“The workingman – and this is the day to write him in capital letters – has given me what I have, made me what I am, and will make me what I hope to be; and I thank him for all, and above all for giving me eyes to see, a heart to feel and a voice to speak for the workingman.”
“Comrades, this is the day for Workingmen to think of the Class Struggle and the Ballot …. ”
(Eugene V. Debs, “Labor Day Greeting”, Social Democrat Herald, September 1904)
The “Bryan-College Station for Bernie Sanders” Facebook page is one of thousands of social media sites that have been started over the recent months to promote Senator Bernie Sanders’ candidacy for the Presidency of the United States.
The page consists of posts of articles that pertain to Bernie, his campaign, and his positions on issues that all of America is concerned about, There are also posts about Bernie supporters in the Bryan-College Station-Texas A&M University communities in Texas and their grassroots activities to bring about the political change in America that Bernie Sanders is so passionately advocating.
On July 13, AlterNet, the on-line news source, posted an article titled “35 Mind-Blowing Facts About Inequality”.
In the introductory paragraph of the article, Larry Schwartz, the author of the article writes
” … (Bernie Sanders) has even blasted the orthodoxy of economic growth for its own sake, saying according to Monday’s Washington Post that unless economic spoils can be redistributed to make more Americans’ lives better, all the growth will go to the top 1% anyway, so who needs it?”
Schwartz then recounts the growth of income and wealth inequality in the United States and the world since World War Two.
He concludes his article with thirty-five facts about inequality that will “fry your brain”.
Here are several of those facts:
” … the poorest half of the US owns 2.5% of the country’s wealth. The top 1% owns 35% of it.”
“Over 20 percent of all American children live below the poverty line. This rate is higher than almost all other developed countries.”
“Four hundred Americans have more wealth, $2 trillion, than half of all Americans combined. That is approximately the GDP of Russia.”
You can read the article and the other 32 facts about inequality here.
“Think for a moment of the present condition of this country and what it might be if the working class but made intelligent use of its organized industrial strength and its political power!”
(Eugene V. Debs, “Review and Personal Statement”, Chicago speech, October 2, 1922)
Syd Hoff (1912-2004) was a cartoonist and children’s book author. In 1933, Hof began contributing political cartoons to leftist newspapers and magazines such as The Daily Worker and New Masses under the pseudonym, A. Redfield. Hoff also drew cartoons for the New Yorker magazine under the title of “The Ruling Clawss.”
Below are two of Hoff’s political cartoons that speak to the economic inequality that existed between the wealth class and the working class in the 1920’s and ’30’s. These cartoons could just as well have been drawn today to cartoon the economic inequality that exists in the United States and World.