The 4th of July and an American Tradition--Class Warfare

Summer has finally arrived in Minnesota. Today is warm and sunny, the sky is an amazing blue, there is a hint of breeze and the birds sitting in the trees are quietly conversing. It is the 4th of July weekend and most folks are relaxing with friends, puttering in the yard, fishing, or camping. Camping is popular in Minnesota and people flock to the state parks to enjoy the outdoors. Say what? The state government is shut down? No camping in state parks? That's right, no camping, no full functioning government. The doors are locked, the boys and girls of the legislature are in their home districts for the weekend explaining why the other side is bad, bad, bad.

We are in the midst of class and regional warfare. People say that we aren't and if we are it's a new thing. Really? Anyone care to wander down the American history trail with a little twist? For starters, how about the division in the colonies. While a great many leaders came from the privileged landowners, the division between Tories and Colonialist centered on economic lines. Most Tories were loyal to the Crown because it suited their economic needs, for the Colonists, the Crown was strangling their economic prowess. Oh, yes of course there was that thing about freedom and self rule, but when the contest was won, who ruled? The landowners. The Constitution provides for direct election but with the caveat of the Electoral College, to save the country from the stupidity of the common man.

Let's skip along to the election of Andrew Jackson, the first of the common men to hold office. He reveled in breaking the back of the Bank of the United States because he was determined to slow down the power grab of the wealthy in the US. He was hated and despised by the wealthy but he was one tough son of a bitch and he prevailed. Move along to the Civil War.

The Civil War was the in ultimate regional and class warfare and it was steeped in a moral issue, slavery. The North made its money in manufacturing, the South in agriculture. The North used all the immigrants living in poverty and squalor to man its factories, the South used slaves. Men in the North could pay for someone to take their place in the ranks. (We will see that come again about 100 years later.) The war cost hundreds of thousands of casualties in the wounded and the dead.

Entering the Industrial Revolution, men like Andrew Carnegie worked the men in his steel plants six and a half days a week for 264 days a year. The only day they got off was the 4th of July. Men worked for pennies and he made millions. When men tried to unionize for decent pay and working conditions, he brought out the police thugs who beat the strikers. It was the unions working to organize men to fight for basic working rights and it did take enlightened leaders such as Theodore Roosevelt to force change. (there are always those who are contrary to their social class...Eleanor Roosevelt was another such wonderful person.) It was only in his later years, with the meeting with his Maker coming up did Carnegie start to give away his money, but even then his name had to be plastered on everything...just so the common man knew who his benefactor was. OK, kids still with me? Jump to the 1960'

The 1960's are a subject all its own with civil rights, assassinations and Vietnam, but I'm going to take just Vietnam for this. Vietnam was regional and class warfare. How? On both coasts the determination to protest was huge. There were marches and campus sit in and daily discussions in the high school hallways and every kitchen table about stopping the war. In the midwest, a more conservative region of the country, and the south which is even more conservative, the support for the Vietnam War stayed the longest. While the men fighting the war came from across the country because of the draft, it was predominately fought by the poor and minorities. A deferment was given to men going to college and they went by the thousands. I met one guy who was a student at Farleigh Dickinson University for seven years waiting out the war. When the war ended in 1974, he graduated the following spring.

Jump 15 years to the 1980's and Ronald Reagan and trickle down economy where the wealthy trickle their wealth down to the rest of us and you have it, class warfare out in the open for all to see. The rich became tremendously wealthy and the rest of us tried to tread water.

And so here we are today, the Minnesota Legislature couldn't pass a budget bill. The Republicans who mostly represent the rich and business class won't raise taxes, they only want to cut spending. Most of Minnesota's spending is on education and health and human services. In other words money is spent on those are not old enough to have money and power and those who are too old and/or are disenfranchised to have any power. The Governor wants to raise taxes on only those making a million dollars or more, so that tax would come out of discretionary money; unlike me, a new tax would come out of my milk money. So I say, thank you Governor Dayton for holding the line, sometimes there must be a clash in class warfare and something has to give...it's not just time to take a realistic view on spending, it's time again in our American way for class warfare. I'm not saying it's right or good, I'm just saying it's not new.

And for those living in another state, hold on, you too will have the chance to watch this play out as we march towards August 2, and the need to resolve the issue of the debt ceiling. Listen carefully to the debate, the Sunday morning gasbags, the politicians....there it will be...class warfare.