Islam Times - The GOP's Convoluted "Class Warfare" Cries

Islam Times - Conservative Republicans have predictably greeted President Obama's deficit reduction package that includes a new minimum tax on millionaires with continued howls -- led by GOP Rep. Paul Ryan - of "class warfare" – a talking point created by the fraudulent political "think tanks" that spend fortunes twisting the truth and creating fallacious propaganda to justify their felonious agendas. In reality, the wealthy have been the perpetrators of class warfare, not the victims...

Islam Times: The convoluted "class warfare" cries bloviated by the GOP obscures a far more pernicious form of "class warfare" that has been waged by the owners of Washington's culture of corruption for the past several decades. Washington's culture of corruption has waged war against the upward mobility of ordinary workers steadily for more than three decades, and more recently, with the installment of its corporatized "Tea Party," has focused its attention on killing the elderly and the poor while falsely claiming that drastic austerity measures are needed to control America's deficit.

The war on the elderly and the poor came to the forefront in states like Wisconsin and Michigan. The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives has its sights on Medicare and Social Security -- programs that every working American pays into so they can retire. The lies being espoused about Social Security being a Ponzi scheme are designed to stifle the truth; the facts that America’s wealthiest 1 percent have received egregious tax cuts for the past decade and several illegal wars in the Middle East has Bankrupt the U.S., both morally and financially.

The only "class warfare" has been the one waged by those at the top of Washington's culture of corruption to keep everyone else far beneath them. As Warren Buffet famously said, "There's class warfare all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." The bloviating GOP blowhards claiming Obama's deficit reduction plan is "class warfare" need to be recognized as the fraudulent liars they are. Newly-announced U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren put the GOP's convoluted "class warfare" cries in prospective when she noted that "Nobody in this country got rich on his own" (link: http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/669655/elizabeth_warren_puts_the_kibosh_on_gop%27s_%22class_warfare%22%3A_nobody_in_this_country_got_rich_on_his_own%22/).

Drastic Tax Structure Changes Shifted the Financial Burden to Ordinary Americans

In 1979 the top 10th of 1 percent of the financial elite took in 1.11 percent of the nation's income. By 2008, those same people were taking in 5 percent of the nation's income. The jump in wealth didn't have anything to do with working harder. The jump in wealth was due to the policies the financial elite lobbied for -- policies that resulted in drastic changes to labor policy, trade deals, cuts to Social services and a tax structure that shifted the burden to ordinary working Americans (link: http://www.alternet.org/story/152470/real_class_war_is-working_to_keep_those_below_you_down/).

Yet that was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Conservative Republicans and those who own them waged a far more damaging form of class warfare by attacking the ways that people once used to move up the economic ladder. The alleged trickle-down theory bullshit has proven repeatedly to be a massive fraudulent failure (link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/22-9).

Most people aren't aware of the greed and collusion that has permeated Washington's culture of corruption for the past several decades. The Conservative GOP's lies about the poor being "undeserving" because of some inherent personal faults are nothing but failed talking points that have been repeatedly debunked. Working Americans forgo much of the economic security that citizens of other wealthy countries take for granted.

The U.S. is not a Meritocracy, and Americans are getting screwed by Washington's culture of corruption. A significant portion of Americans are barely getting by financially and their retirements are being stolen. Nearly one in seven Americans are uninsured. Upward financial mobility is getting worse with each new generation. Today America's workforce is experiencing more downward mobility.

Reaganomics Is Nothing But a Ponzi Scheme To Steal From Americans

Reaganomics, concocted by President Ronald Reagan in collusion with his corporate owners, was one of the worst things to happen to the U.S. For more than three decades ordinary working Americans have seen a decrease in upward mobility due to the "backlash" conservatism created by Reaganomics and the massive changes in industrial policies often loosely referred to as the "era of globalization" (link: http://www.alternet.org/story/152470/real_class_war_is-working_to_keep_those_below_you_down/). Cronyism created by massively flawed Reaganomics has resulted in the privatization and deregulation of many industries where greed and fraud rule and Workers pay the price. Organized labor is disappearing along with good-paying manufacturing jobs that have been shipped overseas.

Killing Social safety nets has resulted in downward mobility for ordinary working Americans. Countries with generous unemployment benefits offer unemployed workers more assistance, extend the period of unemployment -- which is often delayed in the U.S. Congress due to the games they play -- and helps workers reenter the workforce, usually at a higher average wage. In the U.S. Congress, corrupt political agendas trump helping American workers and their families. There are similar dynamics in terms of health care too. The U.S. government bequeaths itself with unlimited, top of the line health care at taxpayer expense while forsaking its sick, elderly and dying populations and letting them die.

Republicans and Conservatives have always cried foul when raising taxes on corporations are proposed. As usual, the rich are crying the loudest. Neither logic nor evidence support the pernicious claims made by these bloviating blowhards (link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29174.htm). The charge of "class war" is particularly obtuse for several reasons, including: at the end of the Second World War, for every dollar Washington raised in taxes on individuals, it raised $1.50 in taxes on business profits. Today that ratio is very different: for every dollar raised in taxes on individuals, .25 cents in taxes in raised on businesses. The massive shift on the tax burden on Americans from corporations was no accident.

Second, over the past 50 years, the federal income tax rate on the richest individuals in the U.S. fell from 91 percent to 35 percent. The capital gains tax rate on the wealthy is only 15 percent. The "class warfare" cries from the GOP and Conservatives are aimed at having an African-American U.S. President. Racism plays a larger role in U.S. political theater today that it did four decades ago, and having a black man sitting in the White House pisses a lot of Republicans and Conservatives off.

The Class War Orchestrated against Ordinary Americans was not accidental

As with the truth about 9/11, the massive shift of tax burdens from the financial elite to the ordinary American class has been purposely omitted from public debate. Because of the collusion and greed in Washington's culture of corruption, the winners of the "class war" have been the financial elite and the corporations they own. Multi-billion dollar corporations are still paying no taxes and hiding their money in offshore accounts.

The Corporate media's presstitute News corps do their best to confuse and manipulate the public with their lies and propaganda about taxes and a multitude of other things, especially when it comes to government corruption. The Associated Press (AP) recently performed a mangled "fact check" on President Obama's speech about raising taxes on the super-wealthy that cleverly debunked an argument that Obama didn't make and FOX "News" anchor Bill O'Reilly threatened to quit his job and investing if millionaires were forced to pay more taxes (link: http://www.fair.org/blog/2011/09/21/tax-facts-about-millionaires-and-bill-oreillys-threat/). The AP's mangled tax "fact check" piece bungled the issues involved and manipulated its piece to make it sound as though Obama was wrong about taxes that wealthy people pay (link: http://www.fair.org/blog/2011/09/20/aps-mangled-tax-factcheck/). The media religiously repeats whatever talking point or lie Washington's culture of corruption wants it to push. Consequently, the public is left out of the debate and ignored and truth and facts are left out of the equation by the presstitute corporate media (link: http://www.fair.org/blog/2011/09/21/we-cant-talk-about-class-because-we-cant-talk-about-why-we-cant-talk-about-class/).

The lies being bloviated by the GOP and Conservatives are just another example of how dishonest, and greedy Washington's culture of corruption has become. Businesses have not invested in business growth and banks -- recipients of billions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer funded bailouts -- have not loaned money to small business or the American public. Washington has done nothing to aid U.S. citizens, only burdened them more while squeezing every penny they can out of them. When We the People get angry enough, Washington will learn what class war really is (link: http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/09/paul-ryan-insults-our-intelligence-yet-again/).

The class war orchestrated by Washington's culture of corruption and those that own our politicians against the Middle and Lower classes, elderly and the poor, has been going on for almost four decades, and has been very methodical. After decades of public policy that has enriched Washington's culture of corruption, and policies that lavish wealth on the financial elite who run Washington's culture of corruption, the fact that the GOP and Conservatives are crying "class warfare" reveals that they think the American public is extremely ignorant. They are sadly mistaken. It's time to get mad and do something about it.

Keywords: GOP, Republican, Washington's Culture of Corruption, Paul Ryan, Class Warfare, President Obama, Greed, Presstitute Corporate Media, Social Security, Medicare

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