In the world of the rich, the 99%ers are not important enough to go to war with. In my experience, the 1% want money. And they will pull all the levers of power to get it. How do I know? Well, I have been an engineer in industry for 35+ years, but that doesn't mean much. I haven't known a lot of 1%ers --- just a few.
But if you believe that there is a "war", think about this: if the one percent care so much about screwing the little people ---- why is the Dow Jones Industrial Average almost at 13000? Why is the NASDAQ at the highest level since 2000? Logically, if they wanted to screw the little people, they would ensure that the economy would tank in an election year. This would guarantee that Mitt Romney (or equivalent) would become President and Voila! More tax cuts for rich people! WHY HAVEN'T THEY DONE IT?
It's not like the 1% can't afford to lose a little money in the stock market ---- we've had bad stock performances for most of the last 11 years. You know the old saying: you have to spend money to make money? Well, if their goal was to screw little people, the fat-cats would have happily, voluntarily lost money for 1 year --- the election year. This would be the smart thing for the 1% to do, wouldn't it?
Nope. No sale. They're not doing it! This stock market rally is just about making money --- and making it right now. Not a year from now. Right now.
They don't really care enough about the 99% to worry about whether Barack Obama gets elected. Even knowing that a Democratic win means higher taxes for the rich --- they still have tried as hard as they could to make money. Right now.
Historically, the 1% have had no luck touching Social Security -- & they've had no luck touching Medicare. Most of the time, they haven't paid any attention to them. Now, the current (2011) breed of Republicans are a new level of vile, and they ARE genuinely trying to destroy Medicare (and SS). But this is their own stupid political loser of an idea. They are not following the dictates of the 1%. The 1% are about making money right now, not about a crisis 20 years away.
Another thing: Many of them vote for Republican candidates, but many will vote for Obama too. Wall Street weenies often vote for Democrats. Big-time lawyers vote Democratic. Scientists, engineers and computer technology types vote Democratic (a few are 1%ers, like Paul Allen & Larry Ellison). Many are 250k a year types (5%ers?).There really isn't a unified 1%, you know.
Do the 1% try to buy the Congress? You betcha. Do they help enact laws that are bad for poor people? Yup.
But it is not personal. It's just business. So can we let up on the idiotic comments that are so prevalent on this website? Ones like this:
There has been a class war conducted by the rich against working people and the poor for over 30 years. And the rich have been winning, as the great increase in inequality that has taken place demonstrates.
No! There is a difference between correlation and causation. I've just shown that the rich don't care enough to bother to wage war against the poor. They don't even care (most of them) if Obama gets re-elected. What's worse, the comment ignores the real-world phenomena that are legitimately making unemployment such an intractable problem. Computers and robots are everywhere. The number of workers need to build a car today is a fraction of what it was when I bought my first car in 1976. Office automation is equally amazing. Can you imagine trying to do accounting without computers? Ever heard of secretarial "typing pools"? Gone. My department has one admin for ~50 engineers. We don't need that many people to do the functions that are done better by machines.
The Post Office is going bust. Is that because of the Koch brothers or email? Hell, we won't even need jet pilots soon. The unmanned aerial vehicles used in Afghanistan will lead to unmanned jets all over the military. This is not some right-wing talking point. The incredible productivity of our workers is a gigantic societal problem. It is so big, no one in either party talks about it [I wish they would].
One more big issue. It seems to be an article of faith that the 1% ship jobs overseas to screw the 99%. Did the rich ship American jobs overseas in the last 30-40 years? Yes, but that was EXACTLY what was done to the North by the South starting 50 or so years ago. Manufacturing moved from New York and Pennsylvania to Alabama and Mississippi. Was that okay? Because the people gaining the jobs were Americans? Cold comfort for the Northern states losing jobs....Was that a "War on Northerners" by the 1%? Or was it just business?
But now that the manufacturing jobs being lost are (often) southerners, that's proof of something new? Actually, I think I might prefer that some Vietnamese family get some nice stuff --- rather than some evangelical who believes Obama is a Kenyan Muslim. But I digress. The point here is that many of the 1% have ALWAYS been soulless money-grubbers. This is not new.
Look, I don't care if you want to use the terms "1%" and "99%". That's fine. The inequality is real. Pointing it out is good politics. And some things have changed. Control of the Supreme Court is the most obvious one. But that was caused (IMO), not by the 1%, but by the failure of Democrats to get people elected -- particularly in 2000 & 2004. Alito & John Roberts are disasters --- and their appointment led to Citizen's United. Don't talk to me about hanging chads. Al Gore should have won by as much as Obama did. And I think John Kerry should have won, after Bush failed to get Bin Laden, and led us into an insane war in Iraq.
But, please enough with the babble about a war on the poor by the rich. It doesn't pass the smell test, and it make Kossacks look paranoid. The rich aren't playing 11-dimensional chess to destroy the poor. They're just trying to make money. Just as 1%ers have always done.