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September 05, 2009 07:54 PM UTC

Is It Time To Declare Class Warfare?

  • 42 Comments
  • by: harrydoby

With a popular President, Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress, and a large majority of voters supporting health care reform, why are we Democrats letting the tail wag the dog in this debate?

While the right-wing fringe wages a disinformation campaign to derail attempts to pass meaningful reform, why is it we merely seek polite compromise?

In a provocative New York Times article by FDR biographer Jean Edward Smith, the author offers Obama some advice:

Roosevelt was a divider, not a uniter, and he unabashedly waged class war. At the Democratic Convention in 1936, again speaking to a national radio audience, Roosevelt lambasted the “economic royalists” who had gained control of the nation’s wealth. To Congress he boasted of having “earned the hatred of entrenched greed.” In another speech he mocked “the gentlemen in well-warmed and well-stocked clubs” who criticized the government’s relief efforts.

FDR’s words could easily be describing Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, et al.  But, unlike the Depression years, we still do have a middle class.  So really the declaration of war I believe should be against the right-wing propagandists.

Citing another example:

Roosevelt relished the opposition of vested interests. He fashioned his governing majority by deliberately attacking those who favored the status quo. His opponents hated him – and he profited from their hatred. “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today,” he told a national radio audience on the eve of the 1936 election. “They are unanimous in their hatred for me – and I welcome their hatred.”

And if Obama, the media and we all excoriate the ridiculous assertions as the deliberate disinformation that they are (“death panels”), then perhaps we truly could have a reasonable debate over legitimate questions of how to extend access to affordable health care, in a manner that is both fiscally responsible and fair.

Although I don’t think it is in Obama’s nature to actively seek conflict, perhaps in next week’s speech, he will take this opportunity to throw down the gauntlet to his opponents (and wavering Democrats).

Roosevelt sought consensus among his fellow Democrats, which is why he sometimes kowtowed to the Southern oligarchs who were the chairmen of Congressional committees. But his Republican opponents were relegated to the political equivalent of Siberia.

Perhaps this will be the future of the grandstanding hypocrites on the Right.

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42 thoughts on “Is It Time To Declare Class Warfare?”

  1. I have gone off on more than a few of these right-wing propagandists and I am not afraid to fight. I wish Obama would grow a spine. I’m sick of the excuses and compromise I want change and our country needs change.  

    1. I caught Bill Moyers on Jon Stewart’s show. That and the NYT article inspired this diary. Reading the Open Thread with Moyer’s later commentary, plus the article on the Culture of Cruelty really gave me hope that the word is finally getting out.

      But here is what we’re dealing with — from today’s Time Magazine article Why Chuck Grassley Turned on Health-Care Reform

      He is one of the few people still arguing that a grand bipartisan deal is possible – though he suggests that the way to get there is through a Democratic surrender [emphasis mine]. “There’s a feeling that the only way to get a bipartisan agreement is to defeat a Democratic proposal on the first hand, and then the Democrats will come to Republican leadership, and then, at that point, they’ll know the only way they’re going to get health-care reform is bipartisan,” he recently told Iowa reporters.

      If Obama does nothing else, he needs to disabuse the good Senator of the notion that we need to come crawling to the GOP for ideas.

      At least the article’s author, Karen Tumulty, is no longer letting this nonsense pass unchallenged:

      When the Iowa Senator actually gave credence to the absurd notion that the House version of the legislation might allow the government to decide when, in his words, to “pull the plug on Grandma,” Democrats decided he was past the point of any hope.

      It won’t be easy, and it won’t be pretty, but we need to stop letting the highly paid radio wingnuts control the conversation.  There is a reason why ridicule is such a powerful tool of comedy.  If an idea is ridiculous, it should be ridiculed.  If a statement is contemptible, the speaker should be held in contempt.

      Sadly, it may be our most effective weapon until the day comes that people want to have a reasoned debate over very important issues.

       

  2. it is PAST time to stop allowing these bullies to control the national debate.

    I remember reading a statistic that really spotlights the problem here. In Japan, as memory serves, the average CEO makes 17 times the wages of the average worker. In American corporations, the average CEO makes some 1400 times the wages of the average worker.

    Adam Smith, in “the Wealth of Nations” proposed that the “owner of the means of production” was allowed a portion of the value of each worker. I have no quarrel with that on a strictly academic basis, within the confines of “capitalism”.

    But the inequity between those at the top of the income “food chain”, as it were, and the lowly workers has grown completely out of balance. It is almost as though the Sheriff of Nottingham has moved into the boardroom.

    “Whenever the Republicans take control of the government, the rich prosper and the poor suffer.” This is a quote from my mother, born in 1932. She has been watching politics since the 1940s and contends the pattern is unerring.

    Most of the conservatives I know won’t talk politics with me (hell, they won’t even speak to me, usually) because I will not listen to their misinformed, greedy, myopic bullshit, without getting in their faces about their lies. It is high time progressives let them know, in no uncertain terms, that the days of allowing people to suffer in order to fatten a few greedy pigs are over.

    Whenever I hear some rightwing nutball railing about welfare or health care or whatever else is “stealing their money to give to lazy people”, I am reminded of something I read in the Christian bible. (You know, the one these people almost universally claim as their faith).

    Jesus is reported to have said, “That which you do unto the least of my brethren, you do also unto me.”

    Seems they have an uncanny ability to ignore this passage from the tome they claim hold in such high regard.

    1. It will give you amazing insights into the mindset that is driving today’s discussions.

      Here’s the link to the full article, which while written 45 years ago, holds up extremely well.

      American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wing. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind.

      [snip]

      …the idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant.

      With the economy still fragile at best, and now that the Dems are in control, the paranoia has exploded off the charts.  Here’s Hofstadter’s explanation:

      But the modern right wing, as Daniel Bell has put it, feels dispossessed: America has been largely taken away from them and their kind, though they are determined to try to repossess it and to prevent the final destructive act of subversion.

        1. Watched “Angels & Demons”.  So-so action, but the only way to get past the historical inaccuracies, you have to go into right-wing mode and shutdown the logic processing part of the brain.

    2. I think it’s closer to 400 times, but as a point of fact, on the eve of the French Revolution the ratio between wealth nobles and the average urban worker (not the peasants) was a mere 72:1.

            1. Evolution includes branches that are not optimal and then die out because they adapted poorly, or not at all. Like the Federalists, Whigs, Free Soilers, Know Nothings, Socialists, & Libertarians. The GOP could be next…

              1. Some people are able to produce and excel.  Some are not.  There is no sense in creating dis-incentives for the brightest and smartest in our country.

                This should be obvious, but it’s not.

                Equality in opportunity, not in outcome.

                    3. GWB is a contra-example that we don’t live in a nation of unfettered equal opportunity.

                      And the increasing the disparity of CEO pay to the typical worker relative to other developed nations has gotten completely out of hand.

                      But you already knew that.

                    6. You must be an expert in Econ because your wife has a gig.

                      I think she should work for free.  Obviously her talents are exploiting some of your neighbors that don’t have the requisite skills to excel.

                    7. … actually, I’m the one with the BBA in International Business with a minor in Economics.  With her Finance degree and Design experience, she teaches designers around the world how to improve their business.

                      But yeah, she’s paid her dues as an entrepreneur, but one of her guiding principles is to give back to the community as part of her business model.

                      Pardon me if I sound like I’m shilling for my wife, but you were the one who suggested I start a business and share our wealth, blah, blah, blah…  You’re welcome to google any of our other charitable efforts of the past decade and longer (and yes, the costumed events do make for embarassing pictures 😉

                    9. The 3.3% profit margin you refer to is after executive bonuses and administrative  (G&A) expenses of 20% of revenue. If they cut back on the abacuses, rotary phones and paper shufflers, maybe they could squeeze out a few more percentage points of net margin.

                      If they really wanted to insure that they retained their talented leadership, they should increase executive pay, so that they could show 0% profits and then gain the “non-profit” halo, but then they might have a little issue with their shareholders.  3.3% is the least they think they can get away with and not endanger their executive stock options.

                      The Real CEO Pay Problem

                      ANNUAL COMPENSATION OF HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANY EXECUTIVES (2006 and 2007 figures):

                      Ronald A. Williams, Chair/ CEO, Aetna Inc., $23,045,834

                      H. Edward Hanway, Chair/ CEO, Cigna Corp, $30.16 million

                      David B. Snow, Jr, Chair/ CEO, Medco Health, $21.76 million

                      Michael B. MCallister, CEO, Humana Inc, $20.06 million

                      Stephen J. Hemsley, CEO, UnitedHealth Group, $13,164,529

                      Angela F. Braly, President/ CEO, Wellpoint, $9,094,771

                      Dale B. Wolf, CEO, Coventry Health Care, $20.86 million

                      Jay M. Gellert, President/ CEO, Health Net, $16.65 million

                      William C. Van Faasen, Chairman, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3 million plus $16.4 million in retirement benefits

                      Charlie Baker, President/ CEO, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, $1.5 million

                      James Roosevelt, Jr., CEO, Tufts Associated Health Plans, $1.3 million

                      Cleve L. Killingsworth, President/CEO Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3.6 million

                      Raymond McCaskey, CEO, Health Care Service Corp (Blue Cross Blue Shield), $10.3 million

                      Daniel P. McCartney, CEO, Healthcare Services Group, Inc, $ 1,061,513

                      Daniel Loepp, CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, $1,657,555

                      Todd S. Farha, CEO, WellCare Health Plans, $5,270,825

                      Michael F. Neidorff, CEO, Centene Corp, $8,750,751

                      Daniel Loepp, CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, $1,657,555

                      Todd S. Farha, CEO, WellCare Health Plans, $5,270,825

                      Michael F. Neidorff, CEO, Centene Corp, $8,750,751  

                    3. Fine. If the ravenous capitalist bears are willing to forego a banking system, currency, roads, a powerful military to defend them and their interests, and all the rest, they can keep all the berries when they devour the elk.  

                    4. If you freaks [I mean that with love] would stick to military, roads, banking systems, currency, and police and fire, I’d be fine with that.

                      It’s such a canard.

                      The problem is not with essential services, it’s with entitlements.  It’s the only reason you can trick anyone into voting Dem.

                    5. And I mean that with the greatest possible affection.

                      Your capitalist bear pays for those entitlements with a tax on a tiny — and increasingly shrinking — fraction of his income. He also only pays for entitlements on the income he earns, not the great capital gains he realizes (which are also taxed at a much lower rate than they were under the Socialist Paradise of the Reagan years.)

                      In return, he gets to avail himself when it comes time to hibernate, in case all those investments fall through. He also gets a more stable market of elk who aren’t starving, thus growing into tastier prey. Call it herd management.

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