Clash of the Classes

“All men are created equal” Jefferson had written. Adams understood that this applied to rights, not social station. He believed that, even though the United States would lack a titled aristocracy, it would hardly exist as a classless society. His thoughts on government were aimed at accommodating, equitably but practically, the reality of social classes. Adams sought to do this largely by ensuring that the American Republic would be governed by laws, not men. Laws were incorruptible, whereas people were not. “For him the law was about religion. It was about morality, justice, reward and punishment. It was a vision of order in the universe”.

Disruption in the rule of law has brought disorder and distorted visions; ruling classes are no longer subject to punishment and workers are no longer recipients of reward. In light of this, the banksters have not paid the price for their recent reckless ruination of our economy, including the mainstay of the working class, their house, or the housing market, while the lower classes pay the price by working harder and making less.

Consideration of classes has been blinded by the concentration of wealth at the top. There will always be greater and lesser, but when the one class grows larger at the expense of another, that’s neither just nor equitable.

Adams advocated for a government representing all classes of people; today the Supreme Court creates repressive classes by re-defining personhood and the rights of wealth. Corporations live forever, people do not. This ruling does not take social classes into account.

“The mere fact of creating a republic--dispensing with hereditary rulers--did not level the social classes. A two chambered legislature took social reality into account and dealt with it as equitably as possible.” The Senate represented the wealthy and the House represented the rest of the classes.

Both houses of representation have skewed the laws to favor billionaires, taxed at 15% while the workers are taxed over 30%. These laws are not equitable nor do they deal with social reality.

Governing by the use of incorruptible laws has morphed into governing by corruptible people who dispense with any accounting of social classes or their representative obligations to them. Adams wrote that “power must be opposed to power and interest to interest”.

The ruling class has created a government of powerful interests without equal opposition. It’s a dangerous universe when the law is no longer king. Precisely why millions of Americans are losing their homes and the world drowns in debt all because our elected officials have sold us out. The ruling classes have bought our representatives in congress, and now they don’t have to obey the laws of justice and morality as they were originally intended to protect us.

Note-The quotes on John Adams are from the book “Revolutionary Management" by Alan Axelrod Ph.D.

Plundering Pensions

Countries around the world including the US have jumped on the band wagon to reduce the pensions of the workers. Rhode Island is backing away from their pension obligations, and the state of Massachusetts had their credit rating increased (by bank owned agencies) because of pension reforms.

Pensions for workers is not what caused the financial crisis, it was investing in Wall Street synthetic derivatives which had no real value behind them.

Now that these junk bonds are worthless and there’s no money for pensions, let‘s just blame the people, it’s easier than holding the banks accountable for fraud.

Nomi Prins states in her book ‘It Takes a Pillage’ a former Goldman Sachs employee went to work in the Italian government and encouraged them to deregulate banks similar to the deregulation on banking in this country. A few years later their economy is drained, and presto, they’re cutting back on pensions.

It just seems uncanny that the countries who invested in the Wall Street sub prime roulette now have to cut the pensions of the workers.

The banking crisis was one of the biggest transferences of wealth this country has ever seen, All made possible by bad bets sold on imaginary wealth and then bet against by the very banks that sold them, with all of us real people ultimately paying the price for their fraud.

Rather than advancing the theory that workers don’t deserve a comfortable retirement free from the poverty of old age, they should look into what happened when Wall Street banks played ‘bait and switch’ on pension plans.

But that’ll never happen, banks and the 1% have more power than this president. No wonder the workers are under attack.

Jobs Creators strike against America

According to John Boehner, the “jobs creators” are on strike.

If the Speaker is so concerned, why doesn’t he pressure the president to break this strike like previous presidents? Harry Truman broke the railroad strike, and Governors called on the National Guard to shoot the strikers. Ronald Reagan broke the air traffic controllers strike. why can’t the government break this strike?

And just what are these “jobs creators” striking against? Unfair taxes and burdensome regulations?

Twenty nine Americans were killed in the 2010 West Virginia coal mine due to lack of regulatory enforcement concerning the safety of miners. How many Americans have died from food poisoning? Remember the poisoned eggs?

These companies pay no heed to regulations as it is, Massey Energy Co. and DeCoster egg farm had been cited hundreds of times with little to no corrections. Now people are dead due to their negligence and they’ve gotten away with it. So how have regulations hindered any of these “jobs creators”?

Are the jobs creators on strike when it comes to outsourcing jobs around the world? Chrysler just negotiated new contracts where they’ll pay the American worker the same pay as foreign auto workers. Now if we can just get the cost of living down to that of foreign workers, we might have a chance to be competitive. Oh yeah that’s right, due to all the taxes and regulations, mega corporations have to lower our wages to be competitive with other countries, where the cost of living isn’t as grossly inflated.

George Washington lamented about convincing the whisky makers to pay taxes, without them, the financial future of a federal government was in peril. Paying taxes for federal government is nothing new, why are the “jobs creators” so aggrieved now?

This strike won’t end until government is privatized with all services outsourced to the same corporations who sicken and kill us.

Where are the strike breakers when we need them?