For much of the past three years, President Barack Obama has demanded that America’s richest citizens pay more in taxes, or their “fair share” as he calls it. In almost every speech, the president rails against the “millionaires and billionaires," who he says are paying tax rates lower than their secretaries.
The comparative tax rate argument with the mega-rich and the secretaries originated with Berkshire Hathaway’s CEO Warren Buffett, who has been shilling for the White House since Obama took office. Buffett has since walked back his argument a bit, saying he was referring only to those whose income was comprised largely of capital gains, and not those whose income is earned (wages). Of course, Buffett and the president never mention that 47 percent of Americans do not pay any income tax at all as a result of the Bush tax cuts of 2001, or that the top 10% pay 70% of all income taxes.
For the last three weeks, the Occupy Wall Street movement has grown in size, and spread from New York to other cities. Now it is getting support from major labor unions, some Democratic Party officials, and the predictable groups on the Left, such as moveon.org. While many of the demonstrators have appeared incoherent at best in discussing their politics, some semblance of a message is emerging from those who are participating for reasons other than securing free food. The bad guys are not all business people but in particular, the Wall Street crowd- the bankers, who were supposedly responsible for America’s economic distress, and then got bailed out by the U.S. government for their efforts. And the real problem is inequality- that too few have too much, and the rich have had the power to rig the system to protect their ill gotten gains.
When the Tea Party rose to prominence, their message was that government spending was out of control, creating deficits larger than any in U.S. history. The misnamed Affordable Health Care for America Act, finally passed after a year of legislative wrangling in 2010, and now commonly referred to as Obamacare, seemed to be the single event that focused the opposition to the president and his agenda. While the media stars of the Left attacked the Tea Party for any number of things (too white, too old), the Tea Party itself focused its energy on changing policy.
The Occupy Wall Street movement, and the president’s hot class warfare rhetoric are different. Their message is that 1% of Americans are keeping the other 99% down. If you are not a great success, it is because someone else has taken all the goodies, and that in itself is unfair. We should all have about the same, regardless of how hard we study, how hard we work, and our natural abilities, which of course are not equal. But by targeting those who are in the millionaire/billionaire class and those on Wall Street, one group of Americans, in particular, was certain to emerge as the real problem. Surprise, surprise, Jews are over-represented among both classes, and as this “man of the people” is happy to relay- the real problem is the 2% (the Jews) more than any old bunch of wealthy Americans, the 1%.
Several years back, when my son was in college, I had the misfortune to be visiting him on a few occasions when angry anti-Iraq war demonstrations were underway. Such demonstrations seemed to be pretty common during this period in this West Coast city. In addition to the predictable anti-Iraq war signs, and the “Bush is Hitler” placards, there were an enormous number of “End the Israeli Occupation” signs, or those demanding an end to the occupation of Iraq and Palestine. For the last 40 years, the hard Left in the U.S. has become reflexively and angrily anti-Israel. Some of the worst offenders, regrettably, are Jewish, who by their participation, give a pass to more virulent and uglier Israel haters, who in many cases, are little more than anti-Semites.
For the first time in many presidential election cycles, there is a possibility that a significant number of Jewish voters, who regularly vote Democratic, will reconsider their allegiance to the Party, and in particular to Barack Obama. Some of the shift has come because there is a deep sense that the president is not sympathetic to Israel, in the way most of his predecessors have been, and that in a second term, the “real Obama," the one who listened to Reverend Wright and Rashid Khalidi, and Ali Abunimah and Bill Ayers for twenty years, will emerge. Not having to face voters or raise money again from Jewish donors, the president will be free to pursue his agenda, and pressure Israel much harder.
But now there may be another reason for Jews to be concerned. The new populist rage on the Left is delivering this message- that the bankers, the hedge funds, and Wall Street are the ones who “committed the crimes” and then got the people’s money through bailouts. When times are tough, the political fight becomes more one on who gets what slice of the pie, not on how to grow the pie. It was easy to predict that Jews would be singled out for their success. The fact that the interviewer in the video above hears the anti-Semitic rant and then moves on, suggests that this view was not considered out of the mainstream. Sadly, I think, among the Occupy Wall Street crowd, it isn’t.
