There is a saying among soldiers:

I dare not make the first move but would rather play the guest

I dare not advance an inch, but would rather withdraw a foot

This is called marching without intending to move

Rolling up your sleeves without showing your arm,

Being armed without weapons.

There is no greater catastrophe than underestimating the enemy.

By underestimating the enemy, I almost lose what I value.

Therefore when the battle is joined,

The underdog with win.

Tao Te Ching  (Ch-69)

Call out the instigators
Because there's something in the air
We've got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolution's here, and you know it's right
And you know that it's right

We have got to get it together
We have got to get it together now

Lock up the streets and houses
Because there's something in the air
We've got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolution's here, and you know it's right
And you know that it's right

We have got to get it together
We have got to get it together now

Hand out the arms and ammo
We're going to blast our way through here
We've got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolution's here, and you know it's right
And you know that it's right

We have got to get it together
We have got to get it together
Now

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JAXKIKehbc

The first Labor Day in the United States was celebrated on September 5, 1882 in New York City.[1] In the aftermath of the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the US military and US Marshals during the 1894 Pullman Strike, President Grover Cleveland put reconciliation with Labor as a top political priority. Fearing further conflict, legislation making Labor Day a national holiday was rushed through Congress unanimously and signed into law a mere six days after the end of the strike.[2] Cleveland was also concerned that aligning a US labor holiday with existing international May Day celebrations would stir up negative emotions linked to the Haymarket Affair.[3] All 50 U.S. states have made Labor Day a state holiday.

Struggle; that is where Labor Day Celebrations come from. Deaths and injuries were incurred by those who were being abused.  And there are Labor Day Festivities all over the world. Canadian workers fought for and won theirs before us.

I was going to spend more time discussing income disparities but Rowan has done such a fine job I refer you all to her blog.  http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/rowanwolf/2009/09/lets-talk-class-warfare-shall.php

Her '24' is over and this will help keep it alive. Someone was suggesting one of us just cut and paste it with proper attribution onto a new blog. Not a bad idea really.  And if you have the time, check out the links there.

I can add some other 'facts' supporting Rowan's thesis though.

Income inequality in the United States is at an all-time high, surpassing even levels seen during the Great Depression, according to a recently updated paper by University of California, Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez. The paper, which covers data through 2007, points to a staggering, unprecedented disparity in American incomes. On his blog, Nobel prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called the numbers "truly amazing." As of 2007, the top decile of American earners, Saez writes, pulled in 49.7 percent of total wages, a level that's "higher than any other year since 1917 and even surpasses 1928, the peak of stock market bubble in the 'roaring" 1920s.'"

Beginning in the economic expansion of the early 1990s, Saez argues, the economy began to favor the top tiers American earners, but much of the country missed was left behind. "The top 1 percent incomes captured half of the overall economic growth over the period 1993-2007," Saes writes.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/14/income-inequality-is-at-a_n_259516.html

Take a quick look at Ramona's blog today on health insurance.  http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/ramona/2009/09/health-care---a-condition-not.php?ref=reccafe

Here is another example of  class warfare with regard to that issue:

NaturalNews) Health insurance company Health Net Inc. rewarded employees for finding ways to drop customer policies and not pay for their medical expenses, according to an investigation by the California Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC).
Since 2005, the DMHC has been investigating five of the seven insurance companies that provide health care plans to individuals in California. The department is attempting to crack down on the practice among insurers of dropping people's coverage based on often accidental errors in their enrollment applications. In many cases, people's policies have been dropped after they submitted medical claims.
The DMHC has fined Health Net $1 million for failure to disclose a program in which employees received bonuses for meeting or exceeding quotas for health insurance policies to be dropped. The department continues to investigate Health Net and has yet to determine if the dropping of policies or the bonus program are illegal.   http://justwondrin.blogspot.com/2009/08/health-insurance-company-paid-its.html

Here is just a note on foreclosures:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- U.S. foreclosure filings spiked by more than 81% in 2008, a record, according to a report released Thursday, and they're up 225% compared with 2006. A total of 861,664 families lost their homes to foreclosure last year, according to RealtyTrac, which released its year-end report Thursday. There were more than 3.1 million foreclosure filings issued during 2008, which means that one of every 54 households received a notice last year.

"Clearly the foreclosure prevention programs implemented to date have not had any real success in slowing down this foreclosure tsunami," said James Saccacio, CEO of RealtyTrac in a statement. And despite those efforts on the part of both the government and the banking industry to quell the housing crisis, defaults continued to climb as 2008 came to an end. Foreclosure filings were up 17% in December over November, and rose 41% compared with December of 2007.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/15/real_estate/millions_in_foreclosure/index.htm

So the repubs wish to get 'government' off 'the people's' backs. BUT WHICH PEOPLES ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT?   Oh and the best the repubs can come up with is that those seeking parity for the vast majority of our workers are guilty of fulminating CLASS WARFARE.

Every time you witness a home being foreclosed upon, you have witnessed a casualty of class warfare.

Every time your cousin or your friend loses a job due to 'downscaling', you have witnessed a casualty of class warfare.

Every time your cousin or your friend is denied health coverage, you have witnessed a casualty of class warfare.

Every time COLA is denied to Social Security recipients, you have witnessed a casualty of class warfare.

Every time one of our citizens is put into prison for some drug related crime, you have witnessed a casualty of class warfare.

Every time you see cheney or rummy smirk after pocketing tens of millions and maybe hundreds of millions of tax payer money during their reign, you have witnessed an example of class warfare.

PEOPLE, EVERY SINGLE MINUTE OF EVERY SINGLE HOUR OF EVERY SINGLE DAY,  THERE IS A BATTLE BEING WAGED IN THIS CLASS WAR  AND GUESS WHICH CLASS WINS ALMOST EVERY SINGLE TIME?

And what are the prospects for a more equitable arrangement for our work force?

It has become fashionable among equities managers of the bullish persuasion to argue that a strong recovery in GDP will occur in 2010 because the "structural adjustment period" of moving back to a more normal savings rate has been completed. We've gone from a savings rate of barely 1% in 2008 up to 4.2% in July (ok, so the argument sounded better when the number was 6.2% in May, but still...).

Fortunately, there IS some pretty good data on income stratification in the United States, and a few assumptions can help shed some light. Economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez have made careers of studying US income inequality using IRS data, which goes back to 1913. The most recent data available (for 2007) showed that the top 14,988 households (0.01% of the population) received 6.04% of income, the highest figure for any year since the data became available. The top 1% of households received 23.5% of income (the second highest on record, after 1928), while the top 10% received 49.7% of income (the highest on record).

I've never actually had an after tax income of $22.9 million, so I couldn't say for sure whether a 50% savings rate is a reasonable assumption, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it is, just based on the pure physics of spending money. Buying cars, clothes, and fancy dinners, even at Masa, won't get you there...the math doesn't work. Buying a private jet could get you there, but most people, even rich people, don't buy one of those every year. The only EASY way to spend more than 50% of $22.9 million on an annual basis is to buy lots of houses...but the definition of "personal consumption expenditure" used by the BEA specifically excludes purchases of real estate. They use an imputed rent calculation instead. So I'm going to stick with my 50% number.   http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/category/income-disparity

I picked this squib just to underline the point that when you hear the word 'recovery' coming in the next few months (some already use that word) it is a recovery for the top echelon.  It has nothing to do with those in the trenches.  There is no legislation pending that I see, anyway, that is going to change the fact that when we have the 'ups' it will represent an increase for those on top and little for the remainder.

Do I feel hatred or animosity toward our Democratic Leaders? No. It is just that it will take five years to get our workers back to where they were nine years ago before the fascists took over full control of our tax dollars.  That is if everything goes well.  If the repubs get back in power, everything will be lost.

Until we tax Wall Street, until we institute a 90% tax on 'earnings' (aint that a great word? Do you really believe for one goddamn moment that one person can 'earn' a million dollar bonus? Or a one hundred million dollar bonus?), until we give shareholders back the rights that were stolen from them over the last three decades, until we find good regulators and overseers to police our capitalist society, until all Americans are given access to adequate health care;

WE ARE SCREWED