Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Class Warfare: Indentifying Your Enemies
When discussing politics and the world as we know it, one can often find themselves caught in the drag trap of conspiracy theorists. 'They' don't want us to know the truth. 'They' benefit from dividing us against each other. 'They' like a good war, it's good for business.
Who be 'them', and how do we indentify them without implying an organization of secret societies and malicous alliances? Are the intoxicant dreams of Huxtable middle class too syrupy to pierce? I don't think that 'proletariat' and 'bourgoise' best define our evolving economy, so is it 'ruling class', 'business class', the 'elites'?
Here is a fascinating article by Public Citizen that I think helps illuminate the dark corridors of upper class indentity. In it, this public watchdog group provides evidence that eighteen of the country's wealthiest families, from the Waltons to the Kochs - 18 families with combined assests around 185 billion - have been actively running a campaign for the repeal of the estate tax for the last five years. This multi-million dollar campaign includes both a strong presence on K street, as well as a strong public relations campaign. The proliferation of the term 'Death Tax' has them to thank, as well as the myth that family farms are often lost in rural America to this unfair law.
Dispite everything that America has given these people: a system of laws that protect them and their wealth, a robust economy with both trained and desperate workers to stock their shelves and buy their wine, a lethal military to protect their international assets and 'assist' small governments having problems implementing policies that serve their interests, the chance to star on reality shows, dispite all this these people don't want to give anything back. American taxpayers provide the transportation infastructure that makes global trade possible. American taxpayers invest in research for drug companies and aeronautics, once the technology is moved to a marketable level, we just give it to a corporation to develop. These companies operate on public land for pennies on the dollar, and lets not even bother to go into how much of our nation's treasure is devoted to protecting the energy resources these industries require.
The fact is, none of these families could have become rich without the fertile economy and economic structure of America.
In the Old Testament, there is a jewish tradition called jubilee. Every so often in these rather rigid societies all debt would be forgiven. They realized that any economy/society would have winners and losers, and that it would get easier for the winners to keep on winning and winning. Such imbalances are not good for a society, so they incorporated a system to forgive debt every generation and allow everyone to start on level ground.
The estate tax is an attempt at a similar process. After a lifetime of accumulating wealth, when one dies a portion of that wealth is released back into the wild. Not really back into the wild, it's collected into the federal treasury, so chances are most of it will be spent on military contractors, prison operations, subsidies for energy companies. . .
I began this post hoping to shed some light on how class works in America. Solidarity amongst the working classes and all that. Hopefully, we can agree that these families, those who wish to shirk out of contributing to our tax base while utilizing a campaign of disinformation to lie to you about how this tax works can be agreed upon to be our enemies. I'm not saying that they are not Americans, but they have a sort of dual citizenship. They are loyal to a way of doing business that most of us would condemn if we were cognizant of it. They believe that public opinion should be driven by what is good for them, and that opinion should be 'managed' by the means of mass media. They believe that what is good for their companies' bottom line is what is good for America - support a brutal dictator whose main goals are protecting an oil pipeline and boiling political opponents alive, works for them. They have been moving their factories overseas for a generation now, getting away from organized labor and into bed with shitty little regimes that will murder union leaders at their behest.
These are our class enemies.
Who be 'them', and how do we indentify them without implying an organization of secret societies and malicous alliances? Are the intoxicant dreams of Huxtable middle class too syrupy to pierce? I don't think that 'proletariat' and 'bourgoise' best define our evolving economy, so is it 'ruling class', 'business class', the 'elites'?
Here is a fascinating article by Public Citizen that I think helps illuminate the dark corridors of upper class indentity. In it, this public watchdog group provides evidence that eighteen of the country's wealthiest families, from the Waltons to the Kochs - 18 families with combined assests around 185 billion - have been actively running a campaign for the repeal of the estate tax for the last five years. This multi-million dollar campaign includes both a strong presence on K street, as well as a strong public relations campaign. The proliferation of the term 'Death Tax' has them to thank, as well as the myth that family farms are often lost in rural America to this unfair law.
Dispite everything that America has given these people: a system of laws that protect them and their wealth, a robust economy with both trained and desperate workers to stock their shelves and buy their wine, a lethal military to protect their international assets and 'assist' small governments having problems implementing policies that serve their interests, the chance to star on reality shows, dispite all this these people don't want to give anything back. American taxpayers provide the transportation infastructure that makes global trade possible. American taxpayers invest in research for drug companies and aeronautics, once the technology is moved to a marketable level, we just give it to a corporation to develop. These companies operate on public land for pennies on the dollar, and lets not even bother to go into how much of our nation's treasure is devoted to protecting the energy resources these industries require.
The fact is, none of these families could have become rich without the fertile economy and economic structure of America.
In the Old Testament, there is a jewish tradition called jubilee. Every so often in these rather rigid societies all debt would be forgiven. They realized that any economy/society would have winners and losers, and that it would get easier for the winners to keep on winning and winning. Such imbalances are not good for a society, so they incorporated a system to forgive debt every generation and allow everyone to start on level ground.
The estate tax is an attempt at a similar process. After a lifetime of accumulating wealth, when one dies a portion of that wealth is released back into the wild. Not really back into the wild, it's collected into the federal treasury, so chances are most of it will be spent on military contractors, prison operations, subsidies for energy companies. . .
I began this post hoping to shed some light on how class works in America. Solidarity amongst the working classes and all that. Hopefully, we can agree that these families, those who wish to shirk out of contributing to our tax base while utilizing a campaign of disinformation to lie to you about how this tax works can be agreed upon to be our enemies. I'm not saying that they are not Americans, but they have a sort of dual citizenship. They are loyal to a way of doing business that most of us would condemn if we were cognizant of it. They believe that public opinion should be driven by what is good for them, and that opinion should be 'managed' by the means of mass media. They believe that what is good for their companies' bottom line is what is good for America - support a brutal dictator whose main goals are protecting an oil pipeline and boiling political opponents alive, works for them. They have been moving their factories overseas for a generation now, getting away from organized labor and into bed with shitty little regimes that will murder union leaders at their behest.
These are our class enemies.
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Ha! I'z found your new site!
Not your best post, Aurelius.
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Not your best post, Aurelius.
# posted by 
: Thursday, May 04, 2006 8:49:00 AM
: Thursday, May 04, 2006 8:49:00 AM<< Home
