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Mokhiber/Weissman: Economic Apartheid in America

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We are a new kind of tribe, while still clinging to old paradigms, a branch of

an internet tribal system in which there is no touching other than plastic keys

and a plastic mouse. At Liberty Underground we want to put hugs into it as the

human race mutates.

The other side are not trying to evolve us back to the ape as some are saying--

apes are a lot nicer than they. Apes work together for the good of the group.

Our rulers are moving us toward a feudal world in which there are kings who play

at war as a game and control the wealth while the masses starve and bleed for

them on command, drinking fouled water and breathing polluted air.

 

I remember being surrounded, on several occasions, in Vietnam, when those

attacking could have run over us if only they knew how weak we were, so my

thoughts turned to the probability of death. I would think, " If only they knew

me, would they still want to kill me? " I knew they hated me because of what my

government did to them, but I was ignorant of the depth of it.

 

It is the job of corporate media to keep people ignorant. Ignorance breeds fear

and hatred which are used by our rulers for control. So it is that creeping

privatization and globalization drop like cluster bombs on the working class of

the world as they read how wonderful it is in their mass media.

 

When one understands the rage of Iraqis, one understands the rage of workers who

are losing good jobs, like the 25% layoffs at General Motors announced this

morning in the corporate news. One understands it is all related, the

pollution, war and hunger. The rich are getting richer from all of it, and the

poor are getting poorer from all of it.

 

Mokhiber and Weissman write for the people, so you will not see this in the mass

media --Jack

 

 

 

 

 

 

Economic Apartheid in America

 

 

by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

 

 

 

Top executives now make more in a day than the average worker makes in a year.

You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you

cannot have both.

-- Louis Brandeis

How wealthy the wealthy are does matter. If we allow great wealth to accumulate

in the pockets of a few, then great wealth can set our political agenda and

shape our political culture -- and the agenda and the culture that emerge will

not welcome efforts to make American work for all Americans.

-- Sam Pizzigati

Plutocracy: 1. The rule or power of wealth or the wealthy; 2. A government or

state in which the wealthy class rules. 3. A class for group ruling, or

exercising power or influence, by virtue of its wealth.

-- Webster's Unabridged Dictionary

 

Of the world's 100 largest economies, 47 are nations, and 53 are corporations.

Seventy-five percent of major corporations hire a consultant to stop employees

from forming a union.

The alarming development and aggressiveness of great capitalists and

corporations, unless checked, will inevitably lead to the pauperization and

hopeless degradation of the toiling masses. It is imperative, if we desire to

enjoy the full blessings of life, that a check be placed upon unjust

accumulations and the power for evil of aggravated wealth. -- Constitution of

the Knights of Labor, 1869.

The Washington monument is 555 feet tall. Say it signifies the 2003 average

compensation for CEOs in the Fortune 500. The average worker salary would be

only 16 inches tall, representing a ratio of 419 to one. In 1965, the worker's

monument was 13 feet six inches tall, representing a ratio of 41 to 1.

Inherited economic power is as inconsistent with the ideals of this generation

as inherited political power was inconsistent with the ideals of the generation

which established our government. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Born on home plate -- Forty-two percent of those listed inherited sufficient

wealth to rank among the Forbes 400.

Examples:

J. Paul Getty Jr. inherited the oil fortune from his father.

David Rockefeller Sr. ($2.5 billion) is the grandson of the Standard Oil founder

John D. Rockefeller.

S.I. and Donald Newhouse ($7 billion each) inherited the nation's largest

private newspaper chain, plus Conde Nast publications, from their father in

1979.

Samuel Curtis Johnson ($1.5 billion) is the great grandson of the flooring

salesman who founded the floor wax giant S.C. Johnson and Sons.

The United Nations Development Program reported in 1999 that the world's 225

richest people now have a combined wealth of $1 trillion. That's equal to the

combined annual income of the world's 2.5 billion poorest people.

The richest 10 percent of the world's population receives 49.6 percent of the

total world income.

The bottom 60 percent receives 13.9 percent of the world's income.

The wealth of the world's three most well-to-do individuals now exceeds the

combined gross domestic product of the 48 least developed countries.

Half of the world's population of six billion live on less than $2 a day, while

1.3 billion get by on less than $1 a day.

These are some of things you learn from a new book, just out, titled Economic

Apartheid in America: A Primer on Economic Inequality & Insecurity by Chuck

Collins and Felice Yeskel with United for a Fair Economy (The New Press, 2005).

The book is filled with photos, and charts, and graphs -- that make it a great

home schooling tool, for young and old alike.

It puts things in perspective.

It keeps you on your toes.

Read it.

Then listen to a little Bill O'Reilly.

Then read it some more.

Contrast is good.

Stretch limousines are longer, yet more people are homeless.

Thirty zip codes in America have become fabulously wealthy.

Meanwhile, whole urban and rural communities are languishing in unemployment,

crumbling infrastructure, growing insecurity and fear.

It makes the perfect gift for the holidays.

And you probably won't find it at Wal-Mart.

Or Costco, for that matter.

Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime

Reporter, . Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based

Multinational Monitor. Mokhiber and Weissman are co-authors of On the Rampage:

Corporate Predators and the Destruction of Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common

Courage Press).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Tell your friends about us because some people just don't get it

 

 

" When the power of love becomes stronger than the love of power, we will have

peace. "

Jimi Hendrix

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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