I listened to Bill Bennet's radio program this morning where he interviewed Charles Murray about his new book 'Coming Apart'.
It was an interesting conversation and I wouldn't be surprised if what Murray says becomes yet another part of the Repuglicans 2012 campaign narrative ... because they love to point a finger at the perceived moral failings of others.
Even if the statistics that Murray conveys in the book are true -- and they maybe -- he and Bennet (I suppose Limgaugh, too) and the sanctimonious Repuglicans are totally blind as to the real reasons why there are now profound class divisions in the United States.
Murray and Bennet still wanted to blame it all on 1960s cultural changes, in other words, they don't have a clue and are still trying to ascribe everything they think is wrong with America on hippies, the women's movement and the so-called welfare state.
But what is actually rather obvious is that starting with Nixon and reaching its fruition under Reagan is the economic plundering of the American working and middle class. Divorce, single parenthood, homelessness, underemployment, failing schools are all symptoms of a working and middle class suffering from increasing economic stress. Nixon-Reagan-Bush have been relentless in their efforts to destroy good unions and the good wages and benefits they earned; and trade with China, globalism, "free" trade has shipped good working class jobs overseas for the sake of corporate profits.
So, at least from the descriptions offered in the radio interview, most of the social-cultural decline Murray talks about can be ascribed to the increased concentration of power and wealth into the hands of the upper 20 percent class. They can't or don't want to see that, of course, working and middle class people have to rely on government services more often when their union jobs and livable wage jobs are shipped to Mexico and China, while health insurance and tuition and fees, etc. continue to rise to fill the bank accounts of the super rich.
You bet the upper class has a more stable marriage rate and less single parents and better educations ... they have the resources to acquire those things. What a surprise that male unemployment is high in working class America ... their jobs are in China.
It was pathetic, too, to hear Bill Bennet's disappointment when even Murray had to concede that the upper twenty percent is NOT composed mostly of elitist "secular" liberals. As folks here at DU know, there is a governing class that does contain liberals, but mostly it is those who are reaping the benefits of the financialization of the economy, i.e., 'conservatives' who inhabit the upper class.
My suspicion, is that progressives may want to accept the basics of Murray's research and his numbers -- but use them to point out the rather obvious truth that the Occupy movement has articulated so well: the "Romney class" is waging war against the rest of us ... and they are winning ... so far.
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