In most American newspapers and on television and radio outlets (with the exception of a number of small-circulation magazines), the idea that corporations and the wealthy in the U.S. should pay their fair share of taxes is a tough one to get off the ground.

The vast majority of Americans are bombarded with propaganda that tells them the rich pay their fair share and that giving ever more money to them through tax breaks and subsidies will provide the jobs that are desperately needed by millions of workers.

Nothing could be further from the truth. There is no good evidence from any economists or economic schools that giving the store away to the rich will provide a single job. They generally do not invest in enterprises that will result in jobs, unless those jobs are created in other countries - the places where they have sent our factories. That doesn’t help the workers in this country and has not done so for more than 40 years.

We know by now, from information given out by people across the political and economic spectrum that there is a disparity in wealth, between the wealthiest 1 percent and the rest of us, which has not existed in nearly a century. That kind of disparity literally makes for a sick society.

Poor people do not get the medical care they need. They do not get to educate their children as they should be educated. They live in houses that are substandard and neighborhoods that are not good or are deteriorating. They do not eat well and their children do not eat well. All together, that makes for people who are unhealthy. They get sick and they stay sick. When the society ignores them, it too becomes sick. Without getting too much into the public health implications of these conditions, this puts us in a dangerous situation, as a society and as a nation.

Economic and political analysts and even some rich people have pointed out that such conditions could be construed as class warfare. That is, the wealthy and Corporate America have gathered to themselves the fat of the land, the wealth that is produced by the American system. Important to this gathering, of course, is the “globalized economy.”

It may be an unusual thing for Americans to hear, but one of the country’s richest men, Warren Buffett, said of this modern era, “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” This, he told Ben Stein, who included it in a column in the New York Times. No one has to tell 20 million unemployed or underemployed workers that there is a class war going on, but they never would know it to read their newspapers and watch television news (forget radio “news”). Everything’s fine, they are told by the newsreaders and pundits…and there is no class war.

Also, he said, according to the online Brainy Quotes, “If anything, taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further. But I think that people at the high end, people like myself, should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we’ve ever had it.” Not many of the wealthy 1 percent have been so candid. In fact, to read the papers and to hear pundits on television or to listen to the AM radio chatterers, it is as if Buffett never said such things.

Ignoring the class war in America is as American as…the class war! Economic issues are reported upon and discussed in the largest and most important papers, as well as the small town papers in which stories about potholes, sidewalks, school taxes, and little corruptions are the order of most days. But, when anyone points out the despair of the working class and suggests that a little more in taxes from the rich would ease the pain somewhat, the messenger is charged with fomenting class warfare. And the charges of class warfare against workers and the poor come from all quarters: national politicians, CEOs, the media, even some professors, and especially Republicans and their Tea Party fringe.

Just this week, The Daily Gazette, the paper in the “hometown” of General Electric, Schenectady, N.Y., ran a headline on the editorial page, “Obama’s distorted vision.” In the editorial, President Obama’s call for more taxes on the rich was described in this way: “His vision of a government taking ever more from its productive citizens, then acting as a kind of national conscience and clearinghouse that decides who should get the spoils, left us chilled…”

The “Schenectady works” is where Thomas Edison and Charles P. Steinmetz and so many others did their work and created their electrical inventions and where, at one time, GE had some 40,000 workers, including engineers, researchers, machinists, and line workers in their factories. Today, 90 percent of those workers are gone and GE has moved most of its production to other countries. In the minds of the bigwigs in Corporate America everywhere, the present economic condition of Schenectady is not the fault of GE. It’s merely “the way things are.” First, they followed the cheap labor, and then they followed the customers (think India and China). The flight of GE might be considered the last local battle in class warfare that the workers of Schenectady lost.

So, The Daily Gazette, perhaps choosing not to offend the memory of the once - great GE “works” of their fair city, didn’t even want to use their own words in criticizing Obama. Rather, they reprinted the editorial from The Lima News (Ohio). The conclusion of the editorial: “Obama is correct that there are two competing visions for the future of the nation. One is born of our nation’s founders and that honors individual achievement and prosperity. The other extorts from it.”

This nonsense could be taken directly from a Tea Party newsletter, if there were such a thing. But then, Ohio is one of the states where the new Republican governor, John Kasich, recently made his the most populous state to enact anti - public worker legislation that curbs collective bargaining rights and curbs strikes for some 360,000 workers. The attack on workers and their unions continues, nationwide.

Both Schenectady and Ohio were once industrial powerhouses and the instruments that led to their prosperity were the unions. The collective bargaining rights that were gained by federal law and the strong unions of highly skilled workers that resulted, made the communities thrive because workers spent their money right away, right at home. It appears that neither Schenectady nor Ohio even know what made them successful. They certainly don’t know why they are in deep trouble. Right now, considering their economic and financial condition, they need scapegoats, so they have picked public workers and their unions. In doing so, they have joined with all of those who blame workers for the nation’s economic woes.

Most people who can read or afford a television set have to know that if America is near bankruptcy (don’t look at the stock markets, but at the condition of the people), it is not the fault of workers, children, the elderly, people of color, immigrants, or the disabled. It is the fault of those who have drained too much from the public purse into their own offshore accounts and they should pay more taxes.

A few of the more candid of the rich, like Buffett, know that there is a class war. They know who started it and they know who is winning it. The newspapers and newsreaders on television can’t seem to express the reality of it. They need a refresher course on Reporting 101.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, John Funiciello, is a labor organizer and former union organizer. His union work started when he became a local president of The Newspaper Guild in the early 1970s. He was a reporter for 14 years for newspapers in New York State. In addition to labor work, he is organizing family farmers as they struggle to stay on the land under enormous pressure from factory food producers and land developers. Click here to contact Mr. Funiciello.