WILL THIS BE THE END OF THE ESTABLISHMENT ARGUMENT THAT CONSERVATIVES WON LAST WEEK? NOT A CHANCE-- ALTHOUGH IT SHOULD BE

With all the Beltway Establishment types, of both parties, along with their media allies, running hither and thither to rationalize last week's election grassroots victories as somehow a victory for the Special Interests they represent, one name that keeps coming up is Senator-elect Jim Webb. A few days ago I explained why I believe Webb does not fit into the mold the morons in the media are trying to pour him into. Today Webb explains it himself in the Wall Street Journal. You tell me if this guy sounds like another Inside-the-Beltway hack. Anyone who thought Jim Webb would be another Rahm Emanuel or Chuck Schumer patsy was never paying any attention. His first paragraph describes not only the wealthiest Americans whom have benefited so richly from Bush's unfair tax cuts, but the entire Inside-the-Beltway careerist Establishment, the cocktail party shithead brigade.

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. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes.

Incestuous corporate boards regularly approve compensation packages for chief executives and others that are out of logic's range. As this newspaper has reported, the average CEO of a sizable corporation makes more than $10 million a year, while the minimum wage for workers amounts to about $10,000 a year, and has not been raised in nearly a decade. When I graduated from college in the 1960s, the average CEO made 20 times what the average worker made. Today, that CEO makes 400 times as much.

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. Trickle-down economics didn't happen. Despite the vaunted all-time highs of the stock market, wages and salaries are at all-time lows as a percentage of the national wealth. 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.

Manufacturing jobs are disappearing. Many earned pension programs have collapsed in the wake of corporate "reorganization." And workers' ability to negotiate their futures has been eviscerated by the twin threats of modern corporate America: If they complain too loudly, their jobs might either be outsourced overseas or given to illegal immigrants.

He sounds more like Paul Wellstone or Sherrod Brown than Evan Bayh, Joe Lieberman or... Dick Cheney. He decries-- as "hubris"-- the sense of entitlement that the rich and powerful have come to feel under the past several presidential administrations. He exposes the social Darwinism among our plutocratic elite. And he launches a scathing and powerful attack on the vicious racism and xenophobia we're seeing so much of from the Pat Buchanan/Tom Tancredo Know Nothing fringe of the GOP. To me Webb sounds positively Rooseveltian in his warnings to the elite that their greed and avarice will lead to tragedy.

Most Americans reject such notions. But the true challenge is for everyone to understand that the current economic divisions in society are harmful to our future. It should be the first order of business for the new Congress to begin addressing these divisions, and to work to bring true fairness back to economic life. Workers already understand this, as they see stagnant wages and disappearing jobs.

America's elites need to understand this reality in terms of their own self-interest. A recent survey in the Economist warned that globalization was affecting the U.S. differently than other "First World" nations, and that white-collar jobs were in as much danger as the blue-collar positions which have thus far been ravaged by outsourcing and illegal immigration. That survey then warned that "unless a solution is found to sluggish real wages and rising inequality, there is a serious risk of a protectionist backlash" in America that would take us away from what they view to be the "biggest economic stimulus in world history."

More troubling is this: If it remains unchecked, this bifurcation of opportunities and advantages along class lines has the potential to bring a period of political unrest. Up to now, most American workers have simply been worried about their job prospects. Once they understand that there are (and were) clear alternatives to the policies that have dislocated careers and altered futures, they will demand more accountability from the leaders who have failed to protect their interests. The "Wal-Marting" of cheap consumer products brought in from places like China, and the easy money from low-interest home mortgage refinancing, have softened the blows in recent years. But the balance point is tipping in both cases, away from the consumer and away from our national interest.

Webb talks about the divisive and hateful politics of Karl Rove. Let's not forget little shitheads no one ever heard of like Kirsten Powers. "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."

Webb's message is not a liberal or a conservative message. It's a message to the Insiders that America belongs to all of us, not just the Bushes and the Emanuels and the Schumers and the Cheneys.