freelansing in Seattle

As I try to collect my thoughts & find the time to publish something current, I just found this piece I wrote in early fall that for some reason I never published. In the hopes that late is better than never (& since class war has not disappeared in the ensuing months), I offer it here, now.

* * *

Thirty years ago, when I was studying critical social theory in college, “class war” seemed to me merely quaint hyperbole by Marxist-Leninists & the like. I mean, sure, socioeconomic classes were real & had effect, but that just didn’t seem like a primary fault line in American society at the time. There were so many other divisions: racism, sexism, homophobia, imperialism, ecological destruction. As an earnest, idealistic student trying to figure out what I should be most worried about, “plutocracy” seemed pretty low on the list.

But in the 30 years since then, my how things have changed! The “Reagan revolution.” A series of tax breaks for the those at the top. Corporate deregulation. Union busting. Corporate mergers. Wealth concentration. “Free trade” agreements. Globalization of capital. Outsourcing of jobs abroad. Media consolidation. The rise of right-wing think tanks. The rise of right-wing media (talk radio, FOX “News,” etc.). An explosion in corporate lobbying. Privatization of public services. Big Money’s growing role in politics.

And then we had the crash of world financial markets due to reckless gambling & greed. The ensuing global recession. Bank bailouts. “Recovery” at the top (expressed by record corporate profits & executive bonuses) while masses of people suffer from foreclosures, unemployment & underemployment, and cuts in vital social services. And then, just to rub salt in the wound, the Supreme Court gives us the “Citizens United” decision, as if Big Money just didn’t have enough power in our political system.

Around the world, “austerity” is urged by those at the top (never for themselves, of course). In America, serious political discussion revolves around the urgency of debt-reduction — the only real question is whether 100% of the burden should fall on those already suffering or whether those at the top who have been making out like bandits for the last 30 years should be asked to contribute something. Anything.

Republicans draw a line in the sand. They have the solution: Protect those at the top at all costs! More tax cuts for the rich! More deregulation! Give more to those with the most & they will save us! They just need more money & more freedom to do whatever they want — the rest of us must sacrifice to make it so.

The fact that Republicans can make such proposals with straight faces, the fact that they could be taken seriously by anyone but a small sliver of ruthless, conniving plutocrats, the fact that they could feel confident staking their political futures on such ridiculous nonsense — it just goes to show how far we have come in the evolution of “class war” in America over the last 30 years.

Class war in 2011: No longer quaint hyperbole; now inescapable reality.

If the only choice left is whether to fight back or whether to get ground into the dirt by the jackboot of corporate plutocracy (the marriage of economic power with state power that Mussolini called fascism), then I choose to fight back. Looking around, it seems that lots of people are starting to make that choice. Join us, if you haven’t already.

The division between the super-rich and the rest of us has become the most important divide of our time. All the other divisions merely strengthen that one, which could prove fatal in the long run. A good time to consider the words of Ben Franklin, “Join, or die.”