Class Warfare

The ratio of the pay of corporate CEO’s to the hourly wages of production workers soared from 93 times that of workers in 1988 to 419 in 1999. While wages of ordinary workers barely kept up with inflation, the average compensation among top executives of the largest corporations vaulted 481 percent between 1990 and 1998 to an average of $10.6 million. Corporate profits rose only 108 percent.

(p.153) Wealth and Democracy Kevin Phillips

I put up this factoid from Wealth and Democracy just to illustrate that rich people are the ones fucking up this country, not welfare cheats or poor people in general. In response to President Bush’s immigration initiative, some tool for National Review said that he was in favor of easing immigration if we dismantled our welfare state because too many newer immigrants are sponging off of it, not like our forefathers who all came here and worked hard to get ahead.

What? He had no facts citing the number of illegal immigrants on our welfare roles, or how much it was costing the American taxpayer. I don’t think he had any actual facts; he just wanted to take a pot shot at welfare in general. He vented his bile on National Public Radio and went completely unopposed. Good old liberal NPR.

I went to National Review online and read his piece on immigration. I won’t even dignify him by giving his name. Just let me say that I can’t believe NPR would regularly allow anyone from such an extreme right-wing asshole factory to air their opinions. I can’t even imagine anyone on the Left that is as far left as National Review is to the right. NPR should give Fidel Castro a regular spot to give his two cents.

I can say that I know plenty of illegal aliens and all of them work about three jobs or one job 70 hours a week. Most of them are too afraid of immigration officials to go to a fucking doctor let alone try to get public assistance.

I’m sure that a lot of people on the Right would love to ease our immigration laws to insure a steady source of cheap labor. If we ever really wanted to stop the flow of illegal workers into this country all we’d have to do is throw a couple of big shots from Wal-Mart in prison for hiring illegal cleaning crews and the practice would stop immediately. Arrest the employers of illegals and that would be that. The fact is that the right loves high unemployment and low wages.

The Right has done a great job of demonizing the poor and of pitting the middle class against those beneath them, while the rich run off with everything (see Kevin Phillips' example above). What this jackass from NR is saying is that he wants to lower wages across the country while we eliminate the safety net we set up after the last great depression just in time for the next great depression.