Sen-elect Webb STANDS UP FOR America's WORKING FAMILIES! He states that pay inequity in America is grotesque and costs families their health-care...!

In the early days, WAL-MART made many of their employee-stockholders rich. But 2 or 3 generations downstream from founder Sam Walton, there is now an entire dynasty or clan of Wal-Mart heirs seeking to ride the gravy-train of their good fortune... and, in cases of Wal-Mart workers forced to seek STATE-FUNDED HEALTH CARE, those Walton heirs receive some of their inheritance income AT THE EXPENSE of BOTH their own workers, and at the expense of state and national TAXPAYERS!

This is an ABSURD and GROTESQUE distortion of "American values," made possible ONLY by the horrific disparity in the media, i.e. the overwhelming conservative bias of the corporate "mainstream media' which has helped right-wing conservatives turn the very label "liberal media" into a dirty word.

An example of the media's RIGHTWARD BIAS that enables the grotesque executive compensation rampant in America today, often at taxpayers expense, is found in this HuffingtonPost article about how TIME magazine tries to DISTORT the Democratic victory of Nov. 7th as a "centrist" agenda, even those those winning Democratic candidates, every single one, believed in such "liberal" policies as raising minimum wage, enforcing environmental regulations, and providing some means to certify and audit America's chaotic voting process.
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shaw/reading-the-pictures-em_b_34246.html
- http://mediamatters.org/items/200611090003
- http://mediamatters.org/items/200611130001?src=newsbox-atrios.blogspot.com

We SALUTE Senator-elect James Webb, and ferverently hopes that he and other Democrats of the Class of 2006 lead Americans to review the bias inherent in America's "money is its own god" agenda - an agenda that if left unchecked, will see America's standard of living DECLINE to that of South America and other regions where average (median) per capita income is only $200 per month - TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS per MONTH.

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Class Struggle
American workers have a chance to be heard. ]
BY JIM WEBB
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009246


The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes.

Incestuous corporate boards regularly approve compensation packages for chief executives and others that are out of logic's range. As this newspaper has reported, the average CEO of a sizeable corporation makes more than $10 million a year, while the minimum wage for workers amounts to about $10,000 a year, and has not been raised in nearly a decade. When I graduated from college in the 1960s, the average CEO made 20 times what the average worker made. Today, that CEO makes 400 times as much.

In the age of globalization and outsourcing, and with a vast underground labor pool from illegal immigration, the average American worker is seeing a different life and a troubling future. Trickle-down economics didn't happen. Despite the vaunted all-time highs of the stock market, wages and salaries are at all-time lows as a percentage of the national wealth. At the same time, medical costs have risen 73% in the last six years alone. Half of that increase comes from wage-earners' pockets rather than from insurance, and 47 million Americans have no medical insurance at all.

Manufacturing jobs are disappearing. Many earned pension programs have collapsed in the wake of corporate "reorganization." And workers' ability to negotiate their futures has been eviscerated by the twin threats of modern corporate America: If they complain too loudly, their jobs might either be outsourced overseas or given to illegal immigrants.

This ever-widening divide is too often ignored or downplayed by its beneficiaries. A sense of entitlement has set in among elites, bordering on hubris. When I raised this issue with corporate leaders during the recent political campaign, I was met repeatedly with denials, and, from some, an overt lack of concern for those who are falling behind. A troubling arrogance is in the air among the nation's most fortunate. Some shrug off large-scale economic and social dislocations as the inevitable byproducts of the "rough road of capitalism." Others claim that it's the fault of the worker or the public education system, that the average American is simply not up to the international challenge, that our education system fails us, or that our workers have become spoiled by old notions of corporate paternalism.
Still others have gone so far as to argue that these divisions are the natural results of a competitive society. Furthermore, an unspoken insinuation seems to be inundating our national debate: Certain immigrant groups have the "right genetics" and thus are natural entrants to the "overclass," while others, as well as those who come from stock that has been here for 200 years and have not made it to the top, simply don't possess the necessary attributes.

Most Americans reject such notions. But the true challenge is for everyone to understand that the current economic divisions in society are harmful to our future. It should be the first order of business for the new Congress to begin addressing these divisions, and to work to bring true fairness back to economic life. Workers already understand this, as they see stagnant wages and disappearing jobs.

America's elites need to understand this reality in terms of their own self-interest. A recent survey in the Economist warned that globalization was affecting the U.S. differently than other "First World" nations, and that white-collar jobs were in as much danger as the blue-collar positions which have thus far been ravaged by outsourcing and illegal immigration. That survey then warned that "unless a solution is found to sluggish real wages and rising inequality, there is a serious risk of a protectionist backlash" in America that would take us away from what they view to be the "biggest economic stimulus in world history."

More troubling is this: If it remains unchecked, this bifurcation of opportunities and advantages along class lines has the potential to bring a period of political unrest. Up to now, most American workers have simply been worried about their job prospects. Once they understand that there are (and were) clear alternatives to the policies that have dislocated careers and altered futures, they will demand more accountability from the leaders who have failed to protect their interests. The "Wal-Marting" of cheap consumer products brought in from places like China, and the easy money from low-interest home mortgage refinancing, have softened the blows in recent years. But the balance point is tipping in both cases, away from the consumer and away from our national interest.


The politics of the Karl Rove era were designed to distract and divide the very people who would ordinarily be rebelling against the deterioration of their way of life. Working Americans have been repeatedly seduced at the polls by emotional issues such as the predictable mantra of "God, guns, gays, abortion and the flag" while their way of life shifted ineluctably beneath their feet. But this election cycle showed an electorate that intends to hold government leaders accountable for allowing every American a fair opportunity to succeed.
With this new Congress, and heading into an important presidential election in 2008, American workers have a chance to be heard in ways that have eluded them for more than a decade. Nothing is more important for the health of our society than to grant them the validity of their concerns. And our government leaders have no greater duty than to confront the growing unfairness in this age of globalization.

Mr. Webb is the Democratic senator-elect from Virginia.

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We include here backup for Senator-elect Webb's notions that this election was far more "liberal," and that gross income disparity is indeed a concern of millions of Americans, than Republicans and their conservative media allies portray.
Here is the MediaMatters.Org SURVEY of those 2006 candidates that some writers in the press (and Republican Party) portray as "CONSERVATIVE Democrats" but who in this survey OVERWHELMINGLY, unanimously SUPPORT "liberal" progressive polices.
(note- only 5 of 27 of these candidates supported the anti-reproductive-health "Right to Life" anti-abortion agenda.)

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2006 Survey of "liberal" and "Conservative" policies for Democratic Election Candidates
http://mediamatters.org/items/200611090003

Following the November 7 midterm elections, Media Matters for America examined the policy positions of those Democratic House candidates who, as of the morning of November 8, had defeated Republican incumbents or been elected to open seats previously held by Republicans. This survey of the Democrats' campaign websites, candidate questionnaires, and statements in news reports found that these incoming lawmakers agree on a set of issues central to the Democratic platform, including raising the minimum wage, changing course in Iraq, and protecting Social Security:

All 27 candidates support raising the minimum wage.
All 27 candidates advocate changing course in Iraq.
All 27 candidates oppose efforts to privatize Social Security.
Only two of the 27 candidates do not support embryonic stem cell research.
Only five of the 27 candidates describe themselves as "pro-life."