Politicians tell us that they want to serve their fellow humans. To whom?

I can think of few books about a slice of American history that have more relevance to the vital debates of today than Sam Pizzigati’s “The Rich Don’t Always Win.” Sam’s book tells the story of how the United States, one of the world’s most unequal societies in the early 1900s, became by the middle of the 20th century one of the most equal nations on earth. He shows how average Americans, organized in the labor and other movements, mobilized and vanquished a plutocracy even more powerful than ours today.

Why is this relevant to today? Well, starting with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, the U.S. government — fueled by a far right ideology — passed “free market” taxes and other policies that left the nation once again as one of the most unequal on earth by the beginning of this century.

In case you were concerned for the .1% during our planet’s continued economic woes, fear not. For the third year in a row, Rolls Royce motorcar sales have set a high record.

And, even more sweetly, the United States has recaptured sales leadership from the upstart Chinese!

All the handwringing over the fiscal cliff has centered on the “job creators” and the “middle class,” but the last time I checked, there was a non-trivial segment of the US population that falls into neither of these categories: the poor.

And yet, the DC chattering class doesn’t notice the difference between these two, nor address the separate needs of these two goups.

We’ve found Our voice, I think.

A year ago this week, the original Occupy Wall Street camp in Zuccotti Park was evicted. The camps served as a focal point for a vibrant protest movement that shook up the country, but they galvanized the anger and fear of working people around the country, struggling to make it through the Great Recession.

The mainstream press often did its best to portray the movement as simply a bunch of unwashed kids without a message, without demands. Yet if one ever doubted that the movement’s message got through, the collection of letters in The Trouble is the Banks, from Occupy the Boardroom and n+1 serves as proof.

There are stories about how the 1% are running the show in offshore fisheries all over the planet. They’ve raped many, many places, destroying coastal fishing cultures that had survived for thousands of years. It is why we have Somali pirates on the level they now exist. Most used to be coastal fishermen. The fish are gone, raked up mostly by large factory ships.

It was a perfect example of the aspirational 53% who want so badly to be 1% that they’ll defend the Oligarchs against the truth chanted by their own natural allies. These people, represented on the street yesterday by Raging Man, cannot see their own natural affinity with the 99%. And so they scream and holler their allegiance to the 1%, thinking that they’ll be admitted to the club if they defend “their” team in the street.

When, actually — to the Oligarchs — they are all just street rabble yelling at one another, to be ignored and belittled and crushed beneath their boots when necessary. All of them cogs in The Owners’ machine, some more aware of their role as indebted serfs than others.

Paul Ryan was asked about a CBO report showing that the top 1% managed to cope a whopping income raise over the last few decades. He worried that people might misuse the report to stop limit mobility and turn all of you into lazy hammock dwelling sponges. Huh.

Today Limbaugh was blubbering about how the Democrat Party has “an ongoing arrogant contempt for the middle class.”