Many members of the netroots community have been angry, upset, or uncertain about Jim Webb of VA. His record is not what you expect from a Democratic Senator. He is an Annapolis Grad and a former Marine. He was Secretary of the Navy under Reagan. He started out as an Democrat, changed to the Republicans, and has returned to the Democrats.
Today, in the Wall Street Journal, Senator Webb has an op-ed piece. Webb has gone to the paper of record for corporate power, where he has clearly and forcibly stood up for the people against that same corporate power. Read the entire editorial. It’s worth your time. I’ve snipped out some prime pieces below.
Class Struggle
American workers have a chance to be heard.BY JIM WEBB
Wednesday, November 15, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST
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.
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.
<snip>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.
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.
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.
Sen. Webb develops this theme, and others, in his excellent book, Born Fighting.
What do you think? I’m excited about him. He is man of substance.