ways, big and small, Bush
has promoted the interests of the very rich and the largest
corporations. Corporate lobbyists have the run of the White House.
Their agenda - tax cuts for the rich and big business, attacks on
labor unions, and the weakening of laws protecting consumers, workers
and the environment from corporate abuse - is Bush's agenda.
For example, Bush has handed the pharmaceutical industry windfall
profits by restricting Medicare's ability to negotiate for lower
prices for medicine. He targeted huge no-bid federal contracts to
crony companies like Haliburton to supply emergency relief,
reconstruction services and materials to rebuild Katrina while
attempting to slash federal wage laws for reconstruction workers. He
repealed Clinton-era "ergonomics" standards, affecting more than 100
million workers, that would have forced companies to alter their work
stations, redesign their facilities or change their tools and
equipment if employees suffered serious work-related injuries from
repetitive motions. He opposed stiffer health and safety regulations
to protect mine workers and cut the budget for federal agencies that
enforce mine safety laws. Not surprisingly, under Bush, we've seen the
largest number of mine accidents and deaths in years. Bush's Food and
Drug Administration lowered product-labeling standards, allowing food
makers to list health claims on labels before they have been
scientifically proven. His FDA chief announced that the agency would
no longer require claims to be based on "significant scientific
agreement," a change that the National Food Processors Association,
the trade association of the $500 billion food processing industry,
had lobbied for. Bush resisted efforts to raise the minimum wage
(which had been stuck at $5.15 an hour for nine years) until the
Democrats took back the Congress earlier this year.
Virtually every week since he took office, the Bush administration has
made or proposed changes in our laws designed to help the rich and
powerful while harming the most vulnerable people in society and
putting the middle class at greater economic risk. The list of horrors
can be so numbing that one can lose sight of the cumulative impact of
these actions. Taken together, they add up to the most direct assault
on working people, the environment and the poor that the country has
seen since the presidency of William McKinley over a century ago.
Bush has been a persistent practitioner of top-down class warfare ,
but the media rarely characterize his actions that way. In contrast,
when progressive activists, unions, environmental groups, community
organizations and politicians support legislation and rules to redress
the balance of power and wealth, they are inevitably described as
engaging in c lass warfare . Top-down class warfare seems to be OK,
but bottom-up class warfare is apparently a no-no.
The class warfare rap is now being used against John Edwards, when he
talks about challenging the power of the insurance and drug
corporations. In a recent speech, Edwards said that his campaign was
about challenging "the powerful, the well-connected and the very
wealthy." But wary of being criticized for fueling class resentments,
even Edwards felt it necessary to say "This is not class warfare. This
is the truth."
Yes, the truth is that the rich have been at war with the rest of the
country. It isn't a question of ""rich against the poor," which is
often how leftists describe things. That leaves out most Americans.
Its the very rich versus everyone else.
As Robert Kuttner observes in his new book, The Squandering of
America, from 1966 to 2001, the wealthiest one-tenth of all Americans
captured the lion's share of society's productivity growth. But it was
the top one tenth of 1 percent that gained the very most. Those
between the 80th and 90th percentiles about held their own. Those
between the 95th and 99th percentiles gained 29 percent, while those
between the top 99 and 99.9 percentile, gained 73 percent.
"But," Kuttner writes, "it was those at the very pinnacle -the top one
tenth of 1 percent of the population - one American in a thousand -
who gained a staggering 291 percent."
Wealth has become even more concentrated during the Bush years. Today,
the richest one percent of Americans has 22 percent of all income and
about 40 percent of all wealth. This is the biggest concentration of
income and wealth since 1928. In 2005, average CEO pay was 369 times
that of the average worker, compared with 131 times in 1993 and 36
times in 1976. At the pinnacle of America's economic pyramid, the
nation's 400 billionaires own 1.25 trillion dollars in total net worth
- the same amount as the 56 million American families at the bottom
half of wealth distribution.
Meanwhile, despite improvements in productivity, the earnings of most
workers have been stagnant, while the cost of health care, housing,
and other necessities has risen. The basics of the American Dream -
the ability to buy a home, pay for college tuition and health
insurance, take a yearly vacation, and save for retirement - have
become increasingly slippery. And for the 37 million Americans living
below the official poverty line - $17,170 a year for a family of three
- the dream has become a nightmare.
In many ways, America today resembles the conditions in the late 1800s
that was called the Gilded Age. It was an era of rampant, unregulated
capitalism. It was a period of merger mania, increasing concentrations
of wealth among the privileged few, and growing political influence by
corporate power brokers called the Robber Barons. During the Gilded
Age, new technologies made possible new industries, which generated
great riches for the fortunate few, but at the expense of workers,
consumers, and the environment. The gap between the rich and other
Americans widened dramatically.
It was also an era of massive immigration to the US from people
fleeing political persecution and economic hardship. In the growing
cities of the early 20th century, there were terrible poverty, child
labor, sweatshops, slums, and serious public health crises, including
major epidemics of contagious diseases.
But out of that turmoil, activists created a "Progressive" movement,
forging a coalition of immigrants, unionists, middle-class reformers,
settlement house workers, muckraking journalists, clergy, and upper-
class philanthropists. They fought for, and won, better working
conditions, better housing, better schools, and better public services
like sanitation and public health laws. Those reforms began at the
local and state levels, but eventually laid the foundation for a wave
of reform at the federal level - the New Deal.
In 1939, in the midst of the Great Depression, the balladeer Woody
Guthrie wrote a song about bank robbers and outlaws. "Yes, as through
this world I've wandered, I've seen lots of funny men," Guthrie wrote,
"Some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen."
Throughout his Presidency, Bush has used his pen to sign regulations
and laws that make the rich richer, allow big business to pollute the
environment, reduce wages, and rip-off borrowers and consumers.
But Americans finally seem to have caught on. Iraq, Katrina, Enron,
the current wave of foreclosures, and other events have helped wake
them up to the reality that Bush's top-down class warfare has done
great damage to our country. We now may be on the brink of another
progressive era. Bubbling below the surface is a new wave of social
activism.
Today's progressive movement is almost invisible to the mainstream
media, but it is obvious to anyone involved in the struggle for social
justice. It has many of the same elements as 100 years ago. There is a
new wave of activism across America among labor unions, community
organizations, environmental groups, immigrant rights activists, and
grassroots housing and health care reformers. In the last decade, for
example, more than 150 cities, dozens of counties, and now one state
(Maryland) have adopted "living wage" laws to lift low-wage workers
out of poverty, the result of solid organizing efforts by networks of
unions, religious congregations, and community groups like ACORN and
the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy. Environmentalists and
unions - who were barely on speaking terms for many years - are now
forging alliances to push for "green" jobs and waging joint campaigns,
such as the coalition of Teamsters and environmental activists working
together to clean up the Los Angeles/Long Beach port, the nation's
largest port and also its most polluted, and unionize the immigrant
truck drivers.
Like the Progressive and New Deal eras, there is now a growing number
of politicians at the local, state and national level who help give
voice to this burgeoning movement. When they do, they are accused of
engaging in "class warfare." They should wear it as a badge of honor.
Peter Dreier is E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics, and
director of the Urban and Environmental Policy program, at Occidental
College in Los Angeles.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/22/5961/