By John Johnson
During the past few months leading up to the mid-term elections, we have experienced some of the most blatant acts of class warfare in recent memory. And they won’t stop no matter the outcome.
A small example is Joe Miller, the Republican Senate candidate from Alaska, whose private guards roughed up, handcuffed and detained Alaska Dispatch blogger Tony Hopfinger as he tried to ask the candidate a question at a forum in a public school, later described dishonestly by Miller’s people as a “private event.”
Contracted from a Security Agency called Drop Zone, Miller’s enforcers pushed around a couple of other reporters who were capturing the incident on video. Turns out these goons are also active members of the army. This smacks of true fascist behavior. BTW, Miller seems to be like a lot of his Tea Party and Republican buddies, they hate anyone who’s not just like them: white and reactionary.
These right-wing blowhards rarely live up to their blowhardyness. Time after time there are revelations of bad and neglectful marriages, prostitution, homosexuality, pornography, drug use, corruption, payoffs, etc.
The larger picture, though, is of billionaires, corporations – foreign and domestic, right-wing and racist groups funneling hundreds of millions of dollars in an effort not only to defeat even the mildest of Democrats, but to fortify their hold on all major institutions, including Wall Street, Health Insurance, the Media, Social Security, Education, the Military and more.
Even without the flood of funds, Republicans are expected to capitalize in this year’s midterm elections because of widespread antipathy toward congressional incumbents and progressives’ disappointment with President Barack Obama.
After all, these leaders made unnecessary compromises in Health Care and Financial Reform bills because the Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats voted against everything anyway. Compromises from which we, the beneficiaries, now suffer.
We witnessed their escalations in the Afghan War, especially with the deployment of killer robot drones which murdered scores of civilians, if not more, including women and children.
They supported the right-wing coup in Honduras. Most of the multi-billion dollar pledge to Haiti has not arrived, and for the most part surviving Haitians endure the same deplorable and worsening conditions since the earthquake, lately exacerbated by a runaway cholera epidemic.
The US refuses to condemn the Israeli murders of Palestinians and the slaughter of peace activists aboard the flotilla which recently attempted to bring humanitarian aid past the Gaza blockade.
Obama kept on bad economic advisors such as Lawrence Summers, Robert Rubin and Tim Geithner, and appointees Jack Lew and Austan Goolsbee, most of whom played roles in the economic collapse. Which was actually begun under Clinton when he and the Congress repealed the 1930s-era Glass-Steagal Act, opening the gates.
The Justice Department continues to block real investigations into US torture and false imprisonments. Guantanamo is still in operation. Leonard Peltier is still in prison. Raids on anti-war groups in the Midwest were recently carried out. They sent agents into poor communities and enticed some hapless folks into joining militant actions. They are trying to block investigations of the widespread Bush spying efforts and they are trying to block a suit against the war criminal, John Ashcroft. They are backing down on Net Neutrality and Internet spying. They have refused to stop the wholesale blatantly illegal bank foreclosures on homes that many times are paid up. Oh just a glitch by inexperienced help, they shrug. Yeah, right.
The Corporations et al want to roll back even the small concessions Congress and Obama forced though. And they hope to get more, bigger and better concessions with Republicans in power.
Among their targets are the middle and working classes and the poor. They want a cowed and unorganized citizenry. They want to export as many jobs as they can. Fifty cents a hour is much better than paying $20.
You might wonder, aren’t they being shortsighted, since history shows that such actions end up in depressions? Well yes, but many of these millionaires and billionaires think they can stash away enough so they can come back another day.
It’s up to us to get organized, to resist and rebel enough to stop it, and to get back all the money they have stolen.
A couple personal notes since I mentioned it before:
About a year and a half ago, I started to check by bank statemens on line. I noticed that there was a $10 deduction at the bottom that I couldn’t figure out. So I check pervious months and notice that there was the same $10 deducted.
I called the bank, didn’t get an answer, went by the bank and a clerk said she could fix it. But her supervisor veto her decision. So I continued to call, asking for higher authorities. Finally I was told that when I openned the account 4 years earlier they made it into a fancy account, with a bunch of things I didn’t need. So I continued to call, dropped by the bank and they finally started to give me credit, first for the last five months, then for a few more months but then they stop. So I asked my Congressman to write them a letter and finally they refunded all the money, about $800 all together.
Last year I started to file for Social Security for mainly Medicare. I had to file for 2009 early, which my Tax guy wrote up for me. In January this year I was put on Medicare. I’m not getting much from SS, (I think I should be getting more but so far my appeals haven’t gone anywhere). I mainly wanted Medicare. My health is okay but you never know. Then a month and a half ago I got a letter from SSA saying because I didn’t answer a previous letter, (which I never got) they were canceling my SS and Medicare and I owed them $2500. Took me a day to figure out what was going on. Turned out my Tax guy made a mistake, I and the SSA didn’t notice it but the IRS did. So started another round of calls, visits to my Tax Guy, my HMO the IRS and SSA, letters to Senator Boxer etc. As of now I haven’t heard an official decision but I think I should be back on Medicare, soon. Aren’t bureacracies fun!
