Like Walsh Said


Posting at 9:01 p.m. eastern time last night about the disreputable Andrew Breitbart and Tucker Carlson, Salon's Joan Walsh summed up:

Shirley Sherrod is right: A lot of people are spending a lot of energy to get folks like the Spooners and Sherrod to think they should be enemies, when the real issue is class. The left should remember that lesson, because the right is invested in making sure no one learns it.

Despite offering Sherrod her job- or a job, probably a promotion- back, it's unclear whether the Obama Administration has learned the lesson. It may have taken a fan to remind Rush Limbaugh, but today he confirmed Walsh's observation that the right is working hard to get blacks and middle class blacks "to think they should be enemies." One of Rush's callers said Sherrod "realized that her real discrimination was for those who "have" versus those who "have not." Doesn't that mean she's the perfect employee for this administration --" A moment later, Limbaugh commented

Well, they are talking about it in a way because "the haves versus the have-nots" is a great moral crusade for the left. The haves versus have-nots, class warfare, is a great moral crusade. So she's now a moral crusader.

Conservatives want us to avert our eyes and ignore what is happening to the middle class (of whatever race). It's a simple matter of numbers: more whites than blacks, so focus the attention of the American people on the differences between the races. That "great moral crusade" the left largely avoids (while the right fights on behalf of the rich and powerful) is highlighted by data (graphs, below)from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, whose report noted

Between 1979 and 2007, average after-tax incomes for the top 1 percent rose by 281 percent after adjusting for inflation -- an increase in income of $973,100 per household -- compared to increases of 25 percent ($11,200 per household) for the middle fifth of households and 16 percent ($2,400 per household) for the bottom fifth.

As of 2007 (the gap having been exacerbated since then)

the share of after-tax income going to the top 1 percent hit its highest level (17.1 percent) since 1979, while the share going to the middle one-fifth of Americans shrank to its lowest level during this period (14.1 percent).

Nothing to see here, folks. Move right along.

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