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While there is a certainly a cultural element to the recent Republican eugenics rants about poor and mentally defective people who should be sent to Siberia, this is about an economic war on the middle class.
There has been an economic guerrilla war going on for the last thirty years and we are in its latter days. It began with Reaganism and Thatcherism in the 80's and the union-busting the Air Traffic Controllers and British coal Miners. The big battle in the 90's was over NAFTA and the slow destruction of America's manufacturing capability which began destroying middle class families. At the same time, came the early attacks on Welfare Mom's and inefficient non-profits.
The thing about a guerrilla war is that most of the battles seem small and far away but not very dangerous. But this was not really a small war because it began the slow but steady outsourcing of America's jobs even as major corporations began receiving more and more tax breaks.
In the 2000's, the economic war became more overt. While America was reeling from 9/11, the economic elite stepped up and began the greatest wealth shift in our history. Over half of our military and our intelligence has been privatized, yielding them trillions of new dollars in profits. The wars of choice in the Middle East have jacked up oil prices, yielding world record shattering profits for the oil companies.
You the tax payer have shelled out trillions of dollars to oil companies, Blackwater (Xe) style intelligence companies, and tribal chieftains who buy weapons from global arms manufactures. In the meantime, the banks began gambling with what turned out to be taxpayer's money, again to the tune of trillions of dollars. At the same time, Republican's busy slashing taxes for the wealthy and the regulatory agencies so that Bernie Madoff and others could literally make out like bandits.
So now, round three begins with an all out war on all social services, unions, daycare, public health, social services, social security and all other services. This is an economic war that believes that government should not be helping anyone except big business. This is an economic war that wants to eliminate clean water act, clean air act, forest service, and most other federal and state services except those that directly benefit business profits.
You will not see the Republican creating jobs because they don't believe government should have anything do to with jobs. In fact, high unemployment is helping businesses continue to chip away at salaries and benefits. Republicans are the enemy of the middle class. They believe that only the wealthy business owner should profit by government policies. It is not an accident that the banks and Wall Street were bailed out while middle class home-owners were allowed to swing in the breeze. It is economic war and it is just about lost.
Unions aren't greedy. Teachers and government workers aren't greedy. They are just barely making a living wage. It just looks good because the rest of the middle class hasn't had a raise greater than the cost of living in twenty years.
This country had a thriving middle class from the post war fifties through the early eighties. During this time we had social and economic give and take, with everyone's standard of living rising. And then the first shot of Reaganism was fired across the bow of the middle class, only it was couched as always as necessary medicine. But instead this country is being destroyed by an economic clique of bankers, politicians and global corporations. They have destroyed the social contract. They don't believe that anyone should have any other beliefs than their own greedy profit-taking.
They often use social issues to divide and conquer. They even cynically call them "wedge" issues. Make no mistake about it, it is an economic war and the representatives of the moneyed classes are about to do a knockout blow. They will spend the next two years dismantling state government which will in turn send cities and towns into financial meltdown. From this perspective, both Republicans, Corporate Democrats and Obama are all on the same team and fighting against the middle class. This is a time when government should be saving families and the middle class. Instead they are throwing them over the side and sending us into a descending spiral of depression even while they continue to waste billions on wars, tax breaks and obscene profits for the wealthy.
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