This Is What the Class War Looks Like

Posted by David Sirota, Open Left at 3:33 AM on March 24, 2009.

I was on Fox News yesterday morning talking about efforts to re-regulate Wall Street and reign in executive pay (I'll post the clip later). I made a simple point that America is now more economically unequal than it was just before the Great Depression. I subsequently received a wave of very angry hate mail (as I always do when I am on Fox), and this one stuck out to me. I don't think I've ever seen the class war crystallized so well:

I think I am in the majority of Americans who are sick and tired of the unproductive living off of the government. They have become satisfied with a meager existence because it requires no effort on their part...

The recent "tax cuts" for Americans is a farce. Taking money from the productive and giving it to the non productive creates an even larger segment of do nothing folks. I own 6 four family units and one 12 unit building in Cincinnati, Ohio...When the so called tax cuts were announced, I immediately raised the rents on all units to be a few dollars more than the "cuts". I raised the rents, not because I needed or wanted more money but as an act of rebellion and anger at what is happening in this country.

The emailer is referring to the more progressive tax cuts that President Obama put into the stimulus bill - tax cuts I didn't support (because data showed spending would be a better economic boost) but that are decidedly progressive in focus.

As we can see, after 30 years of right-wing propaganda, the class war has come out into the open - a brutal class war by those at the top, waged against the Rest of Us. In this email, we literally have a landlord bragging about taking his anger out on renters, because the renters had the nerve to get a meager tax cut.

There is an incredible amount of hate out there right now - and the most intense of it is coming from those at the top, who despise the idea that our society should do something - anything - to address rampant inequality. I'm not shocked by that - but I must say when you see that hate in such unvarnished form, and when you see that hate being taken out on regular working folks, it's just damn depressing.  

Tagged as: hate, economy, obama, rich, class war, economic crisis, top