is the 99ers mission A moral economy for our own time ?
if so
Piven sez
".. take on the unbridled accumulation of wealth at the expense
of the majority (and the planet)."
" single out for special condemnation the creation of an
ever-larger stratum of people we call "the poor" who
struggle to survive in the shadow of the
overconsumption and waste of that top 1%."
then comes her roll off of the important moral numbers
"in 2011, the U.S. Census Bureau
reported that 14.3% of the population, or 47 million
people -- one in six Americans -- were living below the
official poverty threshold, currently set at $22,400
annually for a family of four.
Some 19 million people
are living in what is called extreme poverty, which
means that their household income falls in the bottom
half of those considered to be below the poverty line.
More than a third of those extremely poor people are
children.
more than half of all children
younger than six living with a single mother are poor.
the official numbers
don't tell the full story.
The situation of the poor
is actually considerably worse. The official poverty
line is calculated as simply three times the minimal
food budget first introduced in 1959, and then adjusted
for inflation in food costs. In other words, the
American poverty threshold takes no account of the cost
of housing or fuel or transportation or health-care
costs, all of which are rising more rapidly than the
cost of basic foods. So the poverty measure grossly
understates the real cost of subsistence.
in 2006, interest payments on consumer debt
had already put more than four million people, not
officially in poverty, below the line, making them
"debt poor."
, if childcare costs, estimated
at $5,750 a year in 2006, were deducted from gross
income, many more people would be counted as officially
poor.
poverty was on the rise before
the Great Recession hit. Between 2001 and 2007,
poverty actually increased for the first time on record
during an economic recovery. It rose from 11.7% in
2001 to 12.5% in 2007.
Poverty rates for single
mothers in 2007 were 49% higher in the U.S. than in 15
other high-income countries. Similarly, black
employment rates and income were declining before the
recession struck."
--------------------
here comes her united front effort:
"In part, all of this was the inevitable fallout from a
decades-long business mobilization to reduce labor
costs by weakening unions and changing public policies
that protected workers and those same unions. As a
result, National Labor Board decisions became far less
favorable to both workers and unions, workplace
regulations were not enforced, and the minimum wage
lagged far behind inflation.
Inevitably, the overall impact of the campaign to
reduce labor's share of national earnings meant that a
growing number of Americans couldn't earn even a
poverty-level livelihood "
inevitably ????
then why this ??.
"Campaigning Against the Poor
------------------
part III
"...the attack on the poor began even while the Black Freedom Movement
of the 1960s was in full throttle. It was already
evident in the failed 1964 presidential campaign of
Republican Barry Goldwater, as well as in the recurrent
campaigns of sometime Democrat and segregationist
governor of Alabama George Wallace.
Richard Nixon's
presidential bid in 1968 picked up on the theme."
--------------------------------
the nixon wedge
" his triumphant
campaign strategy tapped into the rising racial
animosities not only of white southerners, but of a
white working class in the north that suddenly found
itself locked in competition with newly urbanized
African-Americans for jobs, public services, and
housing, as well as in campaigns for school
desegregation. The racial theme quickly melded into
political propaganda targeting the poor and
contemporary poor-relief programs. Indeed, in American
politics "poverty," along with "welfare," "unwed
mothers," and "crime," became code words for blacks."
-----
war on black males a war on "workers"
"In the process, resurgent Republicans tried to defeat
Democrats at the polls by associating them with blacks
and with liberal policies meant to alleviate poverty.
One result was the infamous "war on drugs" that largely
ignored major traffickers in favor of the lowest level
offenders in inner-city communities. Along with that
came a massive program of prison building and
incarceration, as well as the wholesale "reform" of the
main means-tested cash assistance program, Aid to
Families of Dependent Children. "
black attack
but then
"This politically
driven attack on the poor proved just the opening drama
in a decades-long campaign launched by business and the
organized right against workers."
This was not only war against the poor, but the very
"class war" that Republicans now use to brand just
about any action they don't like."
" In fact, class war
was the overarching goal of the campaign, something
that would soon enough become apparent in policies that
led to a massive redistribution of the burden of
taxation, the cannibalization of government services
through privatization, wage cuts and enfeebled unions,
and the deregulation of business, banks, and financial
institutions."
semi sum up
"The poor -- and blacks -- were an endlessly useful
rhetorical foil, a propagandistic distraction used to
win elections and make bigger gains."
. promoted the message
" the country's problems
were caused by the poor whose shiftlessness, criminal
inclinations, and sexual promiscuity were being
indulged by a too-generous welfare system."
"When Ronald Reagan entered the Oval Office
in 1980, the path had been smoothed for huge cuts in
programs for poor people, and by the 1990s the
Democrats, looking for electoral strategies that would
raise campaign dollars from big business and put them
back in power, took up the banner."
" It was Bill Clinton,
after all, who campaigned on the slogan "end welfare as
we know it."
---------------------
back to the prospect of a better future we have before us today
"A Movement for a Moral Economy"
whooops ...
no time left ...
sum up
"The willful ignorance and cruelty of it all can leave
you gasping -- and gasp was all we did for decades.
This is why we so desperately needed a movement for a
new kind of moral economy. Occupy Wall Street, which
has already changed the national conversation, may well
be its beginning."
