America’s rich, who are consolidating more and more of the nation’s wealth in their own hands and giving less and less back, see themselves as “victims” of class envy, and some billionaires even liken their plight to the Holocaust, a…
Tag: Income Inequality
Income Inequality on US Campuses
Even as some college presidents and athletic coaches pull down salaries over $1 million, “adjunct professors,” who make up a majority of the teachers, often earn poverty-level pay, another example of America’s income inequality, writes Lawrence S. Wittner.
The ‘Persecuted’ Rich
Nazi metaphors should be avoided except in the most extreme cases of human cruelty. But that metaphor is especially obscene when today’s pampered rich, like billionaire Tom Perkins, compare themselves to persecuted Jews, as Bill Moyers and Michael Winship observe.
The Battle over Dr. King’s Message
Martin Luther King Day is a rare moment in American life when people reflect even if only briefly on the ideals that guided Dr. King’s life and led to his death. Thus, the struggle over King’s message can be intense,…
Does Christmas Obscure Jesus?
The Christmas season celebrates the regal myth of Jesus his supposedly miraculous birth and royal lineage as a king of kings but that loses sight of the historical Jesus and his revolutionary message of justice for the poor and powerless,…
Fear in a Handful of Dust
The Grand Irony may be that Earth is the only spot in the Universe where intelligent life evolved, and it then made the Earth unlivable, the ultimate crisis in an age of an ossified order that poet Phil Rockstroh addresses.
Blaming the Poor for Poverty
Unrestrained free markets destroy the middle class, push working people down the economic ladder and concentrate wealth at the top. But promoters of this hyper-capitalism, who dominate the U.S. media debate, simply blame the poor for poverty, as Lawrence Davidson…
A Desperate Fight for the Middle Class
Between a Congress dominated by Tea Party extremists and a Supreme Court controlled by corporate partisans, hopes for addressing America’s worsening income inequality are dim. But union leader Richard Trumka says the fight is more crucial than ever, writes Michael Winship.
Dr. King’s ‘Four Catastrophes’
Reflections on Martin Luther King Jr.’s “dream” a half century after he delivered his famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial have been clouded by the prospect of a U.S. military strike against Syria, as President Obama seems to have forgotten…
Dr. King’s Warning of ‘Two Americas’
Besides battering down the walls of racial segregation, Martin Luther King Jr. demanded that America address its economic barriers to fairness and justice, a challenge that may have earned him even more contempt from the power structure, as Bill Moyers…