Public Employee Press

Media Beat: Book review
War on working people

Our private sector pension system is in its death throes, and independent economic journalist Jack Rasmus maintains that its coming crash is just one part of the “class war at home” that Republicans and Corporate America have been waging since the Reagan Revolution.

We usually see each battle of this war against working people in isolation. But in his new book, “The War at Home: The Corporate Offensive From Reagan to Bush,” Rasmus shows that together they constitute a massive assault on the standard of living of 95 percent of the U.S. population.

The offensive involves exporting jobs through free trade agreements, depriving a growing number of Americans of health insurance, and cutting workers’ pay and retirement income through attacks on our unions, minimum wages, full-time work, private pensions and Social Security.

Combined with tax breaks for business and the wealthy, these moves add up to a massive transfer of trillions of dollars of wealth from most of us to those in the top 5 precent income bracket. Rasmus shows how our standard of living has suffered because of deterioration in all these crucial areas — beginning with Reagan and continuing through Bush I, Clinton and now Bush II.

This offensive has already spanned a generation, and it has accelerated markedly under the current Bush. While many see this as the repeal of Roosevelt’s New Deal, Rasmus says it looks like a return to the United States of the late 1800s — the so-called Gilded Age of corporate plunder.

Bush’s disastrous foreign policy blunders and the War in Iraq focus our attention abroad while the rich pick our pockets at home. Rasmus is convinced that with only two years left in office, Bush will soon try to accelerate his “War at Home” to get the job done.

Rasmus examines the split within the Democratic Party between conservative and pro-labor forces and the corrupting influence of big money in politics. He suggests that a Democratic win in the Congressional elections might at best slow the attack, unless a new militant labor movement emerges in the battle. The 514 page book is available at our library, in stores or direct from the publisher at $19.95 by calling 925-209-3933.

— Ken Nash
DC 37 Education Fund Library, Room 211