I was listening to KGO Radio's Bernie Ward last night--he's a flaming liberal progressive who has severely criticized the Bush Administration on a number of issues, most notably Iraq. He devoted most of his program to reading a speech that was given by Bill Moyers at Take Back America: The Conference for America's Future. Bill Moyer's has been around both politics and journalism for the past 45 year or so--first a press secretary for the Johnson Administration, then as an investigative journalist for both CBS and PBS.
Moyers presented a powerful address The Campaign For America's Future for Take Back America conference. The basic premise of the speech is that the Republican Party has been embarking on a campaign of providing an ever-increasing share of the nation's wealth and power to the extremely rich, at the expense of the poor and middle class. The extremely rich and powerful have used the government--through Congress and the Presidency--to benefit themselves over that of the public good. The extreme rich and powerful have also used the Republican Party to distort and subvert the facts of their ever-increasing share of wealth and power with political ideology, while claiming at the same time that unregulated markets work better than democracy. And at the moment, the American public is still ignorant of the growing problem.
What Moyer's has basically said in his speech was that the country is involved in class warfare. The only problem is that the Republican Party is engaging in a sustained, successful offensive class war against both the Democratic Party and the American people for the benefit of their wealthy corporate elites. The Republicans have been successful as masking this class warfare by controlling the political debate using such issues as gay marriage, abortion, school prayer, gun control, terrorism--everything except for the economy. And if the issue of the economy is raised, it will be about cutting taxes or cutting regulations on the market--both of which will benefit the rich far more than the middle or poor classes. These hot-button issues resonate especially well among red-state Christian evangelists who will vote on these social issues, while their own economic status deteriorates. An article in the New York Times reports on how Moore County is growing rich with development of golf courses, country clubs, and multi-million estates, while smaller, unincorporated enclaves of Jackson Hamlet, Midway, and Waynor Road have no sewer, water, police or garbage services. And these unincorporated enclaves are predominantly black. There will never be a discussion of class inequalities--that is discrimination, as the Republicans would say. The cover article in this weeks Fortune asks Is Greed Still Good? The cover picture has none other than Michael Douglas reprising his Gordon Gekko role from Wall Street.
The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the middle-class is getting squeezed. When class mobility is stymied, and social-economic inequalities widen out to exteme levels, a country will become fertile ground for revolution. The uber-rich may reside in their multi-million dollar estates behind high walls, close-circuit cameras and security guards, sending their children to exclusive private schools, playing golf in their country clubs, and ignoring the plight of the rest of Americans as the social contract between the government and the people is shredded. This uber-lifestyle is built on a house of cards. In time, the American people will wake up from their slumber and realize that government is no longer "of the people, by the people, and for the people." They will demand the power of government to be returned to them for the good of the public--either through the voting booth, or through the gun.
The question is when will the American people wake up?
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