|
Bush's Class
Warfare
By Peter Dreier
12/23/07 "Huffington
Post" -- - 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 He repealed Clinton-era "ergonomics" standards,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.
Click on "comments" below to read or post comments
Comment Guidelines
Be succinct, constructive and
relevant to the story.
We encourage engaging, diverse
and meaningful commentary. Do not include
personal information such as names, addresses,
phone numbers and emails. Comments falling
outside our guidelines – those including
personal attacks and profanity – are not
permitted.
See our complete
Comment Policy
and
use this link to notify us if you have concerns
about a comment.
We’ll promptly review and remove any
inappropriate postings.
Send Page To a Friend
In accordance
with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational
purposes. Information Clearing House has no
affiliation whatsoever with the originator of
this article nor is Information ClearingHouse
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
|
