Class Warfare, You Betcha!

When President Obama called on the super rich to share the economic pain our nation and the people are suffering from, he is duly accused by his Republican opponents as staging a class warfare. President Obama sparred back against such charge and claimed that what he proposed, upper-income tax hike, was simply not a class warfare. Obama threw his darts rather aimlessly, saying:

You’re already hearing the moans and groans from the other side about how we are engaging in class warfare and we’re being too populist and this and that and the other — all the usual scripts. I mean, it’s predictable, the news releases that come out from the other side. But the truth of the matter is, is that if we don’t succeed, then I think that this country is going to go down a very perilous path. And it’s not going to be good for those of us who have done incredibly well in this society and it’s certainly not going to be good for the single mom who’s working two shifts right now trying to support her family. It’s not going to be good for anybody.

I agree with Obama's goal and means, but again, I don't think he fought back with enough strength.

Why afraid of the word "class warfare"?  Why deny it?

Not class warfare?  I would say, it is indeed class warfare, a warfare has been waging for decades by the rich against the poor.  What Obama is trying to do, is simply to reverse the trend, to protect the feeble.  Why would he shy away from using the word?  He really should have staged a counter charge, head on.

Whatever the Republicans want to do, is the tried and tired means of more corporate tax cuts, and more deregulation - they are perhaps good for profit, for the balance sheets, but again and again, they have been proven bad for the people and the country.

Let's call spade spade.  Whatever the Republicans plan to do, is to rob the poor even further, to squeeze the middle further, so as to have a even bigger share of the national wealth.  The low and middle-class have suffered long enough under the yoke of the corporations, and their political henchmen, and we should not allow ourselves to sacrifice more in order to ensure the continued growth of the corporations, which have completely severed themselves from the quality of ordinary people's life.  We want to have a fair share of the wealth.

We don't want to stage a class warfare.  However, it is it brought to our door step, we'll fight back.

This is what Obama should have said.  Would he ever be our true champion?

Thorned Flowers © Matthew Felix Sun