It's time to grow up. It's time to become an adult. It's... It's time for a cliche. "It's class warfare." That's not news to me; however, neither Congress nor the President nor most of the American people want admit that it has already been thirty years of class warfare.
This deep recession is part of and a result of that class warfare. The cause is not an exacerbated economic downturn, or sudden rise in corruption (there have always been "vultures, vultures everywhere"), and the "prolonged" recession and its long term effects will not end until the working class, the commoners, win the war.
(For those of you who are offended by the terms commoner and common people, they are used to denote the shift back to the era when there was a wide chasm between the ruling class and the commoner. It shows just how far we, as a society, have sunk. By the way, I am a commoner and proud of it.)
This round of class warfare was surreptitiously started in earnest three decades ago by the Reagan rich. The working class commoners have been losing one battle after another ever since. The commoners have been relentlessly battered in no-man's land (declining earnings) and constantly driven back into the trenches where they covered their heads and hoped not to get shelled and then obliterated (unemployed).
Even though this war was silently declared by the wealthy, powerful elite, winning this battle against them is more critical for the country as a whole than it is for the working class. If the commoners lose this one, the country has lost, and the effects of this deep recession will be felt for generations, but almost exclusively by the commoners.
While the elites' gains in wealth have strengthened their personal finances, they have weakened the nation's economy even more than the three wars that have been fought during that time. With every economic victory (tax breaks, subsidies, obscene bonuses, privatization of government services, and deregulation that allowed market manipulation) of the wealthy and the powerful, the overall economy of the country has greatly weakened and become more susceptible to business cycles, greed, and rank stupidity.
Because wealth buys power, and power preserves and enhances wealth, an endlessly increasing cycle became entrenched. As the economic benefits continued to shift to the top, the commoners suffered and, as a result, so did the economic stability of the country. (To find out what really creates economic stability see links below.) That cycle must be broken if the economy of the commoner and, thus, the country is to recover.
There are very few avenues available to break that cycle and to keep the powerful from abusing the commoner. To limit their abuse, the power of the elite must be controlled, and since their power is derived from their wealth, their wealth must be controlled. However, there are very few methods available to control their wealth without hurting the common people, the working class.
What the commoners need is a device that not only controls the funds that are used to buy influence but also scares the wealthy power-brokers into realizing that their abuse of the working class has gone too far. The answer is simple. Abolish the tax breaks for the wealthy and tax them heavily.
Americans have to understand that taxes do more than raise revenues that are needed to balance the budget. They curb the elites abuse of power. Of course, taxes don't prevent the abuse, but they do lessen it. The more you tax the wealthy, the less power they can buy, and, additionally, the more frightened they become. The more frightened they become of the commoner, which is now 90% of the population (277 million people), the more reasonable they become. It's time that 277 million people got really pissed off.
The powerful, wealthy elite will certainly cry "You're talking about Class Warfare." They would be right, and the working class should rapidly engage in it, readily admit it, and celebrate every victory. The elite will surely follow that with cries of "tyranny." However, regardless of how much the rich, their lackeys and the duped American public shout about tyranny, they and the people who are protecting them do not have to worry about being the victims of tyranny. They are already the economic tyrants. Their real fear is that they may lose that position. Nonetheless, their wealth would protect them even if they weren't the tyrants.
The freedom that the elite really want to protect from tyranny is the freedom to have as much wealth as possible with as little interference as possible at the expense of whomever they choose. They fear the tyranny of the wallet, not the tyranny that endangers their civil rights. Their wealth preserves their civil rights because it buys them power, influence and the finest lawyers. Police and authorities don't tend to abuse the rights of the wealthy. Most of them are white and male. (Sorry, but it's true. For most of their gatherings, you could take a white sheet and draw little smiley faces on it and call it a group portrait.)
The elite, their lackeys and the duped repeatedly point to the Constitution as if its purpose was to be a wealth builder, but the Constitution's Bill of Rights is designed to protect the civil rights of common people who were often the victims of governmental abuses. By limiting the influence of the wealthy, powerful elite who end up governing or having their lackeys govern for them, the commoner can be protected. This is not to say that the framers of the Bill of Rights set out to control the wealthy, but they did set out to limit the power of government, and in today's world, the elite and their lackeys are the government. Thus, short of violence, the only way to limit their power is to limit their wealth.
In practical terms they will lose very little and certainly no necessities. They will still be able to ignore the plight of the commoner and lead the grand, opulent life that they feel they deserve, even if it's at the expense of 90% of the population and the economic stability of the country.
The wealthy and powerful turned the economy into a shark tank, and when they tasted blood in the water, they went on a thirty year feeding frenzy. They ate everything in sight; they got fat, but they never got full. Now that they've nearly emptied the tank, they expect the commoner to dive in and continue to feed their voracious appetite. So far we've allowed it. But, I'm tired of being chum. It's time for the country to feed off them. Tax them so that we, 90% of the country, can get healthy. For once let them be the bait.
Will it happen? All I can say is stay away from the shark tank.
Econ 9-1-1: Part I: Wealth, huh, good God. What is it good for?
Econ 9-1-1: Part II: "Taxes? We don't want no taxes. We don't need no taxes! I don't have to show you any stinkin' taxes!"
Econ 9-1-1: Part III: Won't somebody please help that poor man?