The Ruling Class or YOUCANTHANDLETHETRUTHCANYOU?

The middle class in America is losing ground, while overall income has grown by 27% since 1979, 33% of the gains went to the top 1%. And what has happened to the bottom 60%? - well they are actually making less, 95 cents for each dollar they made in 1979.

The income ratio between executives versus laborers has grown so out of proportion it is astonishing. In 1960 the ratio of CEO pay to factory worker pay was 42:1, in 2000 that ratio was as high as 531:1, partially due to CEO's cashing in big stock options. So things are better, right? Well. yes, if you are happy with a 344:1 ratio as it was in 2007.

From 1990 to 2005, CEO's pay increased almost 300% (adjusted for inflation) compared to production workers gain of 4.3% At the same time while CEO salaries increase the "effective" tax rate for the top 400 actually declined, down to a paltry 15% in 2007 thanks to tax cuts; a 6% drop under Bush and 7% under Clinton.

And what happens to you and me, average earners making about $25,000/year? -  we paid about 20.5% in taxes when all taxes are taken into account, and the lowest 20% of the earners, who average $12,400/year, they shelled over about 16% of their income in 2009.

In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. We call them the top 1% of households, i.e. the upper class, i.e. The Ruling Class. It is this 1% that makes up twenty-five percent of the nation's income and if you discuss this is terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1% control forty percent.

Twenty-five years ago the figures were 12% of households controlling 33% of the nation's income. So it looks like we have taken a step or two back from the American Dream. The little guy running the local store in your hometown, gone. Your neighbors down the street with the 'in foreclosure' sign in the front yard, gone.

And what makes me mad is that it is this 1% that is running the show. They make the contributions to both political parties to keep the access doors open, they run the lobbyist groups to make sure their companies stay in business. They don't care about public education, their kids all go to private schools. They don't care about a national healthcare plan, they already are covered by corporate incentive packages and can see the best doctors.

They do care about taxes; keeping capital gains taxes low or not at all, and making sure that inheritance taxes won't stand in the way of their passing on this wealth to the next generation.

It is when The Ruling Class becomes so small and so powerful that the crooks in the Wall Street scandals remain untried and free and in some cases still in influential government positions - that is when "Too Big to Fail" sends chills down your spine.

Wall Street panics and wheels and deals and comes up with a plan where they get the government to make them zero percent loans, while at the same time appearing to having their arm twisted. And what do all those banks do? Make loans, right? Stimulate the economy, wrong... they sit on the money and improve their balance sheets.

So it is exactly this type of climate that Marx may have been talking about in his Manifesto. When the big guys get too big to fail and the little guys get trampled on. It is then the people - that bottom 60% - look for a voice to represent them.

The 60% that needs a job to go to, the 60% that needs to feed and house his family. The 60% that wants to remain healthy and see his children educated and with hopes for a better life. It's that 60% that needs a voice and it needs it soon.



 

Are Palestinian Children Less Worthy?

During the first and second intifada, more than 700 Palestinian children were killed, and a further 313 children died in the Israeli shelling of Gaza in December 2008-July 2009 [GALLO/GETTY] 

The following is an opinion piece in Al Jazeera English by Joseph Massad, Associate Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University.

It begins by asking these questions:

"What is it about Jewish and Arab children that privileges the first and spurns the second in the speeches of President Barack Obama, let alone in the Western media more generally? Are Jewish children smarter, prettier, whiter? Are they deserving of sympathy and solidarity, denied to Arab children, because they are innocent and unsullied by the guilt of their parents, themselves often referred to as "the children of Israel"? Or, is it that Arab children are dangerous, threatening, guilty, even dark and ugly, a situation that can only lead to Arabopaedophobia - the Western fear of Arab children?

Click here to read the full story of 'Are Palestinian Children Less Worthy?'

 

Naksa Day - Day of the Setback - Three Views

Pro-Palestinian Protestors Armed With Rocks

The Day of Defeat - Forty-Fourth Anniversary of the 1967 Six-Day War

In New York Sarah Palin celebrated the day by wearing a large Star of David necklace - When asked about the significance, Palin responded, “Today is the 44th anniversary of Jerusalem being reunited,” she said. “We want to call attention to that.”

In the Golan Heights pro-Palestinian protestors waved Palestinian flags and threw rocks and rubbish over the border fence in a demonstration to demand their freedom and the end to the occupation.

Israeli soldiers shouted out over loudspeakers, "Anyone who tries to cross the border will be killed." In the end, "Syrian state TV says at least 20 people have been killed and 220 more wounded after Israeli forces opened fire." The reported deaths, included that of a 12-year-old boy.

Meanwhile in the United States, the State Department issued this statement: "We are deeply troubled by events that took place earlier today in the Golan Heights resulting in injuries and the loss of life. "We call for all sides to exercise restraint. Provocative actions like this should be avoided."

The US statement emphasized that "Israel, like any sovereign nation, has a right to defend itself".

No need to read between the lines here, the words pretty much speak for themselves.  And I too am deeply troubled by these events, troubled that Israel can continue to get away with the killing of innocent people, day after day, and that my government continues to condone the action of Israel.