Tea Party vs. We The People

Several important news items in the past week underscore the dire situation of the poor and the working class in the United States, but got little attention from the corporate media or the political elite. The number of people in poverty has climbed to 44 million, the highest number in 50 years. In 2009 alone, 4 million people fell into poverty, and it would have been higher without the extensions in unemployment and other benefits Republicans opposed.

The number of people without health insurance climbed to 50 million. The healthcare crisis continues to worsen while the right-wing calls for repealing the healthcare program that will cover 30 million more people. Health insurance companies are already gouging people and dumping children and sick people before the law is fully implemented, while Republicans want to cut all public healthcare programs and throw us all to the mercy of insurance companies.

While corporate profits and CEO pay continue to skyrocket, even after the Great Recession they created out of greed, the wages and income of working class continues to decline. There is a class war, but it is a war of the corporate rich being waged on the working class.

What I don’t understand is why the Tea Party, which claims to represent “we the people,” is taking the side of the corporate rich. They defend private insurance companies which are rationing healthcare based on ability to pay while increasing their profits and CEO pay. They are siding with corporations against unions and the right of workers to organize and improve their working conditions.

Instead, the Tea Party is following millionaire corporate lobbyists like Dick Armey, and corporate front groups like “Freedom Works” and “Americans For Prosperity,” which are nothing but cover groups for insurance companies and energy companies who oppose “regulations” which would protect the environment and increase access to healthcare.

They claim to want to reduce the deficit and cut government debt, but they want to continue to cut taxes on the corporate rich, without any cuts to pay for them. It is this combination of careless tax cuts favoring the rich, along with unpaid wars and increases in military spending, which has caused the explosion in the deficit, all the result of the policies of George W. Bush, which they want to continue.

The Tea Party is taking over the Republican Party, pushing a radical agenda to impose corporate and theocratic rule over the United States. They want to cut or eliminate Social Security, the most successful social program in history, which has nothing to do with the deficit. They claim to be opposed to “big government,” but they want to impose their religious beliefs on everyone, and they seem to love big business.

The Boston Tea Party was a revolt against unfair tax cuts for a multinational corporation, the East India Tea Company, which undermined the small businesses in the colonies. The British were imposing taxes on the colonies, while cutting the taxes of the East India Tea Company. We need a real Tea Party revolt against tax cuts and corporate welfare programs that favor the corporate rich and put the interests of Wall Street banksters over the interests of the American working class. We need to pay more attention to the “common good” and and less attention to the whining of rich people who don’t care about the “general welfare” of we the people.

Memphis Flyer: Not Our Party

Socialist Webzine: Incomes Down, Poverty Up

The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street

Lost Decade For American Income

Poverty Rises as Wall Street Billionaires Whine

More Tax Cuts for the Rich? No Way!

GOP Plan Would Raise Debt $4 Trillion

Thom Hartmann: Boston Tea Party Was An Anti-Corporate Revolt!

Third World America: The Collapse of American Capitalism

As most working class Americans realize, the American capitalist system is collapsing, along with the "middle class" and the "American Dream" (home ownership, living wages, college, etc.)

As profits soar on Wall Street and among the financial institutions the American working class bailed out, workers and the middle class are losing wages, jobs and living standards. While demand is falling, the U.S. political and media elite are still focused on giving more tax breaks to the wealthy corporate elite who have declared war on labor and the middle class.

The irony is that while Obama and the corporate Democrats focused on saving American capitalism, they will suffer the wrath of the American voters as the system collapses.

Arrianna Huffington: Third World America--Chronicling the Assault on America's Middle Class

Eight Facts About the Shrinking Middle Class

Economic Fears Rise as Disappointing Figures Pile Up

Jobless Millions Signal Death of American Dream for Many

James Petras: What Crisis? Profits Soar!

Capitalism in Crisis

As Marx predicted, Capitalism has been a crises prone economic system since its beginnings. Bascially, capitalism has an inherent contradiction between accumulation of capital/profit and increasing demand (wages, etc.) which creates a constant struggle between labor and capital. Here's a video presentation of radical Marxist sociologist David Harvey summarizing the Marxist analysis of the crises of capitalism:


Here's more evidence of the growing crises and the class struggle between labor and capital:

U.S. Experiencing the Worst Period of Prolonged Unemployment Since the Great Depression

Brutal Unemployment Report: Economy Sheds 125,000 Jobs

Unemployment Rate Above 10% for Past Year

The Unemployment Crisis in Charts

On the Road to a Jobless Recovery

Myths of Austerity

No Age of Austerity for the Rich

Sticking the Public for the Bill for the Bankers' Crisis

The Lost Decade

The past decade was a rough one for American workers. Wages have declined, and millions of jobs disappeared. We can thank George W. Bush and the Republicans for most of the misery, though the corporate wing (and breast) of the Democratic Party is also partly to blame (NAFTA, etc.)

Here's the consequence of Reagan--Bush onomics:

Aughts Were a Lost Decade for U.S. Economy, Workers

"The past decade was the worst for the U.S. economy in modern times, a sharp reversal from a long period of prosperity that is leading economists and policymakers to fundamentally rethink the underpinnings of the nation's growth.

It was, according to a wide range of data, a lost decade for American workers. The decade began in a moment of triumphalism -- there was a current of thought among economists in 1999 that recessions were a thing of the past. By the end, there were two, bookends to a debt-driven expansion that was neither robust nor sustainable.

There has been zero net job creation since December 1999. No previous decade going back to the 1940s had job growth of less than 20 percent. Economic output rose at its slowest rate of any decade since the 1930s as well."

No wonder, Americans' Job Satisfaction Falls to Record Lows

Class Struggle Update

Here's some articles summarizing the class struggle here in the U.S.A.

First, this must-read article by Elizabeth Warren on the withering middle class
American Without a Middle Class

This article from the Financial Times looks at the growing underclass of working poor who are unable to get banking accounts and rely on other expensive alternatives like pawn shops to survive:
Report Reveals Vast Banking "Underclass" in U.S.

According to the article, The FDIC found that some 17m US adults are in households without any bank accounts. Another 43m had accounts but were "underbanked", relying on non-bank services such as pay-day lenders and pawn shops.

The number of underbanked Americans dwarfs the estimated 46m citizens who lack health insurance. Barack Obama has staked his presidency on bringing that group into the system.

The FDIC survey revealed vast racial disparities in access to financial services.

Almost 22 per cent of black households had no bank account compared with 3.3 per cent of white households.

Food Stamp Use Soars, Stigma Fades

Class Struggle Update: Foreclosures, Unemployment Soar, Capitalists Profit

As Foreclosures Hit All-Time High, Wall Street on Pace to Hand Out Record $140B in Employee Bonuses

Banks Rewarded for Burning Down Our Economy!

Health Care and Class Warfare

It's really mind-boggling how Obama and the Democrats in Congress have screwed up "healthcare reform." Because they ruled out the cheapest, most efficient and effective plan (single-payer, medicare for all), and have been compromising with Republicans and "Blue-Dog" Democrats, there isn't much "reform" and little "change" in the plan making it's way through Congress. The health care lobbyists have killed universal health care again.

It's all about class struggle folks!

How the Ultra-Rich are Trying to Kill Health Reform

Ralph Nader, Health Care Hypocrisy

Speaking of class warfare, the minimum wage finally went up to $7.25 an hour, but it still too little for the working poor:
Holly Sklar, Miniumum Wage Stuck in the 1950s

Thom Hartmann on the Republican Great Tax Con

Robert Perry, To Save the Republic, TAx the Rich!

GOP Shafts American Workers

Auto "Bailout" Dies in Senate

The Republicans in the U.S. Senate, led by Bob Corker (R-TN), killed the $14 "bailout" of the auto companies because they think American auto workers should make more wage and benefit concessions. They supported the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street bankers, but oppose $14 billion to say 3 million America jobs??

This is class warfare! Will the Democrats stand up for the American working class?

Why don't the Democrats in the Senate either force the Republicans to fillibuster to kill American jobs, or change the rules in the Senate to require 55 votes instead of 60 to overide a fillibuster?

AFL-CIOJob-Killing Republicans

UAW: Sen. Corker Risking 110,000 Jobs in Tennessee

GOP Memo: "Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot at organized labor."

GM Closes 20 Plants

GM, Crysler Near Bankruptcy

Michael Moore: Senate GOP to Middle Class--Drop Dead

Workers Unite!

Angry Laid-Off Workers Occupy Chicago Factory

WORKERS OCCUPYING the Republic Windows & Doors factoryslated for closure are vowing to remain in the Chicago plant until they win the $1.5 million in severance and vacation pay owed them by management. In a tactic rarely used in the U.S. since the labor struggles of the 1930s, the workers, members of United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1110, refused to leave the plant on December 5, its last scheduled day of operation.

Barack Obama and other Democratic leaders have spoken out in support of the workers (what a change from 1981 when Ronald Reagan launched a war PATCO's striking workers!)

Chicago Factory Layoffs A "Wake-Up Call to America"

The Republic workers have become the focus of a a rejuvenated labor movement under attack by the Republican policies of Bush and the current crisis of American capitalism. While Wall Street and banks (like Bank of America) got a massive bailout, Republicans are trying to block a bailout for the U.S. auto industry. The Republic workers struggle highlights the current class struggle in the U.S.

See Socialist Worker:
Workers Occupy Chicago Factory
A Rallying Point for Labor

Jobs With Justice