This week's overview of Class War, as waged by the class most aware of and most eager to engage in Class War--the rich--wouldn't be complete without mention of the recent summit in Philadelphia April 27 and the ongoing theme sounded by Bill Clinton and other prominent Republicans of the glories of volunteerism.

Clinton's ability to marshall a variety of nominally opposing politicians behind his volunteerism push should be the first clue that this is a bit more significant than the usual photo op cynicism that clutters White House pronouncements and evening newscasts. Lauding citizen groups who attend to basic social needs is a no-brainer. It's a nice, harmless, pro-active thing, sorta like being anti-domestic violence; who claims to be PRO- domestic violence? Yet with all those anti-battering and sexual assault men, women keep getting terrorized. Similarly, with all those pro-let's- tackle-pressing-social-issues politicians, the social needs keep getting more severe.

Volunteerism is, quite simply, spin control. By focusing on what taxpayers do in our limited spare time with our limited resources, it takes the attention away from what government isn't doing with far greater resources. It also trains us to not expect pay for valued work--most blatantly, through the oxymoronic mandatory volunteerism programs being pushed these days in public schools. Most importantly, we ignore what government is doing instead with its vast resources--namely, making the problems far worse while a few folks at the top get far richer.

Of course Bill Clinton loves the photo op of eight miles of volunteers picking up garbage. Somebody has to clean up the fucking messes he and the corporate state plutocracy he embodies have created. But, as any parent knows, endlessly following around and picking up messes doesn't fix the problem; forcing the child to do it themselves does.