The sequester and class warfare

[New Chalcedon]

I was running 'round the internet today, and found this (image too large for NSG, sorry), which perfectly lampshades the level of different treatment afforded to the wealthy when it comes to implementation of the sequester.

Medicare cuts force cancer clinics to turn away thousands of patients?

Meh. Serves 'em right, anyway - profiteering poor people!

Meals on Wheels cuts force tens of thousands of poor seniors to live off canned food, at least until Congress gets its arse into gear?

Meh. Serves 'em right, anyway - they shoulda saved when they worked.

Unemployment benefits cuts force many thousands of unemployed people onto the streets?

Meh. Serves 'em right, anyway - they shouldn't have lost their jobs.

Federal-State aid cuts force public transport to shut down or cut back in cities across America?

Meh. Only poor people use public transport anyway.

FAA cuts force slight delays to travel for Congressmen and their rich donors?

EHRMERGAWD We have to do something about this horrific situation!!!!one!!!eleven!

PS: Pay no attention to my campaign donations, you peasants!

If there is anything that demonstrates the utter lopsidedness of American lawmaking and how it grossly favours the wealthy over the non-wealthy, it's the sequester. The sequester doesn't affect the parts of the Government the rich rely upon the most, what few areas touch on the lives of the rich at all are immediately (and unanimously!) fixed in extraordinary votes and the poor are told to suck it up.

American plutocrats, it's 1787 and you're the Ancien Regime. Your play - do as you please (you have all the formal power there is, after all, and the entire governmental apparatus as your captive), but don't expect the people to put up with this shit too much longer. As Warren Buffett famously observed: "There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning." Well, if that goes on much longer, the wealthy of America will have created a massive underclass that has next to nothing left to lose....and if that's not fertile grounds for revolutionary sentiment, I don't know what is.

So, NSG: Do you believe that the sequester has been primarily a tool of class warfare by the haves against the have-nots? Do you believe that the government is the captive of the wealthy, and do you believe that (however slowly) America's sliding toward the class-based revolution that the New Deal averted?

[Diopolis]

What are we actually supposed to discuss?

[The Greater Ohio Valley]

Wut?

[New Chalcedon]

What are we actually supposed to discuss?

And here I thought that the questions at the end were typed in plain English. Go figure.

[Farnhamia]

What are we actually supposed to discuss?

And here I thought that the questions at the end were typed in plain English. Go figure.

He posted that before you edited.

I don't mean this in any negative way, but sometimes you seem more American than the Americans on this forum, unlike Hippo, who only claims to be but who would be told by the Tea Party, "No, dude, that's a little extreme."

[The Rugged Coast]

I think the sequester was a political gambit to rally people around the president's budget proposal, instead of the opposing party's, and the gambit failed.

[Diopolis]

What are we actually supposed to discuss?

And here I thought that the questions at the end were typed in plain English. Go figure.

Very well. Class based revolution is a myth. The sequester is manipulated politically by both sides.

[Cannot think of a name]

When I heard about the "OMG, fix it, that's something that effects me!" thing with the air traffic controllers I nearly smashed the radio...but then, it's not the radio's fault.

[Khalite]

It makes me feel good to see that OP shares some beliefs of mine. The United States- the country I live in -wont be stable for very much longer if this keeps up.

[Ashmoria]

I think the sequester was a political gambit to rally people around the president's budget proposal, instead of the opposing party's, and the gambit failed.

you would be wrong.

[Xirxixcroxior]

"But, but, the rich make jobs and wealth and prosperity."

/sarcasm

[Napkiraly]

This is what happens when people think the horse and sparrow approach to the economy is valid.

[Galloism]

"But, but, the rich make jobs and wealth and prosperity."

/sarcasm

You know... you use air transport every day.

[Galloism]

When I heard about the "OMG, fix it, that's something that effects me!" thing with the air traffic controllers I nearly smashed the radio...but then, it's not the radio's fault.

You think a snarled transport system doesn't affect you?

[Occupied Deutschland]

FFA still got cut, Congressional action just let the DoT rearrange funds to lessen the effects. Your argument is confusing.

[New Chalcedon]

And here I thought that the questions at the end were typed in plain English. Go figure.

He posted that before you edited.

I don't mean this in any negative way, but sometimes you seem more American than the Americans on this forum, unlike Hippo, who only claims to be but who would be told by the Tea Party, "No, dude, that's a little extreme."

And in what way do I seem more American than the Americans on this forum?

My apologies, Diopolis - I didn't notice the timestamps.

And here I thought that the questions at the end were typed in plain English. Go figure.

Very well. Class based revolution is a myth. The sequester is manipulated politically by both sides.

"Class-based revolution is a myth"? Really? There's a reason I invoked the French Revolution - that was a class-based revolution, the middle class and poor against the wealthy aristocrats. The Russian Revolution (Red, not White) was also a class-based revolution, with the purported goal of overthrowing the obscenely wealthy and putting the workers in charge (I know it didn't work out - I'm not arguing the efficacy of these revolutions, only their motives).

When I heard about the "OMG, fix it, that's something that effects me!" thing with the air traffic controllers I nearly smashed the radio...but then, it's not the radio's fault.

Nor, to be perfectly fair, is it the FAA's fault. That's one reason I don't want to see revolution - unlike in most revolution-ripe governments, the majority of government employees in America are both reasonably honest and reasonably well-meaning, and the second people to get strung up after revolutions succeed (after the rulers themselves) are government employees. And most American bureaucrats don't deserve that kind of treatment.

This is what happens when people think the horse and sparrow approach to the economy is valid.

Well, well - someone's come up with a metaphor I don't know! "Horse and sparrow"?

[Cannot think of a name]

When I heard about the "OMG, fix it, that's something that effects me!" thing with the air traffic controllers I nearly smashed the radio...but then, it's not the radio's fault.

You think a snarled transport system doesn't affect you?

Yes, certainly. As does a lot of the cuts. But the effect that got handled is the one that inconvenienced them the most.

[Napkiraly]

This is what happens when people think the horse and sparrow approach to the economy is valid.

Well, well - someone's come up with a metaphor I don't know! "Horse and sparrow"?

The horse (rich people or as some like to say, job creators) are feed more grains (money) in the hope that when they take a shit, there will be more edible grains for the sparrows to nibble at due to more grains going through the digestive tract.

Much better way of explaining trickle down economics in my opinion.

[New Chalcedon]

FFA still got cut, Congressional action just let the DoT rearrange funds to lessen the effects. Your argument is confusing.

Not really - here's the short version.

Sequester get put in place because the Party for Rich People (and yes, out of the two, that is certainly the label that fits the GOP) exacted it as the price of routine fiscal housekeeping in 2011.

Sequester was designed to be across the board. As Chris Hayes noted, that was the one aspect of this otherwise irredeemable piece of trash that almost approached being "good public policy": everyone got hit, one way or another, if the sequester went through. In this case, unlike every other frigging idiotic "austerity" idea, "shared sacrifice" would actually be halfway true - sure, the poor would sacrifice more, but the rich would actually lose something, and therefore had incentive to lobby Congressmen to find a way to go forward that didn't involve the sequester.

But it seems that the 1% didn't get the memo. Instead of lobbying to end the sequester, they lobbied to essentially be exempt from it - that in cases where they would suffer damage and/or inconvenience, the sequester's terms would be altered so that they didn't. And the result of this lobbying? 361-41 in the House to rewrite the rules to exempt the rich (by allowing the FAA to shuffle money to avoid inconvenience to the wealthy), and unanimous vote in the Senate.

If any one vote demonstrates how utterly the legislature - even the members of the legislature accused of being "socialists" by their opponents - is owned lock, stock and barrel by the 1%, it's the FAA sequestration vote. Because it demonstrates that now you don't even need to be a big bank to have the laws rewritten to suit you - you simply need to be part of the wealthy class that owns Congress.

[Diopolis]

He posted that before you edited.

I don't mean this in any negative way, but sometimes you seem more American than the Americans on this forum, unlike Hippo, who only claims to be but who would be told by the Tea Party, "No, dude, that's a little extreme."

And in what way do I seem more American than the Americans on this forum?

My apologies, Diopolis - I didn't notice the timestamps.

Very well. Class based revolution is a myth. The sequester is manipulated politically by both sides.

"Class-based revolution is a myth"? Really? There's a reason I invoked the French Revolution - that was a class-based revolution, the middle class and poor against the wealthy aristocrats. The Russian Revolution (Red, not White) was also a class-based revolution, with the purported goal of overthrowing the obscenely wealthy and putting the workers in charge (I know it didn't work out - I'm not arguing the efficacy of these revolutions, only their motives).

The French revolution was the third estate revolting against the first and second. Technically, they were more like jobs than classes per se.
The red revolution was led by members of the upper classes who remained in power after the revolution, as long as they followed communist idealogy.

[Ensiferum]

I don't see how cutting aid for the elderly is a bad thing. They kind of created the debt, why should they be exempt from paying it back?

[Wisconsin9]

Class warfare is like a human child sweeping away an anthill and the ants valiantly rallying together for an epic, last-ditch counterattack on the kid's shoelaces.

[Napkiraly]

And in what way do I seem more American than the Americans on this forum?

My apologies, Diopolis - I didn't notice the timestamps.



"Class-based revolution is a myth"? Really? There's a reason I invoked the French Revolution - that was a class-based revolution, the middle class and poor against the wealthy aristocrats. The Russian Revolution (Red, not White) was also a class-based revolution, with the purported goal of overthrowing the obscenely wealthy and putting the workers in charge (I know it didn't work out - I'm not arguing the efficacy of these revolutions, only their motives).

The French revolution was the third estate revolting against the first and second. Technically, they were more like jobs than classes per se.
The red revolution was led by members of the upper classes who remained in power after the revolution, as long as they followed communist idealogy.

The Third Estate was a social class. All three estates were distinct social classes.

Lenin's father was an impoverished tailor, Stalin's mother was a housekeeper while his father was a cobbler. Trotsky was the most "high class" and even then they were just well off farmers-hardly part of the Russian aristocracy.

[Farnhamia]

He posted that before you edited.

I don't mean this in any negative way, but sometimes you seem more American than the Americans on this forum, unlike Hippo, who only claims to be but who would be told by the Tea Party, "No, dude, that's a little extreme."

And in what way do I seem more American than the Americans on this forum?

My apologies, Diopolis - I didn't notice the timestamps.

Very well. Class based revolution is a myth. The sequester is manipulated politically by both sides.

"Class-based revolution is a myth"? Really? There's a reason I invoked the French Revolution - that was a class-based revolution, the middle class and poor against the wealthy aristocrats. The Russian Revolution (Red, not White) was also a class-based revolution, with the purported goal of overthrowing the obscenely wealthy and putting the workers in charge (I know it didn't work out - I'm not arguing the efficacy of these revolutions, only their motives).

When I heard about the "OMG, fix it, that's something that effects me!" thing with the air traffic controllers I nearly smashed the radio...but then, it's not the radio's fault.

Nor, to be perfectly fair, is it the FAA's fault. That's one reason I don't want to see revolution - unlike in most revolution-ripe governments, the majority of government employees in America are both reasonably honest and reasonably well-meaning, and the second people to get strung up after revolutions succeed (after the rulers themselves) are government employees. And most American bureaucrats don't deserve that kind of treatment.

This is what happens when people think the horse and sparrow approach to the economy is valid.

Well, well - someone's come up with a metaphor I don't know! "Horse and sparrow"?

You're more informed and concerned about American issues.

[Nidaria]

Congress is so hypocritical. It cares for only two things: money and power. For money it gives favors to the rich, for power it tricks the majority into voting for it.