In Search of the Truth

Class Struggle
American workers have a chance to be heard.

BY JIM WEBB
Wednesday, November 15, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes.

Incestuous corporate boards regularly approve compensation packages for chief executives and others that are out of logic's range. As this newspaper has reported, the average CEO of a sizeable corporation makes more than $10 million a year, while the minimum wage for workers amounts to about $10,000 a year, and has not been raised in nearly a decade. When I graduated from college in the 1960s, the average CEO made 20 times what the average worker made. Today, that CEO makes 400 times as much.

In the age of globalization and outsourcing, and with a vast underground labor pool from illegal immigration, the average American worker is seeing a different life and a troubling future. Trickle-down economics didn't happen. Despite the vaunted all-time highs of the stock market, wages and salaries are at all-time lows as a percentage of the national wealth. At the same time, medical costs have risen 73% in the last six years alone. Half of that increase comes from wage-earners' pockets rather than from insurance, and 47 million Americans have no medical insurance at all.   Read the Rest here.

While I may not agree with every single point that he makes, his general thesis still stands true.  We have a major problem here and it needs to be fixed pronto. 

1.  At least one non-corporate/christofacist Supreme Court Judge.

2.  National Healthcare

3.  Minimum wage increase.

4.  No more wars.

5.  Lower college tuition costs.

6.  Palestinian Peace agreement.

7.  Be out of Iraq in the next two years, and have the reconstruction (by the Iraqis) well on it's way.  Give women back their Saddam-era rights (at least).

8.  Give women in America back their rights!  Let us have the right to choose and the right to birth control.  Do not allow medical establishments to refuse care to women by refusing to fill our prescriptions!!

9.  Stop ignoring Darfur.  Start working on a solution.

10.  Close Gtmo!!

11.  Make torture illegal again!!  Give us back Habeas Corpus!!

12.  Move away from the concept of 'free trade' and towards the concept of 'fair trade'.

13.  Get rid of the 'abstinence only' policies in Africa and get back to condoms and birth control that had been working to reverse the Aids problem in Africa. 

14.  Adequately fund public schools!!

15.  Fix the voting system, get rid of lobby influence on our government, and stop the fear mongering!!

Governor Sanford "forgot his voter identification card the first time, and poll workers turned him away when he showed a driver's license with a Columbia address."

"In Ohio in 2004, a court battle raged in the weeks before the election over whether the state Republican Party could send operatives to the polls to question the eligibility of would-be voters -- a tactic that Democrats charged was voter intimidation. A federal appeals court ultimately sided with Republicans on Election Day."

Economic Left/Right: -8.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.95

"Gonzales was to discuss the roundup, code-named Operation Falcon III, at a news conference Thursday."

Not only does this Conference Report unfortunately drop the Empowerment amendment entirely, it adopts some incredible changes to the Insurrection Act, which would give the President more authority to declare martial law. Let me repeat: The National Guard Empowerment Act, which is designed to make it more likely for the National Guard to remain in State control, is dropped from this conference report in favor of provisions making it easier to usurp the Governors control and making it more likely that the President will take control of the Guard and the active military operating in the States.

The changes to the Insurrection Act will allow the President to use the military, including the National Guard, to carry out law enforcement activities without the consent of a governor. When the Insurrection Act is invoked posse comitatus does not apply. Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy, and it is for that reason that the Insurrection Act has only been invoked on three — three — in recent history. The implications of changing the Act are enormous, but this change was just slipped in the defense bill as a rider with little study. Other congressional committees with jurisdiction over these matters had no chance to comment, let alone hold hearings on, these proposals.

If that is not frightening, I don't know what is.  But, this is not all.  All you have to do is add this up with the loss of habeas corpus in the Military Commissions Act, the Patriot Acts, eavesdropping, cameras cropping up all over the place (they are going to put 30 up here in my downtown), ect...  After a while you see a pattern emerging. 

And all of this brings me to this new report released by Privacy International.  The study ranked the US near the bottom in regard to privacy.  We are catagorized as an "extensive surveillance society".  You can read an analysis of the study here.

I guess you have to ask yourself, "When does it stop being paranoia and start being reality?"  I think the answer to that is that it already is the reality that we live in.  Now that we have that answer, the next question is, "What will the government have to do with these "tools" they have collected before the citizens of this country stand up and refuse to give any more of our rights away?"

Oh, and by the way, I know that I started this thread with a story about criminals, but the point is, could this be practice?  Will the next "operation" be rounding up actual criminals. or will it be to round up political dissidents?  Is it curious that they did this so close to the elections?  If there is a large group of protestors after the elections, protesting that there was voter fraud, could they be rounded up?  Couldn't Bush just call up the National Guard, without the governor's permission, and have them round up protestors?  Then, according to the new Military Commissions Act, couldn't a tribunal then declare them "enemy combatants" and send them to some undisclosed prison where they would not be allowed to petition a court as to their innocence because they no longer have habeas corpus? 

Will they do this?  Who knows.  The point is that they now have all the "tools" to be able to do this.  You know, all the "tools" they are always talking about needing to fight the "war on terrorism".  Those "tools", for the most part, are useless against terrorists.  But, they are very useful in controlling your own citizens.  Welcome to the "extensive surveillance society."