Washington Post Column: President Obama shouldn’t be afraid of a little class warfare

Washington Post ^ | 09/24/2011 | Sally Kohn

[SeekAndFind]

On Monday, defending his plan to raise taxes on the rich to pay for job creation, President Obama said: “This is not class warfare, it’s math.”

No, Mr. President, this is class warfare — and it’s a war you’d better win. Corporate interests and the rich started it. Right now, they’re winning. Progressives and the middle class must fight back, and the president should be clear whose side he’s on.

The class war began in 1971. That year, soon-to-be Supreme Court justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. wrote a confidential memorandum to a friend at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce about the “Attack of the American Free Enterprise System.” In the mid-20th century — from the New Deal to Social Security to environmental and civil rights laws — the government had cut into corporate profits while creating middle-class prosperity. Falsely believing that capitalism was under attack, Powell wrote: “It must be recognized that businessmen have not been trained or equipped to conduct guerrilla warfare with those who propagandize against the system.” His proposal, from which the modern conservative movement grew, was to equip business elites for that battle with aggressive policies to make Americans believe that what’s good for wealthy chief executives is good for them, too.

Between 1979 and 2007, the income gap between the richest 1 percent of Americans and the poorest 40 percent more than tripled. Today, the richest 10 percent of Americans control two-thirds of the nation’s wealth, while, according to recently released census data, average Americans saw their real incomes decline by 2.3 percent in 2010. Though our economy grew in 2009 and 2010, 88 percent of the increase in real national income went to corporate profits, one study found. Only 1 percent went to wages and salaries for working people.

[Post Toasties]

I know most Democrats hate Republicans calling this administration’s ‘class warfare’ tactics what they are. So, if anything, we should step it up.

[230FMJ]

“Progressives and the middle class must fight back”

This is the LIE that the MSM and Democrat party is trying to sell.....Goebbels would be proud!

Progressives are allied with the RULING class AGAINST the Middle class......

[wac3rd]

Kohn, the Homosexual Marxist who needs to be one of the first deported to North Korea or Cuba to learn what Che’s vision really was.

Progressives are merely unionized thugs with political power and useless, failed, God-less ideals.

[wac3rd]

Did those “corporate interests” not pay Obie $38,500 to sit aside him at fundraisers?

[Post Toasties]

Exactly - that is a salient point that most miss - the majority of the middle class considers themselves as being relatively conservative - they are the ones being placed in the most jeopardy by 0bama’s and the ‘Rat’s Leftist games and lies.

[Rudder]

No, Mr. President, this is class warfare — and it’s a war you’d better win

Since we're winning (Go Cain!) bring it on.

surely this dimwit doesn't really mean what she wrote...?

[depressed in 06]

Isn’t it about time DumBO comes up with a final solution for millionaires and billionaires?

[synbad600]

Like always, it's not the spew that's the problem. The spewers would have no audience if the people who buy it weren't so stupid to . . . buy it.

Just like the race hustlers and the Jeremiah Wrights: They're not the problem. The problem is the people who listen and agree.

[wac3rd]

She has the Sodomite smirk of Rachel Maddow. I’m sure they’ve sampled some tuna tartare in the past.

[Redcat]

Is it just me or does it seem like homosexuals are highly overrepresented in the media as compared to their true percentage of the population?

Just aksing.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

[chasio649]

Is it just me or does it seem like homosexuals are highly overrepresented in the media as compared to their true percentage of the population?

Just aksing.

---

They network beyond anything you could imagine.

[Hotlanta Mike]

Nor a little race warfare, as evidenced by his appearance before the CBC yesterday.

It’s time to send this community organizer back to Chicago on a permanent vacay. Oh, and take the Moocher with ya as well!

[Trailerpark Badass]

In the mid-20th century — from the New Deal to Social Security to environmental and civil rights laws — the government had cut into corporate profits while creating middle-class prosperity.

The government created middle-class prosperity?

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 9/24/2011. Thanks SeekAndFind.