Here is a remarkable statement by Paul B. Farrell that tells the unvarnished truth about the class war that is being waged against Americans. It is remarkable for two reasons, first, because Farrell has a background as a financial establishment insider–he was an investment banker with Morgan Stanley; executive vice president of the Financial News Network; executive vice president of Mercury Entertainment Corp; and associate editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. Secondly, because this article appeared in MarketWatch, a mainstream news source controlled by Rupert Murdoch.
According to Wikipedia, MarketWatch “is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Jones, which in turn is owned by News Corporation. MarketWatch is part of Dow Jones’ Consumer Media Group, along with The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, the WSJ.com and affiliated Internet properties. Through the Rupert Murdoch-controlled News Corp. ownership, MarketWatch is also affiliated with, among many other global media properties, the New York Post, The Times of London, Fox News Channel and multiple other 20th Century Fox spinoffs, and HarperCollins publishers.”
I urge everyone to read the entire article paying close attention to Farrell’s conclusion.—t.h.g.
Rich Class fighting 99%, winning big-time
Commentary: Reagan began class war in 1981, Buffett declared in 2006
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch. Nov. 1, 2011, 10:22 a.m. EDT
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Yes, “there is class warfare, all right,” declared Warren Buffett. “But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
Yes, the Rich Class is at war with you, with the 99%, a war against America. This class war actually started a generation ago, in 1981 when Ronald Reagan became president. Since then, the Rich Class has been winners. Big-time. And the 99% are the losers. Real big-time.
I am going to keep reminding you over and over of this Rich Class declaration of war and how they’re defeating America.
Why more reminders? Because, except for Buffett, the vast majority of the Rich Class really are engaged in a massive cover-up, a widespread conspiracy that includes the Super Rich, Forbes 400 billionaires, Wall Street bank CEOs, all their high-paid Washington lobbyists, all the Congressional puppets they keep in office by spending hundreds of millions on campaign payola and all the conservative presidential candidates praying the same Rich Class dogma.
Yes, Rich Class has been fighting a 30-year war to rule America
They’re fighting you, winning big-time, and you’re the loser. It’s just one generation since conservatives put Reagan in office: In those three short decades the income and wealth of the top 1% has tripled while the income of the bottom 99% of all Americans has stagnated or dropped.
Yes, they are at war with you, fighting to gain absolute power over America … and they will never stop their brutal attacks.
Buffett didn’t admit to this Declaration of Class War on America till five years ago. It happened in Omaha, Neb., in Buffett’s “unpretentious offices” back in 2006 during a New York Times interview with Ben Stein, a former Nixon speech writer. Here’s Ben describing the declaration of war:
”Buffett compiled a data sheet of the men and women who work in his office. He had each of them make a fraction; the numerator was how much they paid in federal income tax and in payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, and the denominator was their taxable income. The people in his office were mostly secretaries and clerks, though not all.
”It turned out that Mr. Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid far, far less as a fraction of his income than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office. Further, in conversation it came up that Mr. Buffett doesn’t use any tax planning at all.
“He just pays as the Internal Revenue Code requires. ‘How can this be fair?’ he asked of how little he pays relative to his employees. ‘How can this be right?’ Even though I agreed with him, I warned that whenever someone tried to raise the issue, he or she was accused of fomenting class warfare.”
And to that comment by Stein, Buffett made his famous declaration of war: “There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
In spite of that unequivocal declaration, Buffett’s Rich Class buddies still want you to believe that it’s the Occupiers, the lazy unemployed, the 99%, someone else, anyone other than their Rich Class that’s fomenting class warfare.
So you need occasional reminders, because the “Rich Class” has been spending mega-bucks for decades to shift responsibility. Fortunately today, folks like the Occupiers aren’t buying the con job.
Here’s a few:
Rich Class warriors: puppet-politicians in GOP-controlled Congress
We know the GOP is the Party of the Rich Class. But the Dems are co-conspirators fighting the class war as pawns of the wealthy. No wonder the Occupy Wall Street crowd focuses on the inequality gap between America’s top 1% and the 99% who’ve seen no income growth since the Reaganomics ideology took over American politics. Many are like House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan, clones of Ayn Rand’s narcissistic cult of selfish capitalism.
Listen, both parties are singing in harmony: “Yes, there’s class warfare. And yes, it’s our duty to fight for the richest class of capitalists who are making this war. We must help them win, get richer, squeeze more and more out of all Americans.”
Rich Class warriors: Federal Reserve-Wall Street bankers conspiracy
Yes, there are five banks in America that control about 90% of all the deposits … they control over 90% of America’s trading in the $650 trillion global derivatives casino … they control the Federal Reserve through directors and governors … their campaign payola and lobbyists virtually control the presidency, the Senate and Congress … they siphon huge bonuses from depositors, shareholders and pensioners alike:
“So yes, there is a class warfare running our banking system, every day. And yes, the CEOs in our rich class are leading that class war, and winning big. But more is never enough, so we want new ways to skim off profits, because we are invincible, too big and too greedy to fail.”
Rich Class warriors: Pentagon’s Perpetual War-Mongering Machine
The rich class loves war (war profiteering is a big business). Of course they often have to brainwash the 99% with fears like the mushroom-cloud lies Bush-Cheney used to get America into the $3 trillion Iraq War. Americans have a powerful love-hate relationship with war. Why else would we spend almost half our federal budget, several hundred billion dollars, on war every year?
“Yes, there’s class warfare, all right,” the former vice president might say as a one-time defense contractor CEO and oilman who continued profiting in office. He’d obviously admit: “Yes, we’re in a class war, and it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we proud that we kept winning that war while we was in office.”
Rich Class fighting to turn America back into Reagan’s ol’ Wild West
The list goes on: The Rich Class wants to time-travel America back to a lawless Old Wild West, back to a free-market Reaganomics anarchy where the top 1% trickle down leftovers to the 99% using this kind of self-destructive programs:
- Privatize: Turn Social Security over to Wall Street bankers to run Main Street’s retirements into the dirt (worse than they did in 2008), a $20 trillion blunder that’s guaranteed to trigger total bankruptcy of the America economy.
- Vouchers: Turn our educational and health-care systems into a voucher system so that private companies owned by the Rich Class can siphon off even bigger profits from every little trickle-down bone the wealthy toss to parents, the sick and elderly.
- Regulations: They’ll also turn over environmental, drugs, food, banking and all other regulatory agencies back to be controlled by the very company executives they’re supposed to be regulating, just like Bush and Cheney did for eight years.
- Tax-Free: Extend Bush tax cuts to Rich Class, eliminate estate taxes and give Corporate America another tax–free holiday to return huge foreign profits so they can deposit those profits direct into pockets of the Rich Class.
But, of course, there’s nothing new here. We just forget so easily, because it’s so bad. Which is why we’ll be reminding you often that the Rich Class has been fighting this war against you for 30 years, since Reagan.
And they’re so greedy they cannot stop fighting. So they will likely keep attacking the 99% for another decade, till the 2020 presidential elections, or more likely, till a catastrophic collapse of the economy coming soon.
Yes, folks, America really is under attack daily. We are fighting on the defense in an historic class warfare. Yes, the Rich Class really did start this war. And yes, they really are winning, big-time. And yes, they are addicted to winning at all costs, to get richer and richer just for the sake of getting richer and richer.
They have no conscience about the collateral damage done to the rest of Americans. They’ve lost their moral compass. In short, they will fight this war to the death, yours, theirs, even the death of America. Bet on it: Because more is never enough for America’s morally bankrupt Rich Class. [emphasis added-ed.]
Copyright © 2011 MarketWatch, Inc. All rights reserved.
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