Doug Henwood wrote: > > > Truly the 1990s are making the Reagan years look kind and gentle by comparison. > > Doug Doug is absolutely right. When we realize that the 1980s which only gave the right-wing ghouls a fraction of what they wanted to do --- and in some cases like Food Stamps and SSI, Congress actually reversed the original efforts to cut them --- still produced the polarization of the "middle class" the rise in inequality between quintiles and WITHIN quintiles and within wage=earners, etc., still produced the rise in the working poor, and still produced a REDUCTION in social mobility --- just imagine if the budget-cutters and entitlement busters have even 1/2 of their way (and since Clinton has already surrendered that half it'll probably be worse). We'll have Reaganomics WITHOUT the increased aggregate demand caused by the deficit and without the post 1984 roadblocks from Congress. I know this may sound irresponsible coming from a relatively comfortable 50 year old -- but I wonder if the only real way to fight back against this tide is for those who are harmed to organize and make as much trouble as they possibly can so that the instruments of control start costing so much that maybe the "contented majority" will begin to wonder if their model of cops and prisons and the "back of their hand" to those "left behind" really is a way to keep "contented." Organizing the working class at the point of production would be nice but when they move the point of production to Mexico, Singapore or mainland China, what the Hell can those of us left here do?? Despairingly, -- Mike Meeropol Economics Department Cultures Past and Present Program Western New England College Springfield, Massachusetts "Don't blame us, we voted for George McGovern!" Unrepentent Leftist!! [EMAIL PROTECTED] [if at bitnet node: in%"[EMAIL PROTECTED]" but that's fading fast!]
