The Wall Street Occupation

Among the many signs in evidence in Zucotti Park, currently occupied by a group of protesters, was one that announced, "Class War Ahead." Of late, that phrase has emanated from the mouths of far more Republicans than from any group on the left. How is it, some ask, that the right has the nerve, given its own actions, of suggesting that class warfare is the unique tactic of the left? What, if not class warfare, could better describe right wing behavior over the last thirty years and more?

Beyond merely flying in the face of reality, the co-opting of the left's rhetoric and even some of its imagery has, by now, become a tired tactic in the right wing's "play book." Examples of the Orwellian use of twisted logic, inversions, euphemism and emotionally charged neologisms is too long to catalog here since the attempt to "own the language" became particularly frenzied back in the Reagan era when so-called neo-liberals (mostly ex-anti-Stalinist leftists) joined forces with the older brand of Republicans and bestowed upon them their full talent at double-speak. The phenomenon was propelled, too, by virtue of the fact that the long term alliance between the Jewish and Black advocacy communities had broken down, and, following the Yom Kippur War in Israel, a newly energized Zionism found an ally in the right wing evangelical Christian community. In the good old days, the only right wing "intellectual" on the radar was William F. Buckley, a man who, by current standards, was a straight shooter. The old Trotskyites who had begun to crowd into the Republican Party, however, soon taught the right how to "mess with their minds" with all the aplomb of Ivy Leaguers writing for their campus satire journals. To cite some obvious examples, we now live in a "homeland" (a neologism with echoes of the German heimat), where "red" states (formerly the iconic color of the left) are Republican states, where civilian casualties of war are "collateral damage" (euphemism), where communists in the old USSR and elsewhere are "right wingers" (twisted logic). The right wing cabal at the University Chicago even claimed a unique concern for spreading democracy even if--as, outstandingly in Iraq--it had to be imposed by way of U.S. blockbuster bombs. What all of this amounts to is a well-organized and truly relentless disinformation (read old days propaganda) campaign by the right.

Thus, after over thirty years of unceasing attacks on unions, on the working and middle classes that have resulted in a stagnant or lower standard of living for most Americans, and given us, we have lately been told, 46 million Americans living below the poverty line, the most regressive tax structure in our history, the greatest maldistribution of wealth (with one percent living in heretofore unheard of wealth with everyone else sharing the crumbs), with the de-industrialization of the nation and gravely ailing social institutions, with an ever more vulgar and degraded public culture for the vast majority, the right, confronted with any signs of resistance to these trends, cries out, Class Warfare!

When, with the greed of the upper classes having turned into a feeding frenzy invited by the deregulation of financial markets and finally, as was inevitable, it collapsed in on itself, the propaganda mills began to work overtime. Only the hopelessly naive, it soon became clear, should have expected them to show any signs of guilt or remorse. Rather than confess to the dangers to the common man and woman that their unchecked risk-taking posed, rather than admit that their brand of capitalism had failed and brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy, the right found an explanation for the collapse that took many Americans by surprise. The villains in the collapse were not the reckless, greedy and criminal elements within the world of finance. No, it was poor Black Americans who bought homes they could not afford! Soon added to this list of villains were the nation's school teachers, who had the nerve to belong to unions and still have defined benefit pensions!

Black Americans on the verge of foreclosure and school teachers struggling to maintain their family budgets must have been amazed to find that they had had the power to destroy the most powerful economy on the planet. What is truly alarming is that the right's strategy worked. Enough Americans were convinced that, in the by-election year of 2010, the Republicans won a majority in the House of Representatives. Whatever gains had been made by the Democrats during the first two years of the Obama administration came under a fanatical and ceaseless attack. The president's health bill is still being challenged in the courts, Dodd-Frank, a bill designed to restore some regulatory sanity to Wall Street and the Banks and the Consumer Protection Bill shepherded by consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren both face strenuous opposition.