Three (now four) recent posts on the web have
brought home the truth of the class war being waged in this country – by the
corporate and financial aristocracy of privileged chislers against everyone
else – with a cheering section of so-called “free-market” supporters who blind
others, and are often themselves, singing rhapsodies about “the market” as a means
of obscuring what is really happening.

First is the story in today’s New York Times about competent people in their late 50s who cannot get jobs even after many decades of employment.  Despite their best efforts they may never work again.  Meanwhile the sociopaths on the right call them lazy and want their Social Security postponed and cut in order to pay for our wars.  Craven or similarly sociopathic Democrats often go along.

Second is the disgusting story of a University of Chicago law professor Todd Henderson who cries about his high taxes if America’s richest do not get to continue benefiting from Bush’s financial irresponsibility.  He actually seems to think that reasonable people would sympathize with him in his excess.  The spoiled rottenness of the man’s arguments are wonderfully dissected by Michael O’Hare here  and Brad DeLong here. 

Third is a story about the rage of the privileged class of parasites who somehow claim to be productive and therefore worth their wealth.  

Fourth is the argument by bankers that they need bailouts but regular citizens should just lump it. This is no exaggeration.

The arguments of libertarians and their sympathizers that the rich received their wealth through voluntary transactions on the market ignores two major facts.  First, and I think most importantly, more than anyone else the rich are able to use government to manipulate the market to give them even more wealth, and they do.  Second, a great many simply inherited their swag, the only skill involved being due a lucky egg and a lucky sperm.

Going as far back at least as Aristotle, careful observers of politics have noted that the rich are the group that, as a whole, aggresses most against other citizens and ultimately create destructive political crises.  I think this is because when you begin seeing your success in life in making as much money as possible you become a slave to it.  The soul seeking personal success through increasing their financial wealth is a spiritual black hole that will always be hungry and never attain its goal.And in the process of trying they injure others, sometimes horribly.

My thanks to the Balloon Juice  blog for helping me decide to finally call class war by the parasites what it really is.