OMG VP WTF?
What broken, funhouse mirror traces the parameters of acceptable debate about economic issues in this country?
It's a testament to the superglue on our ideological blinders that no one's eyeballs rolled out of their damn heads when Gwen Ifill asked Senator Biden if his ticket's proposed plan to raise taxes on those with annual incomes over $250,000* constituted class warfare.
I'm sorry, Ms. Ifill - what warfare? As an American, I'm incapable of comprehending that word unless it's preceded by "middle" and followed by "the backbone of the American economy."
We live in a nation where the gap between rich and poor is already absurd and continues to grow. We live in an advanced industrialized econcomy that's sees fewer of its citizens improve their standing than any other comparable nation (all the while proclaiming ourselves the land of opportunity).
Yet, neither of the candidates nor the moderator breathed about "class warfare" when talk turned to tax breaks for higher income brackets or for large corporations.
The rich profiting at the expense of all the rest of us is just the natural order of things. CEOs and boards of directors of multi-national corporations are entitled to union bust, to cut pensions, and to slash labor costs by moving their operations to places where there are even fewer of those pesky environmental standards and workers rights laws.
When someone proposes a plan to reduce these inequalities (however feeble) THAT is unjust. More than that - it's war!
*I am not advocating taxing on the basis of income as the best way to re-distribute income.
It's a testament to the superglue on our ideological blinders that no one's eyeballs rolled out of their damn heads when Gwen Ifill asked Senator Biden if his ticket's proposed plan to raise taxes on those with annual incomes over $250,000* constituted class warfare.
I'm sorry, Ms. Ifill - what warfare? As an American, I'm incapable of comprehending that word unless it's preceded by "middle" and followed by "the backbone of the American economy."
We live in a nation where the gap between rich and poor is already absurd and continues to grow. We live in an advanced industrialized econcomy that's sees fewer of its citizens improve their standing than any other comparable nation (all the while proclaiming ourselves the land of opportunity).
Yet, neither of the candidates nor the moderator breathed about "class warfare" when talk turned to tax breaks for higher income brackets or for large corporations.
The rich profiting at the expense of all the rest of us is just the natural order of things. CEOs and boards of directors of multi-national corporations are entitled to union bust, to cut pensions, and to slash labor costs by moving their operations to places where there are even fewer of those pesky environmental standards and workers rights laws.
When someone proposes a plan to reduce these inequalities (however feeble) THAT is unjust. More than that - it's war!
*I am not advocating taxing on the basis of income as the best way to re-distribute income.