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KamaAina

(78,249 posts)
Tue Jun 30, 2015, 03:47 PM Jun 2015

Bernie Sanders can give America what it needs: Some good old-fashioned class warfare

http://www.salon.com/2015/06/29/bernie_sanders_can_give_america_what_it_needs_some_good_old_fashioned_class_warfare/

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has struck a nerve in the heart of America. Throughout the country, the Vermont Senator has been drawing enormous crowds, equal to that of Hillary, while also gaining in the polls and prompting Clinton to muster up her best Elizabeth Warren impression. It is clear that Sanders’ populist message, which addresses economic inequality and Wall Street corruption, is resonating with the American people. But what’s most important about the rise of Bernie Sanders, whether you believe he is a true populist or a cog in the Democratic machine, is that he (and other progressives like Warren) is bringing back what has long been stomped out in America: class politics.

Well, thats not entirely true. Class politics never really went away, there was simply a shift in aggression. Since the ’70s, the ruling class has gone on the offensive, while the middle and lower classes have been brought to their knees. Of course, when the lower classes go on the attack, its class warfare; but when the ruling class does it, it’s reform. (At least this is what has been hammered into the minds of so many Americans over the past 40 or so years.)

Just think of Bill Clinton’s welfare reform and his promise to “end welfare as we know it.” The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act was signed into law in 1996, and was a culmination of over 20 years of ruling-class propaganda. Politicians, pundits, and the media managed to create a nasty picture of the poor leaching off of everyone else in America, while popular terms like “welfare queen” were added to the lexicon. But what was particularly clever about this attack on the underclass was how it became as much about race as it was about class. This was not an accident. Since the Civil Rights era, racial prejudices have been used to divide the lower classes, dismantling of the New Deal coalition — which had been racially and culturally diverse — in the late ’60s....

The welfare reform of the ’90s, which basically gave states the power to implement their own welfare programs, created an undeniable racial bias within the system. In a study done by Soss, it was found that five years after the bills passage, “63 percent of families in the least stringent programs were white and 11 percent were black, and in the most restrictive programs 63 percent were black and just 29 percent were white.”
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Bernie Sanders can give America what it needs: Some good old-fashioned class warfare (Original Post) KamaAina Jun 2015 OP
RW extremists have been over policing,fining to death, prisoned the lower class for decades? Sunlei Jun 2015 #1
We'll have class warfare whether Bernie wins or not. stillwaiting Jun 2015 #2
This message was self-deleted by its author Trajan Jun 2015 #4
How come it is only called "class warfare" when the class that is getting robbed fights back? n/t GreatGazoo Jun 2015 #3
Same for 'wealth distribution' said by regular folks, but plunder by elites of mc & wc is normal appalachiablue Jun 2015 #6
False meme to the extreme ... Trajan Jun 2015 #5
Brilliant point. Your post shoul be an OP on its own. snagglepuss Jun 2015 #7
K & R nt R. P. McMurphy Jun 2015 #8

Sunlei

(22,651 posts)
1. RW extremists have been over policing,fining to death, prisoned the lower class for decades?
Tue Jun 30, 2015, 03:54 PM
Jun 2015
figures its salon trying to repaint Senator Sanders early, as starter of some 'class war'

stillwaiting

(3,795 posts)
2. We'll have class warfare whether Bernie wins or not.
Tue Jun 30, 2015, 04:08 PM
Jun 2015

But, with Bernie we will at least have the Executive Branch fighting back against the rampaging financial elites.

Without Bernie, I don't have the same faith that the Executive Branch would fight back. There would be compromises, and they would come at the expense of the poor, working class, and middle class.

Response to stillwaiting (Reply #2)

appalachiablue

(41,146 posts)
6. Same for 'wealth distribution' said by regular folks, but plunder by elites of mc & wc is normal
Tue Jun 30, 2015, 04:34 PM
Jun 2015

Similarly it's how affluent people are 'eccentric'; regular folks are 'crazy'.
Elites have 'a drinking problem', or 'some family matters'; regular people are 'drunks', and 'lowlifes, poorly raised and in 'broken homes'. Status, money and power at play obviously.

 

Trajan

(19,089 posts)
5. False meme to the extreme ...
Tue Jun 30, 2015, 04:19 PM
Jun 2015

Class warfare has been pursued with great effect by the corporate class for decades ...

Just because the media failed to properly represent this fact doesn't change the fact ...

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