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A Guided Tour of Class War

By Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.com. Posted June 6, 2006.


In this in-depth interview, Barbara Ehrenreich reveals how the class war rages on, and why middle-class Americans are so worried.

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You turn into a middle-class, suburban housing project on the periphery of Charlottesville, Virginia, and at a row of attached homes, you pull up in front of the one with the yellow "for sale" sign on the tiny patch of grass. Ushered inside, you take in an interior of paint cans, a mop and pail, and cleaning liquids. On the small porch that overlooks a communal backyard, workmen are painting the weathered wood railings a nice, clean white. Later, when they're gone, we step out for a minute, on a balmy late spring afternoon, and she says, "You know what I need out here? Flowers!" And it's true, the nearest neighbor's small porch is a riot of red, orange, and purple blooms, while hanging from her railing are three plant holders with only dirt and the scraps of dead vegetation in them. ]

Not surprising really. Barbara Ehrenreich, our foremost journalist of, and dissector of class is regularly not here. Practically a household name since she entered the low-wage working class disguised as herself and, in her already classic account, Nickel and Dimed, reported back on just how difficult it is for so many hard-working Americans to get by. Then, a few years later, she repeated the process with the middle class, only to find herself not in the workforce but among the desperately unemployed who had fallen out of an ever meaner corporate world. Her most recent book, Bait and Switch, The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream, was the result. Now, she spends much time traveling the country talking to audiences about her -- and their -- experiences. She has become a blogger, is involved in launching a new group to help organize the middle-class unemployed, and in her spare time she's even finished a new book.

Now, after four years in Virginia (at least some of the time), she's about to head north. She gestures at the bookshelves. "There are a lot fewer books this week than last. I'm giving them to the Virginia Organizing Project." And it's true, the place is clearly being stripped down for sale. But you have the feeling, looking around, that it was a no-frills life to begin with, as Ehrenreich herself, in her short hair, jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers, presents a distinctly no-frills look. (Suddenly, imagining her with an image make-over advisor in Bait and Switch trying to give herself that perfect corporate look of employability seems amusing.)

Her mind is wide-ranging and daring indeed. Some years back, in a book entitled Blood Rites, she even managed to turn traditional ideas about the origins of war on their head. She is a thoroughly no-nonsense national resource.

Looking forward to a trip to the local gym followed by a visit with her two grandchildren (the daughters of her daughter Rosa Brooks, a law professor and columnist for the Los Angeles Times), we sit down at a paper-and-book cluttered dining-room table, which shows no evidence of having held a meal in some time, and -- eye on the clock, no fooling around -- begin.

Tomdispatch: You were at a graduation ceremony recently where the students were bouncing beach balls in the stands. The college president leaned over and whispered, "This is the problem with having the commencement in the afternoon. Some of these people have been partying for hours." In response, you wrote: "There are reasons, whether the graduates know them or not, to want to greet one's entrance into the work world with an excess of Bud." Could you start by explaining why an excess of Bud might be an appropriate response to leaving college today?

Barbara Ehrenreich: Well, a lot of graduates are simply not going to find jobs appropriate to their credentials. They're going to be wait staff. They're going to be call-center operators. Their twenties could be spent like that. I recently got Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute to do some research on this. It's still tentative, but he found that 17% of people in jobs that do not require college degrees have them. Those are very often people in their twenties who can't get professional-type employment, or people in their fifties who have been through one too many lay-off and are no longer employable because they're quote too old. So I was thinking of that, and then I was thinking that for a lot of those who do get jobs, you know, the fun is over. They're going to be sitting in cubicles and they won't be able to bounce balls around when they're in boring meetings with their bosses.

TD: The real earnings of college graduates fell by 5% between 2000 and 2004, so they also have that to look forward to.

BE: There still is a real big earnings gap between college and non-college graduates, but it's begun to shrink. Jared tells me that the reason it was growing so fast in the nineties was not that college graduates were doing so well, but that low-wage people, blue-collar people, were doing so poorly. Their wages were being held down -- and that remains true.


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Tom Engelhardt, editor of Tomdispatch.com, is co-founder of the American Empire Project and author of "The End of Victory Culture."

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View:
aggressors
Posted by: rsaxto on Jun 6, 2006 4:18 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Impeach the aggressors. Parade the death and destruction they have caused before them. Renew the democracy with real voting/counting and respect for us all not just the super rich. End fascism in America once and for all. If we don't impeach, fascism will grow until it engulfs all of America and all the world.

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FINALLY, one article in 100 that addresses TRUE Leftist issues
Posted by: cry0fan on Jun 6, 2006 5:48 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This article is a TRUE leftist article. Almost EVERY article on a TRUE Leftist website should be a TRUE leftist article.

Why is it that the topic and issues of this article are SO VERY RARE on websites like Alternet, Salon, Mother Jones, The Nation, Huff Post, Daily Kos.

Articles like this should be run every day, and more than one.

Now you know why America does not have what the Europeans have.

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The middle class have themselves to blame
Posted by: CounterCorp on Jun 6, 2006 5:47 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Ehrenreich says in the article:

"You know, after I wrote Nickel and Dimed, so many middle-class people would say to me: 'Oh, what's wrong with these [working class] people? Why do they take it?' Well, they didn't just take it! ... With the white-collar people, though, it just seemed so internalized. I couldn't get over ... how they had internalized obedience. The fear of standing out in any way that might be noticed seemed to grip them.

It's not that the middle class are afraid -- well, maybe now they are, or should be -- but that they weren't afraid when they should have been. The middle class watched the working class jobs get exported overseas, and never said a word about it. They didn't care, because those weren't their jobs, and they listened to Bill Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council lie to them about free trade and the New Economy, and they discovered libertarianism and decided they didn't need the government any more, it was just costing them money and wasting it on poor people.

Now that they're finding their jobs disappearing, they think someone should help them -- who? Who's left, the rich? Why would the rich help the middle class, when the middle class wouldn't help the poor? What's in it for them?

The problem with the middle class is that they always think they'll be rich someday, so they identify with the rich and scorn the poor. They've had countless opportunities to vote for candidates, policies, and parties that would make the economy and the country as a whole more fair and supportive -- including by raising taxes on the rich and re-regulating corporations.

But since the middle class always think it's going to be rich some day, they insist on cutting taxes and relying on the mythical "free market" to keep corporations from acting like the sociopaths they are -- while poor-mouthing any kind of government safety net as "socialism", with the kind of contempt once reserved for communism. Ehrenreich herself notes this when she writes:

"There's a lot in our society that makes people with college degrees and white-collar jobs think they're special and superior. But next time you're seeing that person pushing the broom, remember, you may be one year, maybe even six months away from that yourself. You're not special, not in the eyes of the [upper class] owners and the CEOs."

Well, now the middle class chickens have come home to roost. If you count on the aristocracy to treat you well because you sucked up to them all these years because you thought you'd get into the club too, you placed the wrong bet. And don't expect the poor to pity or help you -- where were you when they were losing their jobs? You were too busy making money during the stock market speculative bubble, and patting yourself on the back for being so "entreprenuerial." Yeah, right, so where's your New Economy now, suckers?

www.countercorp.org

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» As Martin Niemoller never said: Posted by: medstudgeek
» conformity at work Posted by: medstudgeek
Ehrenreich speaks truth to power on immigration
Posted by: cry0fan on Jun 6, 2006 5:52 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
from the article:
TD: The issue of class and immigration threatens to split what's left of the Bush administration constituency, but not just them. How do you read the class politics of immigration?

BE: My son went to a Minutemen gathering in the southwest and the fascinating thing was that a lot of the leaders talked a very big anti-corporate line: The corporations are crushing us, we're the real Americans, and so forth. In their minds, the immigrants are part of the thing that's crushing them and it's so much easier to pick up a gun and go to the border than to confront your employer.



Maybe because that is the direction that the talk radio is leading them? Ya ever listen to talk radio? It leads the pseudoPopulist right, leads them into directions where they can least hurt the overclass.

But at least the Minutemen are doing SOMETHING to help American workers.

The talk radio leads the right and the websites lead the left away from areas that would hurt the overclass.

Our energies must first be directed inwards, to help Americans.

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GO BARBARA EHRENREICH!
Posted by: medstudgeek on Jun 6, 2006 6:20 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
How about we take up a collection to buy her surgery so she can impersonate the rich? I'm sure she'd like to look good too. Maybe it doesn't work at this age. Oh well. I'd say the upper middle class but that's probably where she is now!

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It's the system stupid
Posted by: pleaseplanttrees on Jun 6, 2006 6:51 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I keep reading people say we need to rescue the constitution and our supposed "rights". We have today the only logical end result of the kind of "equality" the founding fathers wanted. They never intended for everyone to have rights only the rich and powerful. They had no intention of developing a system radically different then the fuedal systems they were comfortable with. They wanted power to remain in the hands of the few hence the electoral college. So they created a new type of monarchy that could be theoretically removed every four years. I personally do not want to rescue the constitution but tear it up and start over completely. Humanity needs to put an end once and for all to the pyramid socio-economic scheme that has plagued it since the beginning we need a new model. Unfortunately i am no longer an optimist i believe we are completely doomed and it is too late for change it should have happened years ago. The electoral college and the so-called democratic representative government we have was not intended to end class but to perpetuate it more subtly. I tire of the ignorant saying we live in a democracy we do not, we live in an entrenched capitalist socio-economic pyramid scheme. We need an end to the electoral college an end to democrats and republicans an end to politicians all together please do not think you can reform this system to make it more fair that is fairy tale thinking. Marx never imagined the capitalist politicians would read his manefesto and then implement "social programs" to placate the poor(I mean provide safety nets) and create "public" education to teach the masses what to think not how to think for themselves. Marx never imagined it would be so easy to manipulate the masses through media, propaganda and nationalist pride. I think he over estimated the human animals ability to care about his own well being or anyone else's for that matter. Today the people in power do not even care about the few safety nets once established they know the imagined revolution is never going to come because the common man has been completely subdued by their own ignorance they self manage any impulse for revolution with thier "american pride". Of course marx was right religion is still the great opiate. The rich know they have everything they want in this life while the poor "believe" their praying will bring them everything they want in the next life( most convienient for the rich). What amazes me is that people are still falling for that pipedream. I mean how many of you have beat your head up against a wall trying to "reason" with idealouges of all persuasions who are completely incapable of mature dialouge. We are all trained only to see differences absolutely no simularities we are all manipulated into a war of words. Blogs are no danger to the current system for as long as your blaming and name calling each other endlessy and driving each other mad with your apparent inability to relate there will always be the status quo.

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» RE: It's the system stupid Posted by: pleaseplanttrees
» RE: It's the system stupid Posted by: Lincoln fan
» RE: It's the system stupid Posted by: pleaseplanttrees
» RE: It's the system stupid Posted by: Lincoln fan
The corporate oligarchy
Posted by: rac on Jun 6, 2006 6:55 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
“I’ve got to do for me and mine.”
~ Wash Hogwallop
O Brother, Where Art Thou?

I believe our representatives have abdicated their stewardship of democracy for all. Congressman Hogwallop has betrayed us. We don’t ask more in taxes from the rich simply because they hold most of the wealth. They also hold a greater responsibility to keep our democratic system well oiled and running smoothly. The rich and powerful have their hands on the wheel of America’s prosperity. When they act irresponsibly, they drive the working poor into a ditch. It is a purposeful and calculated act against the well being of us all. I say to those who are starting to understand this: We can no longer just boo the rascals from the bleachers. The officiating is all corrupt. The players are on steroids, the hotdogs are carcinogenic, and skyboxes overshadow everything. It’s time to get in the game!

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» RE: The corporate oligarchy Posted by: pleaseplanttrees
Unite. For what; against what?
Posted by: Lincoln fan on Jun 6, 2006 6:59 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The gist of Ms. Ehrenreich's books seems to be that we are in a class war and that we should unite. That said, she doesn't come up with any suggestion of how this can be done, at least not in this interview. Where are the lines drawn? Are the interests of the working class more in common with "the idle rich" or the "idle poor"? Should the working class unite with one of those classes against the other or unite against them both?

TD: In terms of the issues that matter to you, can you explain the difference between Democrats and Republicans to me?
BE: [Laughs.] What kind of question is that, Tom!


I think that here she sloughed off the key question. The answer to this leads to what I believe is the problem and to where I think the battle lines should be drawn.

My answer along with many other's answer is that there is very little difference in the parties. This is not an evil in itself. The evil is that they both represent the interests of the corporate establishment. If they both represented the interests of the people there would be no problem.

This defines the enemy as both political parties and the establishment which controls them. In order to defeat the establishment we must first control both parties. Let me give my definition of the rich establishment that I believe is the enemy. It is not the rich people; it's the rich corporations. I believe that like Frankenstein's monster they have run amok. Today we have out of control corporations running our government. Stockholders own the corporations but they don't control them. Managers manage the corporations but they don't control them. At best the managers are on runaway horses each trying to avoid being trampled by the others.

Just as voters think that the government works for us, the stockholders think that the corporations work for them. All of us are deluded. How else, for instance, could we have corporate lobbyists writing laws that our legislators pass, allowing our air and water to be polluted? These laws harm all people, rich, poor, working class, politicians, and lobbyists. They are passed becaise they contribute to profits, the life blood of corporations. Our enemy is not other people but the corporations. It is necessary that we take control of our government and put our government in control of the corporations.

I think that this can be done surprisingly easily. I propose a grassroots movement that can take control of the platforms of both parties before the next election. We can make "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" a reality.

Click on The Lincoln Initiative

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» RE: Unite. For what; against what? Posted by: pleaseplanttrees
» RE: Unite. For what; against what? Posted by: pleaseplanttrees
» RE: Unite. For what; against what? Posted by: Lincoln fan
» RE: Unite. For what; against what? Posted by: pleaseplanttrees
» RE: Unite. For what; against what? Posted by: Lincoln fan
» RE: Unite. For what; against what? Posted by: pleaseplanttrees
» RE: Unite. For what; against what? Posted by: Lincoln fan
» Disunited we stand Posted by: jwg
Divide & Conquer
Posted by: NoPCZone on Jun 6, 2006 8:36 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It's as old as history and people still keep falling into the trap. Playing on the human psyche, those who dupe humanity into wars, genocide & repression play on differences-- real or imagined. The human mind is wired to notice that which is different more readily than that which is alike and most societies are built upon that foundation. The reality that we are very alike gets buried in the noise & commotion.

Good things happen when people act from a common humanity rather than from a divisive interest. Tolerance, social mobility, enlightenment, justice, peace and prosperity are birthed in such an environment. The inverse is also true. Intolerance, social stratification, repression, injustice, war and poverty usually start with the accusation or identification of some 'them' or 'they'.

Those living in the projects, a trailer park, a gated community, a communal farm, a homeless shelter, a 5th Avenue Apartment, a brownstone or a suburban tract house have far more in common than they lack. The G.E.D and the Ph.D. need the same things and desire the same things for their children. The new immigrant and the D.A.R. member share the same desire for freedom. The inner city kid and the student at Sidwell Friends are trying to master the same skills and learn the same concepts. A verb is a verb at Harvard and the Community College.

"Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal. "
J.F.K.

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» RE: Divide & Conquer Posted by: pleaseplanttrees
» RE: Divide & Conquer Posted by: cry0fan
» RE: Divide & Conquer Posted by: fork
» Problem solved Posted by: jwg
» RE: Problem solved Posted by: fork
R Minutemen Leaders The Real Left?
Posted by: fairleft on Jun 6, 2006 8:48 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
BE: ... the [Minutemen] leaders talked a very big anti-corporate line: The corporations are crushing us, we're the real Americans, and so forth. In their minds, the immigrants are part of the thing that's crushing them...

And the Minutemen leaders are right, illegal immigrants willing to put up with low-wages and terrible benefits and working conditions, causes a race to the bottom and forces the whole working class to accept those conditions or not have jobs. Besides the fact that mass immigration creates terrible over-supply-of-labor conditions for organizing unions. The simple solution: heavily fine and throw employers in jail for employing
illegal immigrants. The _only_ reason it is impossible for BE to say this is because she knows it would damage her pseudo-left heroine career.

On the other hand it is very easy for her to say the following: "If you were going to take on the immigration issue seriously, you'd have to look at what NAFTA did to the economy and agriculture for working-class Mexicans. Much of the immigration stuff is standard scapegoating. I mean, we're not going to begin to get at the problem until we take a serious look at the economies of the countries that are exporting people."

Well, what business is it of the US left, which I would think is non-imperialist, to tell Mexico how to manage its economy? Mexico can pull out of NAFTA, and I hope it does, but that's _their_ business. We Americans can _easily_ protect our economy from a damaged Mexican economy by simply doing what I outlined in the previous paragraph. This is 2 + 2 = 4 stuff.

So why is it the Minutemen talk better economic sense than Barbara Ehrenreich and the best and brightest of the pseudo-left? We all had better learn in a hurry, or we're in for more of the same, more of the Clinton-era pro-NAFTA Democratic Party, more of the current anti-US-working-class, pro-illegal-immigration pseudo-left. The American working poor and working class need real help, and that stuff is only causing more pain.

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When Shame Was Good: Part I
Posted by: pelle_in_goal on Jun 6, 2006 9:11 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
As every school kid my age knows:

Pearl Harbor and the launch of Sputnik on October 4, 1957 are the cardioversion events of 20th Century America. Actually, the events were more like somebody pulling our pants down in front of the whole planet and giving us one hell of a spanking. The country learned an important lesson each time:

Treat us like children and we'll make you proud of us.

Sputnik made opening up access to higher education a necessity during the now escalated Cold War. It started crash programs for extension univerities, junior colleges, and post graduate education around the country.

Students could even make independent choices about the career they'd pursue. That surprises me to day. But smart economists could foresee that the "market" would tweak college degrees with its own priorities and channel skilled people into priority occupations. The government pitched in by protecting male full-time students from the draft.

The Feds even started a war to help the colleges out. The Selective Service System (aka, the draft) even wrote a position paper on the "channelling" of manpower by using the draft to select the right students for college. And "encourage" them to stay in school.

Along comes the Milton Friedman School of Economics at NWU in the 60's. College deferments are a good idea but a truly "free" market is an even better recruiting tool for the nation's universities and corporations. Just because a guy dodged the draft in college didn't necessarily make him an Organization Man. In fact, what was going on at most college campuses clearly demonstrated (pun intended) that a lot of these folks may be bright, but their left-wing ideas...sucked!

Even with the country turning pinko, however, America had got most of what it needed after the shock of Sputnik. Advanced engineering degress more than doubled. We beat the Red bastards to the moon. Health care had enough skilled professionals to keep up with the Medicare boom. Well...if it could keep some of them from getting pregnant every other year times 2.3.

The Friedman model had worked because the universally held notion at the time was that nearly all white-collar professionsals -- especially those with advanced degrees -- didn't need to organize or collectively bargain. This was the biggest mistake the "Baby Boomers" ever made. Most people in the middle 70s didn't see the country's post-Vietnam economic quagmire as more than temporary. Besides, the campus radicals had lost their raison d'etre. That's good news for people who didn't want to be associated with progressivism before they applied at that Big Firm.

But the "Free Market" was only just developing. It had one major obstacle -- the liberal "residue" of most college campuses -- to overcome if it was to take the country well to the Right. In 1972, Lewis Powell, soon to be a "Supreme" wrote The Powell Memorandum. It was actually a manifesto. It preached searching the colleges for active, aggressive young Republicans to start conservative student newspapers. People from the baronies like the Coors and the Mellons were soliticed for hefty "donations" and scholarships to journalism schools and thus to produce more conservative journalists for the country's MSM.

Big Business still controlled the Board of Governors at most colleges. With the Powell Memorandum crystalizing Conservative thought, the corporations could conflate Friedman's free market opinions with neo-conservatism. Out went schools like Sociology at most colleges; in came expanded and well-endowed Business and heavily-influenced Economic Schools. Meanwhile, the fruits of college Republicanism could be had at Conservative think tanks.


(The conclusion follows in part 2)

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When Shame Was Good: Part II
Posted by: pelle_in_goal on Jun 6, 2006 9:37 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I'd like to say "the rest is history." It almost is -- but most of us who knew better -- of "what was really going on" just stood by and gaped. We were now approaching middle age and could easily be replaced. And a lot of us were.

I saw Michael Douglas in 1987's Wall Street . Maybe the timing of his "Greed Is Good" speech was overlooked because the Markets crashed later that year. Nobody seemed shocked to find out that most of the new mergers and oligarchies were anything but pursuant to making the most money, cutting the most payroll, and starting to look overseas for the cheapest labor. The crash may have cost a lot of them their jobs -- although with a "golden parachute" most could get through the lean times and land on their feet. That is, if they could stay out of prison.

The ruthless now ran the jungle. American talent was now "overpriced." There were, however, undocumenteds from Central America who would take on the new "challenges" the oligarchies offered. It wasn't enough to be an economic or political refugee from Reagan's "regime modification" policies. Management expected refugees to earn their way here by accepting free-wheeling exploitation and deplorable living conditions. That, ironically, was what was driving them to this country in the first place. Many were also political refugees.

On the ultimate playing field -- international relations -- Friedmanism became visionary -- maybe even trancendental. At least the winners thought so. The ultimate payoff was that "free marketeering" policy paved the way for countries to desperately seek unfavorable trade agreements with the US.

All of this was no boating accident. Join the fight against the Friedman-Powell "sucker punches" that's left us on the verge of disintegration as a society.

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Warfare Within the Middle Class
Posted by: Spyder on Jun 6, 2006 10:14 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The middle class has had its own little war going within itself for decades. That is the tool the corporations have used to control us and keep us going in the direction that benefits only the upper class in power. Barbara is absolutely correct in her suppositions. Her book will make you cringe because you know it is all true. I wrote the book that offers an explanation for the origin of the mess in which we find ourselves. It's called The Last Horizon: Feminine Sexuality & the Class System. This is an entertaining book that reads somewhat like a dating manual, but it is really so much more than that. Everyone who believes they are in the middle class should read both Bait and Switch and The Last Horizon.

http://www.e-tabitha.com

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Compare the number of posts on this article and the Coulter article
Posted by: cry0fan on Jun 6, 2006 10:34 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
You will see far more posts on the coulter thread. Why? Just read Orwell's 1984. The sheeple masses prefer the Hate-oriented partisan politics. And see what kind of posters post there and do not post here. The ones who are the PseudoLiberals, the politically-sort, the race-and-gender-politics crowd are the ones on the Coulter thread frothing at the mouth and screaming at coulter.

These are the "netroots" activists. They are the ones that generally brought Dean to visibility. They are the worst part of American leftism. All they care about is social issues--race, gender, gay rights, equal pay for women. I will give them that they are generally anti war.

But they have little concern for middle america. They care about the poor as long as it is dark skinned poor. THey care far more for foreign poor and illegal immigrants than they do for making life better for the American majority.

They are the heart of the Democratic party.

No wonder the GOP has been able to run rampant, with these sheeple running the Democratic grassroots.

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» Affirmation Posted by: YogiBear
» RE: Affirmation Posted by: cry0fan
» RE: Affirmation Posted by: brunowe
» RE: Affirmation Posted by: insulafortune
» RE: Affirmation Posted by: Ratskii
» Just a guess Posted by: rebeers01
An aside
Posted by: LMNOP on Jun 6, 2006 10:40 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Since many liberals don't hear the conservatives speaking to one another as on hate radio, they may not be aware as some that WE, left leaning Americans, are accused of waging class war on the rich by the conservative talking points spin machine. I heard this accusation leveled most often each time tax cuts for the rich were being pushed through.

At the time, I thought, "how outlandish and flagrant"can the right be. Are they totally without shame? Are their thralls really buying this? Apparently, yes

Then I started noticing that this was a common proactive practice of the fascists: premptively accuse your accusers first of what they can accuse you no matter how ridiculous it sounds to do so.

Thus, we have the "liberal media" in anticipation of an all conservative media. If you refer to "the conservative media" now, you sound like an echo.

Likewise, when we are called racists for holding the black man back with affirmative action.

My favorite is the liberal elite. Who is more elitist than the ruling class today? We are inclusive and egalitarian. But Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn, Tim Robbins and other well off liberal celebrity voices are always so categorized.

Notice how often this happens if you haven't already.

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"...when they're in boring meetings with their bosses."
Posted by: Sojourner on Jun 6, 2006 3:08 PM   
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I can count on one hand the meetings I have been in that have not been "boring." And my disillusionment with democratic socialism came when I heard Michael Harrington one time describe it, unintentionally, as meeting after meeting after meeting.

Yes, when no one is giving the orders, the alternatives are chaos or meetings. Taking the "boring" out of meetings is the answer, but in my experience it is an impossibility.

That's like taking the "boring" out of the classroom. Now that I'm in my seventies, I've gone back to graduate school. I am getting the best education I can imagine. I am in awe of my professors.

But it's "Too soon old, too late smart." Not only 'youth,' 'education' is wasted on the young. And it's our only hope. "What a revolting development" as Jimmy Durante used to say.

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Goodbye Washington D.C.
Posted by: mn on Jun 6, 2006 4:38 PM   
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America is over. All done. Break up the USA, save the constitution. The only way to stop the bank robbers is to take away their get-away car, which is the US gov't. Put a fork in that fetid rarebit.

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Soon the United States Investment Function Will Be Outsourced
Posted by: Awake on Jun 6, 2006 6:40 PM   
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The middle class said nothing as working class jobs were sent overseas. My "expert" 1993 MBA professor actually said that computerized communication made working class jobs expendable. Well, I asked, wouldn't computerized communication make middle-class, computer-based jobs even more expeendable? No, he said, because middle-class jobs were "valued-added" jobs (90's buzzword--circular reasoning at its worst). So, it turned out that the middle class didn't really add that much value, or not so much that their jobs couldn't even more easily be outsourced for the value subtracted.

The irony is that the wealthy are shipping United States capital overseas to China, et al. Before too long, the rest of the world will not need Wall Street, because investment will have been outsourced. More cash, less debt, and lower returns required.

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Soon the United States Investment Function Will Be Outsourced
Posted by: Awake on Jun 6, 2006 6:43 PM   
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The middle class said nothing as working class jobs were sent overseas. My "expert" 1993 MBA professor actually said that computerized communication made working class jobs expendable. Well, I asked, wouldn't computerized communication make middle-class, computer-based jobs even more expendable? No, he said, because middle-class jobs were "valued-added" jobs (90's buzzword--circular reasoning at its worst). Well, it turned out that the middle class didn't really add that much value, or not so much that their jobs couldn't be outsourced for the "value" subtracted.

The irony is that the wealthy are shipping United States capital overseas to China, et al. Before too long, the rest of the world will not need Wall Street, because the investment function will have been outsourced to people with more cash, less debt, and lower returns required on the dollar, or whatever.

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Class war at the workplace
Posted by: JB2006 on Jul 9, 2006 3:51 PM   
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As a worker in a manufacturing plant, I have seen a huge change in the attitude of my employer towards the employees. in the 1990's when the labor market was tight, there was a somewhat civil relationship between management and the workers. Now with the economy tight and a tight labor market, there is an attitude of condescending contempt by my boss, a conservative churchgoer, towards the employees. He has hired underlings who would feel quite at home in the confederacy. Its a plantation mentality. We are the slaves, they are the rulers. And they are not hiding that sentiment. He clearly believes in the class system and treats all the hourly workers as second class citizens. We are nothing but machine parts to be replaced if a cheaper part can be found. He also hires only immigrants, no Americans, and the employees who have been with the company a long time are treated very coldly.
Very sociopathic behavior. What amazes me is that this same person goes to church evey sunday. I think that the upper class Christians believe that Christ only belongs to a certain social strata. I am going to eventually leave and start my own business, and I urge anyone who is going through this to consider the same. The days of working in a company securely are over, the only way you will ever feel secure again is to work for yourself. I hope that someday enough people do this to make it impossible for these fascist snob elitist bastards not to be able to find workers.

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