The Hightower Report

REBUILD THE MIDDLE CLASS

It's Labor Day weekend! Do you know where your middle class is?

In the ditch, that's where. It has been shoved there by callous and selfish profit-seekers rushing to get cheap labor in China and India, taking America's middle-class jobs with them. It has been shoved there, too, by Bush's anti-government ideologues, who've been working feverishly to dismantle the middle-class framework of labor laws, health care, and pension protection. It has been shoved there, as well, by a weak-kneed Democratic leadership that has lost touch with its populist roots and by a conglomerate media establishment that has abandoned any connection to – much less concern for – working stiffs.

The economic and political elites crow that the U.S. economy continues to grow phenomenally – though they seem unaware that this growth is based on low incomes and low prospects for the great majority of Americans, while the benefits of growth are being piped to the very wealthiest families. Middle-class incomes continue to fall (even with families working three or four jobs), and poverty continues to rise. Yet the elites stride blithely by, oblivious to the fact that America is breaking apart beneath their well-shod feet.

When told that polls show Americans are now worried about inflation, a clueless George W. said, "They cite inflation?" You see, he's told that inflation is up only 2.7% – but he's totally ignorant of the fact that milk prices are up 13% in the past year, oranges 20%, dried beans 11%, and both bread and chicken 10%. That's nothing for the elites, but these are staples for the real America that the elites no longer see or hear.

A middle class exists only if workaday Americans demand it, fight for it, and build it. That's what we must do between this Labor Day and next year's – when we'll be in the thick of a presidential race.

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LIFE IN IRAQ

According to the Dick and George Show, broadcast daily from the White House, things really are looking up in Iraq.

Hmmm. They might want to ask the Iraqi people about that. Ordinary folks report that life there is miserable. Violence erupts constantly and unpredictably, fear is everyone's companion, bombings and bodies are everywhere, it's dangerous to leave your house, jobs are scarce, basic services are practically nonexistent, and distrust, frustration, and anger rule.

It's so bad that some 2 million Iraqis have fled their country, including 40% of professionals. For example, one-third of doctors have fled – no surprise, since more than 2,000 doctors have been murdered. Three thousand people a day are leaving Iraq – so many that Saudi Arabia, supposedly our ally in this mess, is building a 560-mile fence on its border to try to keep its "neighbors" out.

Another 1.6 million Iraqis are displaced within their own country, forced from their homes by various factions in this civil war. Many of these are children. Only 30% of Iraqi children attended school last year. Before the war, nearly every child was in school.

Worse, the nation's kids are in shock from routinely witnessing violence, including gruesome killings. They see the dead bodies of close family members and friends. A recent study of 2,500 grade-schoolers in Baghdad found 70% of them showing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

And, while Bush brags that his war has liberated women, there has been an explosion of violence against them since the war began, including abductions, rapes, torture, public beheadings, and hangings. One of the female members of the parliament says bluntly, "This is the worst time ever in Iraqi women's lives."

Did I mention that 71% of Iraqis want George, Dick, and our troops out of their country?