by Eric Blair
Activist Post
Dozens of people march for economic equality.
NEWS ANALYSIS – Why is it when the rich super class speaks about class warfare, the downtrodden applaud? When billionaire Warren Buffett said, “There’s class warfare all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning,” the struggling middle class treated him like one of them, as if he’s on their side.
More recently, billionaire investor George Soros warned of a coming class war in the U.S. as reported by the Daily Beast, where he proudly points out that his prediction of riots in the streets has already begun.
With the Occupy movement’s beginnings having ties to funding by Soros, many believe him to be stoking this so-called class warfare. Although Soros denies directly funding the movement’s beginnings, his vast philanthropic contributions have far-reaching tentacles into many revolutions around the globe.
Even if we are to naively take Soros’ word that he was not involved in spurring these global revolutions, despite the evidence to the contrary, he clearly promotes the idea of class warfare with the political left cheering him as a crusader for good. Conveniently, the Occupy movement has adopted the catchy but brainless “us versus the 1%” mantra as the rallying call for everyone in the 99% to blame their problems on the so-called rich 1%. It sounds a lot like stoking class warfare to me.
However, in order to instigate warfare there must be a crisis to cause enough pain to force people to arms, and the sides of good and evil must be defined. Soros does just that in the Daily Beast article where he says people “have reason to be frustrated and angry” at the cost of bailing out the financial system, and that “the world faces one of the most dangerous periods of modern history—a period of evil.”
Of course, those statements are hard to argue with and calling the ruling class “evil” will resonate with the masses. But again, Soros is clearly in the ruling class 1%, so why would he, like Buffett, pretend they’re outsiders while stoking hatred toward themselves?
It seems they are using the crisis and class warfare paradigm to move the masses to support what the global elite have been striving for all along: less competition and more consolidation of power. “In the crisis period, the impossible becomes possible.” And by impossible he explains the Occupy movement has “put on the agenda issues that the institutional left has failed to put on the agenda for a quarter of a century.”
To further explain the nature of unintended “evil” in the financial markets, Soros is quoted as saying in the same Daily Beast article “Unrestrained competition can drive people into actions that they would otherwise regret.”
To many people, this echoes John D. Rockefeller’s infamous quote “Competition is a sin.”
Rockefeller ran the monopoly oil company Standard Oil, which still exists to this day but goes by different names: Standard Oil of New Jersey became Esso, later to be renamed Exxon – which became a key part of ExxonMobil, currently the most profitable company in the world — earning 30 billion, 460 million dollars.
Standard Oil of California became Chevron – currently the third most profitable company in the world at 19 billion, 24 million dollars per year. Continental Oil Company became Conoco, now a part of ConocoPhillips – currently the sixteenth most profitable company in the world at 11 billion, 358 million dollars. BP Amoco is a conglomerate of several Standard Oil splinter companies. Yahoo Finance currently lists BP Amoco’s gross profit at 16 billion, 28 million dollars.
Therefore, four out of the six “supermajors” in the oil industry are direct Rockefeller spinoffs – BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips. (Source) Competition has been replaced by the appearance of competition. And this includes the apparent differences between Soros and Buffett on the left versus the Koch brothers on the right. Those stuck in the left-right paradigm love to hate them, while they all seek to eliminate genuine competition hidden behind their respective brands of ideology.
Additionally, Soros promotes a single European Treasury with the authority to impose and collect taxes from all member nations as the solution to the Eurozone crisis. In America, he agrees with Buffett that the rich should pay more in taxes to strengthen the institution of government, as if it hasn’t given enough power to itself despite its failings.
Furthermore, the notion that taxing the “rich” will solve any of America’s or Europe’s financial problems may be the biggest false paradigm of all. America officially has a national debt of around $15 Trillion with another $26 Trillion in financial bailout costs and double that amount in upcoming liabilities. There is literally not enough wealth in the world to fix that problem.
What’s more, the real elite will never have to pay taxes as they move their money globally and play on loopholes within the borders. Anyone remember General Electric paying no taxes on $14.2 billion in profits; in fact they got a $3.2 billion tax credit from Americans? Need I say more about the silliness of this ever working in the current political environment? So what does Soros say will be the next immediate battle of this rising class war?
“As anger rises, riots on the streets of American cities are inevitable. ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he (Soros) says, almost gleefully. The response to the unrest could be more damaging than the violence itself.
It will be an excuse for cracking down and using strong-arm tactics to maintain law and order, which, carried to an extreme, could bring about a repressive political system, a society where individual liberty is much more constrained, which would be a break with the tradition of the United States.”
As he says “gleefully.” Still want class warfare?
How about supporting the opposite: decentralization, competition, supporting local commerce, local governance, and local self-sufficiency?
