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Why Progressives Are Selling Out To Corporate America

By Jeanine Plant, AlterNet. Posted August 1, 2007.


An interview with author Daniel Brook offers us answers on why so many progressives get roped into the corporate world.

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It's not uncommon for a person to enter NYU Law school with the hopes of one day working at the ACLU. By the time they graduate, though, it's also not uncommon for this same person to work at a major corporate firm instead, where they'll enjoy a starting salary of upwards of $150,000 a year. Perks include a hefty life insurance policy, subsidized health insurance, a 401K package, flexible vacation time, door-to-door transportation service and free meals after 8 p.m. I usually interpret this as the de rigueur assimilation practice of a self-perpetuating elite with a highly developed super-ego, or something like that. A harsher critic might call it selling out, something I wouldn't necessarily have disagreed with until I read Daniel Brook's smart and sophisticated rebuttal in The Trap: Selling Out to Stay Afloat in Winner-Take-All America.

Such dismissals are beside the point, as Brook convincingly argues. Despite the liberal politics of most students at elite law schools, the majority end up working in service to the powerful, not the poor. This is due in part to the average debt load of law school graduates -- staggering at $84,000 -- and in part to the exorbitant housing costs in major cities. There was once a time, in 1968, when fewer than half of Harvard Law graduates went into private practice. It was also around this time that starting salaries "began to reflect the emergence of the seller's market," Brook writes. "The salary gap has increased because only enormous salaries can win over bright young lawyers who went to law school to take on the powers that be, not serve them."

I know, I know. In an age of compassion fatigue, to sympathize with a handful of well-to-do but morally ambivalent lawyers as opposed to, say, the plight of the Wal-Mart cashier, seems dubious. Such young persons can do whatever they want, we think. And yet, as Brook makes clear, that's simply not true. Just to live a modest life -- with health insurance, homeownership, the ability to send your kids to college -- is outrageously expensive. And this problem is not specific to would-be public interest lawyers. Many would-be academics, teachers and journalists more and more eschew a life of scraping by not to live in the lap of luxury but merely to lead an average middle-class life.

How did this happen exactly? Well, as Brook shows, our ever-flagging economic situation is the result of a series of conservative policies that "have begun rolling back freedom for everyone but the independently wealthy -- even for the talented and fortunate few who have attained a top-notch education. The America conceived by Goldwater and Buckley and built by Reagan and Bush has constrained a generation of talented individuals, enforcing conformity, not unleashing creativity." We would be better off in a more egalitarian society, Brook goes on to say, where we could do the work that mattered to us without the specter of poverty, and speak our minds without the fear of losing our jobs.

To get more to the crux of his argument, I spoke to Daniel Brook at The Half King Pub in New York before his reading on Monday night.

Jeanine Plant: How did you come up with the idea for this book?

Daniel Brook: There are several answers to this question. One is from looking at friends growing up: friends from growing up and friends from college. Out of most of my friends, I am one of the few people actually pursuing what they're interested in, and that struck me as surprising. So that is one way I got into this. Another way is through a program called the Century Institute, which was run by the Century Foundation, which is a think tank here in New York. They had a summer program for progressive college students, kind of like wonk camp. And I took a course on economic inequality, which gave me a lot of material, and got me thinking about the topic. But the attitude of the program was very much: "You guys are fine. You all went to fancy colleges; you don't have to worry about this. But this is a problem for the country. This is a problem for everyone at the bottom, and because you are progressives, you're going to do something about it." And now, today, almost everyone from that program is a corporate lawyer. But then, I was like, this is our problem. We just don't see it, and again, it's sort of how people fall into that trap.

Another reason I wrote the book is family observations. I joke that my parents are part of a class that doesn't exist anymore, sort of like public-interest professionals. My mom was a nursing-home doctor and my dad was a prosecutor. Looking at the generations of my family, since we've been in this country for a hundred years, you see what it was like. My mom's parents were both schoolteachers. They bought a house in Brooklyn. They sent my mom to the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia for medical school. Medical school, they took a loan out against their house, they did. Penn, they paid for with no debt. And the house they grew up in, in not a fancy part of Brooklyn, is now worth over a million dollars. So it's not a house two teachers could afford.


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Jeanine Plant is a New York-based freelance writer.

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Mike Males
Posted by: mmales on Aug 1, 2007 2:38 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I don't understand where the interviewer's questions came from. There is NOTHING narcissistic, conformist, or materialistic (or any other bigoted stereotype) about young people today--those labels much better apply to older generations, whose greed and indifference have caused massive debt and constricted opportunity for younger generations today. Alternet authors need to take a more critical attitude and stop abjectly buying into lies about the young perpetuated by rich, corporate elites and their apologists who pretend to be progressives. In fact, young people today are FAR more progressive, community-oriented, socially conscious, self-sacrificing, tolerant, volunteering, and less materialistic, racist, and sexist--in short, better in every way than older generations, by every reliable survey and social measure we have. Please, do not sell out to materialism and reactionary politics as you age the way Boomers did, and then you won't have to abuse your political and media power to lie, flatter yourselves, and denigrate young people the way my older generation does. -Mike Males, YouthFacts.org

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: Mike Males Posted by: solrev
» RE: Mike Males Posted by: mercianomad
» Amen, and said loudly! Posted by: Sojourner
» Calm down Posted by: ladmeaux
» RE: Mike Males Posted by: Dianka
» IT"S ALL YOUR FAULT ! Posted by: InBetween
» RE: Mike Males Posted by: barryr
» RE: Mike Males Posted by: InBetween
» RE: Mike Males Posted by: barryr
» RE: Mike Males Posted by: notabilia
This article raises the issue of class, and "bourgeois", ideological corruption
Posted by: Perfectclue on Aug 1, 2007 4:00 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This article raises some fundamental questions, and historical relations, that are iincomplete in their analysis. It seems two issues keep getting confused, the issue between class, middle layers, and the issue of ideological corruption, and reproduction of power relations to corporate class rule.

Whenever I make these same argument, my parents, especially, fail inevitably, to separate out these two issues, because they are so fundamentally intertwined and hence deliberately ideologically abused, the term middle class, that when I criticize the generic corruption, ideological corruption of its middle layers, which implies to them I do not want to be part of that middle class, that is the response I get, namely accept the ideological corruption with the status of middle class postion: "You are part of the middle class, what do you have against being part of that middle class"

The terminology of "selling out", has nothing to do with, especially today, where the middle class is being strangled, squeezed economically, the same way it is being done against undeveloped countries, where everyone must participate in the corporate world, just to survive. The internal economic position, middle postion, has nothing to do with the external position of the middle layers, in its relationship to the oligarchy, corporate class. It is the external subordination of the middle layers, its corruption of the middle layers, its partial social development, that implies that a true social middle class, would not need an oligarchy, hence could not be ideologically corrupted or economically stunted as a partial middle class, fearful of its precarious position.

"Selling out" has more to do with the original pejorative word, "bourgeois" middle classes, used by the Marxists, leftists, to describe the failure of the middle class, to uphold the social and democratic principle, of an inherent moral principle that exists within itself, which was part of the Enlighenment and revolutionary liberals, but was betrayed by its emerging liberal class shills, today's corporate shills, the result of their class subordination of the commercial and industrial middle classes. Once this betrayal took place, the Marxists, in the Post Enlightement, just reclaimed the same moral, international, universal social principle for themselves, of a middle class, uncorrupted and subordinated, fullly developoed without class masters, the false ideological claim by all class societies, to have produced a universal social mechanism of wealth, and democracy. Hence the term "selling out", like the term "bourgeois feminists", Hillary Clinton, "bourgeois minorities", Barack Obama, has nothing to do with their desire to be economically in the center, but that in fact they are to the right, class center, which corrupts them as shills for corporate fascism and imperial Empire.

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Refreshing
Posted by: Urstrly on Aug 1, 2007 4:40 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
We progressives need to think about these things without all the Marxist baggage so many of us dragged along in the sixties. The stakes are much higher now, and the conservatives are entrenched and smug about it; a wealthy parent who had privately jetted down to Duke to have a talk with them about paying some Islamist to speak on campus argued with me about affirmative action by saying, "These kids don't even know who Hobbes is." Indeed.

The just published NYTimes story about Chelsea Clinton quoted her as saying there was no doubt she would serve her country without noting the irony that she left McKinsey to work for a hedge fund. That's the kind of temptation these kids face. Or maybe it doesn't even seem like temptation, but a logical next step. After all, they can get obscenely rich like Buffet and Gates, then give away what they don't need and pat themselves on the back. No matter how many programs they fund, it does nothing for the people in this nation without health care and access to a decent education.

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They made their bed...
Posted by: Bobsays on Aug 1, 2007 4:50 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I don't feel sorry for them. I went to school with these people and I am no longer friends with them. Why? Because I went on to make money doing what I like, and they stopped talking to me at about the same time. At first I wasn't making the same quick cash, but by running my own finances and my own business (and taking advantage of all the tax write-offs) I now have chunky savings.

I think there are greater issues here: 1) so-called progressive organisations need to pay people properly, 2) when progressives get electoral power, they should pass legislation to raise the salaries for people who do good works, 3) anyone who goes and works for a hedge fund should stop calling themselves a progressive - they are polluting the whole concept with their wimpiness

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» RE: They made their bed... Posted by: phatkhat
» RE: They made their bed... Posted by: phatkhat
» Better pay IS the issue... Posted by: MadFlacc
» RE: They made their bed... Posted by: EncinoM
They made their bed...
Posted by: Bobsays on Aug 1, 2007 4:50 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I don't feel sorry for them. I went to school with these people and I am no longer friends with them. Why? Because I went on to make money doing what I like, and they stopped talking to me at about the same time. At first I wasn't making the same quick cash, but by running my own finances and my own business (and taking advantage of all the tax write-offs) I now have chunky savings.

I think there are greater issues here: 1) so-called progressive organisations need to pay people properly, 2) when progressives get electoral power, they should pass legislation to raise the salaries for people who do good works, 3) anyone who goes and works for a hedge fund should stop calling themselves a progressive - they are polluting the whole concept with their wimpiness

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Interesting.......
Posted by: Lizmv on Aug 1, 2007 4:56 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
A few years ago, when my youngest daughter went off to college, I looked into going to law school. Law has always interested me and I still would like to spend my final 20 years in the workforce helping to create real change. However, when I realized that I would never be able to afford to practice law and be an advocate for those who need it most BECAUSE of the debt law school would incur, I gave up on the idea. By the time I paid off the debt, I would be well into my"retirement" years. So, it's back to the streets and volunteering for non-profits for me.

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» RE: Interesting....... Posted by: djnoll
Connecting the dots...
Posted by: Theodore on Aug 1, 2007 4:57 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
1. So, if the elite education is no longer your ticket to happiness, AND education is one of the things the middle class can no longer afford. Don't keep wasting your money on it!

2. The article briefly glossed over Brook's inability to afford having children. This is HUGE. Sad that it has to come about through financial pressure, but if Gen X and beyond can help control population, they'll be doing important work to improve society and the environment.

3. What about other professionals? What are the kids with the best engineering education doing? Are they working on energy and the environment, or are they doing corporate information technology?

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» RE: Connecting the dots... Posted by: Bobsays
» RE: Connecting the dots... Posted by: drmflorida
» You have to fight Posted by: MadFlacc
» RE: You have to fight Posted by: WitchyNy
» RE: Connecting the dots... Posted by: drmflorida
» RE: Connecting the idots... Posted by: Bearzerker
not sympathetic
Posted by: EKSwitaj on Aug 1, 2007 6:22 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
While this article does raise some important issues about how my generation is being squeezed, I have a hard time sympathizing with those those being focused on. These individuals have bought into and given their support to a system that continues to give undue prestige to elitist institutions that do not, in fact, provide a better education than many other universities.

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George Lakoff was correct when he stated how the Right privatized the Left.
Posted by: maxpayne on Aug 1, 2007 6:33 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
See, today's world, you're misled into believing that you need money to win. True, money can help. However, the cons know that ideology is the real trick whereas money only comes on top of it. You can't have a top without a base. By ignoring and blindly caving in to the "conservative" ideology, the progressives that have sold out have only FRAMED themselves into the rightwing frametrap.

P.S.: There are progressives who used to be Reaganites but have not only proven that they've learned their lessons but from experience will be able to tackle the rightwing ideology inside and out. Give them a chance.

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» RE: We can do it. Posted by: Lincoln fan
The Naked (Lunch) Truth
Posted by: burndedout on Aug 1, 2007 7:11 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I hope I get the quote right from the movie Naked Lunch:
"All agents defect; all rebels sell out. That's the sad truth, Bill. A writer lives the same sad truth as anyone else, only he has to send reports."
Since there is absolutely nothing new about the system's demand that all rebels sell out, the only thing left to do is to find the most comfortable spot in this land of unhappiness and ruined dreams. I envy sell-outs. Someone thought it worth while to actually buy them out! I, on the other hand...

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Corporate America has always eaten the country's young
Posted by: sausage on Aug 1, 2007 7:12 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Nothing new here, boys and girls. Coporate America has devoured America's youth since the Civil War. From wildeyed anarchists to piously liberal Christians to do-gooders of every strip, Corporate America has stifled them all either though brutal police repression or co-option.

Co-option is Corporate America's preferred method of stifling dissent and retarding social conscience. It's cheaper after all, both monetarily and politically, to co-opt young idealists with bobbles and cash than to bust their heads. As an old saying goes: "Give a man money, watch'em go funny."

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» Read 'Rebel Sell' Posted by: Bobsays
Ron Paul, a true Constitutionlist Progessive, has NOT sold out to...
Posted by: poppop_schell on Aug 1, 2007 7:52 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
corproate intetests. In fact, Ron Paul is perhaps the greatest free market danger to Global Corportism and the ruling eiltes of both the GOP and DP. Why do you think he still is under the MSM radar when he has the biggest internet presence and the thrd highes money in the bank than any Republican? Why do yo think that the establishment elite GOP is trying to exclude Ron Paul fom the GOP debates?

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Convincing people not the problem?
Posted by: Lincoln fan on Aug 1, 2007 7:57 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
So it is not really about convincing people, it is about changing the system where we go from plutocracy to democracy.

I for one believe that the system can be changed into a Democracy (Republic) before the next election, so I don't see changing the system as a big problem. I see the big problem as convincing most people that Democracy is really the best form of government. It boils down to one's faith in the wisdom and morals of his fellow man vs. his faith in the wisdom and morals of corporations.

It boils down to whether you would rather be governed by people or by corporations.

I think that it's obvious that corporate rule will sink America, with a very good chance of leading us into a world ending nuclear war. Shouldn't we at least try Democracy? Click on The Lincoln Initiative.
Bob Reichenbach,
Director, The Lincoln Initiative.

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I call B.S.
Posted by: stormchilde1975 on Aug 1, 2007 8:25 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I just don't buy that Harvard grads can't afford to work for the public good. Debt is only debt, and student loan debt can be gotten rid of in a number of ways. Attorneys working in public service can have a sizeable portion of their debt forgiven. It can also be deferred for a considerable period for financial hardship.

There are plenty of ways to live more cheaply (renting a cheap apartment instead of buying a house in the 'burbs, using public transportation instead of driving a BMW, brown-bagging your lunch instead of dining out, etc.) No one needs $150,000+ a year to get by. And everyone who really wants children can afford to have one or two. It's just a matter of being creative. All else failing, welfare programs are pretty generous to people with kids.

The fact is that these folks know the difference between right and wrong, but are not willing to sacrifice what they feel entitled to in order to do the right thing. They are moral layabouts.

In the end we all die. And how much cash and material crap we managed to accumulate won't matter a whit. What will matter, I believe, is how much we invested ourselves in our fellow human beings, how hard we worked for them, how much love we showed. And if I'm wrong about that, it's still a far happier delusion than the absurd belief that wealth has any real value to us as human beings.

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» Oh, pshaw. Posted by: stormchilde1975
» RE: Oh, pshaw. Posted by: drmflorida
» RE: Oh, pshaw. Posted by: stormchilde1975
» RE: Oh, pshaw. Posted by: bornxeyed
» Entitlement is the key... Posted by: MadFlacc
» lack of understanding Posted by: sweet_byrd
» RE: lack of understanding Posted by: stormchilde1975
» RE: lack of understanding Posted by: sweet_byrd
» RE: I call B.S. Posted by: Lauren
» RE: I call B.S. Posted by: Shakti
There's an old song that Chris Rea did...
Posted by: phatkhat on Aug 1, 2007 8:35 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
called "Fishing" or something to that effect. One line has become my mantra:

"You can spend your whole lifetime trying to be
What's expected of you, but you'll never be free."

Pretty much sums it up.

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WHERE'S HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Posted by: VZEQICVA on Aug 1, 2007 8:46 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The guy who turned being a lazy bum into something honorable and profitable. He "got by with a little help from his friends"'. Alot in fact. They fed him because he couldn't live on okra and kale and they bailed him out of jail and paid the $87. Left to his own devices he would have died. But not to hear him tell it. Point is we all have to eat. Having a job does not mean 'selling out'. My paycheck came from Wall St. firms for 20 yrs. I did not 'sell out'. I worked. Thank you, ANNA

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» I did not 'sell out'. Posted by: sausage
» RE: I did not 'sell out'. Posted by: american
» RE: I did not 'sell out'. Posted by: ConnecttheDots
» So what? Posted by: stormchilde1975
Well Said
Posted by: american on Aug 1, 2007 9:45 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I say this because I have been saying pretty much the same thing for some time now. Being in the middle class is now like climbing an escalator that is going in the opposite direction. It used to be like walking up a flight of stairs. Things that have made it like this have become hardened into our econo-society. They have become institutionalized. The drivers for this are the Reagan/Bush policies that are basically designed to transfer national (no world) assets- not just money wealth - to the select few. The fundamental cause though, is the groups and the allowance of the groups that put them into office. It sure as heck wasn't the rednecks. To accomplish the ill deeds that have been accomplished requires lying, cheating, and stealing because, as was pointed out, the vast majority of people do not want what they have been getting. In a word, capitalism is throttling democracy.

We are so conditioned to think of capitalism as faultless, or at least irreplacable because of it's ostensible sensibleness, that we never really examine fundamental presuppositions about the alternatives we can choose exercise economically. The evidence is in though: capitalism doesn't accomplish what its proponents say it does, first because social and environmental costs are left out, and secondly, because the power set will not acknowledge its failures. We've just got to change our paradigm: we are not riding an economic engine; we are riding an economic snake.

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» RE: Well Said Posted by: Lauren
» RE: Well Said Posted by: Lincoln fan
» RE: Well Said Posted by: Lauren
» Personally... Posted by: MadFlacc
Lawyers have to pay the mortgage too...
Posted by: rfrancis@godisdead.com on Aug 1, 2007 11:19 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
"The Yuppie Nuremberg Defense" - Thank You for Smoking

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» Indeed Posted by: stormchilde1975
jnaday
Posted by: jeanna on Aug 1, 2007 11:58 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
We have a man running for President who did not give in to the lure of wealth but who has kept his progressive credentials when he gave up his well paid legal career to become a community activist. His name is Barack Obama!
Read his book, " The Audacity of Hope".

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jnaday
Posted by: jeanna on Aug 1, 2007 11:58 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
We have a man running for President who did not give in to the lure of wealth but who has kept his progressive credentials when he gave up his well paid legal career to become a community activist. His name is Barack Obama!
Read his book, " The Audacity of Hope".

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» RE: jnaday Posted by: opeluboy
Finance rules politics and media - look at Obama and Hillary
Posted by: thoughtcriminal on Aug 1, 2007 3:24 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Obama and Hillary are the top fundraisers in the Democratic primary. Look at their open secrets financial files:

Obama '08 funding chart
Hillary '08 funding chart

Notice how their biggest source of support is finance, investment and real estate? These candidates won't be aggressively pursuing the unfair trade deals and the subprime lending scams, or the consolidated corporate control of most US media outlets. Compare this to John Edwards, the only other Democratic candidate who has a realistic chance:

Edwards '08 funding chart

See the difference? Just for fun, let's look at who's backing the Repugnant candidates:

Romney '08 funding chart
Giuliani '08 funding chart
McCain '08 funding chart
Yup - top contributors are the same as Hillary-Obama.

The conclusion? The only realistic candidate, Democratic or Republican, who isn't already deep in the pocket of Wall Street and their corporate conglomerates is John Edwards.

Just look at the funding - that's why the corporate media, from NPR to FOX News, is trying to portray the Democratic race strictly as an Obama-Hillary choice.

Nevertheless, it's unlikely that any of the candidates will be able to change the aggressive imperialist direction of US foreign policy on their own - but at least Edwards won't be actively advancing that agenda... though I suppose people thought the same about Carter, didn't they?

(We are currently applying the Carter Doctrine of Global Oilfield Control to the Middle East - I'm just waiting for them to start calling it "Manifest Destiny")

P.S. Hillary is a baby boomer, right? Case in point.

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» Dramatic comparisons! Posted by: Sojourner
the incredible shrinking middle class
Posted by: Shakti on Aug 1, 2007 5:04 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
He hit the nail on the head: it has become impossible to raise our children as we were raised without snagging some high paying (typically corporate) job. I have a Ph.D. from an Ivy League university, but a relatively low paying academic job. I did not set out to get rich, but expected to be able to raise my kids in what I deemed to be a middle class way of life, similar to my own childhood. Boy, was I wrong.

There is no question in my mind that social policies put in place by conservatives have depleted the ranks of the middle class and made young people choose between working for the common good and having a decent life for themselves and their children.

Welcome to the plutocracy.

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» Wrong is Right!!!! Posted by: Gravitas
nothing changes
Posted by: greatblueheron777 on Aug 2, 2007 6:14 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
There is no big change. during the sixties everyone wasn't a hippy. there were hippies who had little political interest other then dropping out and drugging out. There were people who were primarily political activists (most of who used drugs), and there were the budding yuppies (who probably used drugs) but had no political interests at all.

The idea that attendance at an elite university is necessary for leadership of a movement is revolting and elitist in its own right. Attending an elite universtiy has less to do with the quality of education you receive then the friends/connections you will make to gain acceptance to the investor/political class. It is a vetting to insure the continuity of those in power and happens in every small town, not just the great cities in this country. Anybody who doesn't understand that going in is part of the problem.

Was the University of Wisc at Madison in the 60's an elite university? Much of the uprising of the sixties was propelled by working class kids who were the first in their families to go to college.

One of the things that has been identified here is the difference between Liberals and Progressives. Liberals being defamed by the right have adopted the progressive label rather then defend their own, diluting the progressive message and identity.

Liberals are for the right thing as long as it is fashionable and doesn't disturb their personal well being. Progressives are people who are committed to economic and social justice and willing to pay the price. The great progressive movements in the history of this country did not come from the leadership of elite liberals but from mines, farms, factories and others who were being destroyed by the system.

Most liberals follow the old saw, "If you want to be a leader, find a parade and get out in front of it." Liberals see progressives as a threat to the leadership position given to them by the establishment when the natives get a little too rebellious, knowing full well they will temper the demands and limit change because they are fully invested in the power structure.

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» word is BOND Posted by: MadFlacc
Pure versus Applied Mathematics
Posted by: ray burchard on Aug 2, 2007 8:38 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The innate characteristic good in avarice (inspiration to progress) is transformed into greed’s (regression) by evolutions allegiance (obsession). The depicted matrix of this, and the taken out of context statement made in a previous forum‘s posted comment, may help clarify the dichotomy that this article’s Author is grappling with.

> “One cannot be educated one way only to find that the world works in a disparate manner“.<

In "applied mathematics" separation of the inanimate whole (structural engineering / commerce) is accomplished by division along lines of equality, as equal parts of the whole. 11 divided by 2 = (5.5 + 5.5) = 11, Fractional resolve, A. Einstein’s “Theory of Relativity”.

While in "pure mathematics" separation of the animated whole (biological engineering) is accomplished by cleaving along lines of symmetrical weakness, dominate/subordinate. String theory’s 11 symmetrically cleaved into two parts (01 + 10) = 11, whole number resolve, E. A. Milne's Theory of "Kinematic Relativity" as differing vantage point generated descriptions of the same entity.

This conjugated affect/effect as mathematical paradox, whole versus fractional resolve demonstrates the (men/women) relationship as mutually ignorant descriptions of the whole in the terms of one and another, and/or E.A.Milne's "Kinematic relativity" as differing vantage point generated descriptions of the same entity, (space/time).

Example;
(09+90) = 99, 99 divided by 11 equals 9/09, while 09 divided by 11 = 0.8181... Plus 90 divided by 11 = 8.1818... Equals 8.9999... As the fractional equivalence of 9 and/or binary (even/odd) 09.
Try (00+01+02+03 thru 09) = 045 while converse symmetrical balanced (group/set), (90+80+70 back thru00) = 450, therefore , [(00+01+02 thru 09) plus (90+80+70 back thru 00)] equals [(90+81+72+63+54) = 360 + (45+36+27+18+09) = 135 ] = (360+135) = 495, and (045+450) = 495.

Then, 495 divided by 11 equals 45, While 45 divided by 11 = 4.0909... Plus 450 divided by 11 = 40.9090... Equals 44.9999... And again the fractional equivalence of the whole of 045 = (0+4+5) = 9/09.

Try 135 divided by 11 plus 360 divided by 11 equals (12.2727...+32.7272...) = 44.9999...

Example of Logical conclusion;
America's governance that spends billions and billions of America's dollars on Academic redundancy, and rightfully so, to protect the lives and safety of 7 astronauts from the inevitability of human error. While simultaneously, the same governance sells corporate America the authority to spend a billion dollars to design and build an "Airbus" to then pit 840 passenger’s lives and safety against the same inevitability of human error.

A logical conclusion then justified by corporate profit as the results of Academia’s establishing the predominance of a logic based in a fractionalizing (exclusionary) system of “applied mathematics” as the sole and/or dominate consideration.

Now what faction was that, that taught yourself as all of us, that binary odd and even numbers, zero, symmetrical duality and whole number resolve were superfluous mathematical concepts if they didn't demonstrate an applicational allegiance to commerce?

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Deciding to have kids, or not, is the bottom line issue
Posted by: pondering on Aug 2, 2007 3:01 PM   
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I grew up in less than secure financial circumstances. I worried about money a lot as a kid.

As an adult, I have made choices, based on my values, that have left me without much money. My wife has made similar choices, and we share a strong bond in our commitment to living without a lot of stuff and with a degree of uncertainty about our own future. It's not ideal, I guess, but as another poster wrote above, you have to expect a certain amount of suffering for trying to live decently in a world dominated by greed, lies and violence. If it can help us to empathize a bit more fully with people who are actually suffering (as opposed to our well-fed, comparatively mild emotional unease), all the better. So far so good.

But here's the problem: we would also like to have (or adopt) kids. But neither of us feels at all comfortable imposing the consequences of our decisions, which we have made as adults, on our potential children. We would like nothing more than to take part in raising a new generation of people willing to take risks and make sacrifices for what they believe in. For us, this is a social responsibility as much as a personal desire for familial fulfillment. After all, what could possibly be more important for our collective future than that? But we're not at all sure that it's our right to make those decisions about risk and sacrifice on their behalf -- before they're even born.

If I were a billionaire, I would set up a fund to pay for the health insurance and educational expenses of the *children* of people working for the common good. That kind of program would, in my opinion, mobilize a big army of people to join the good team, and, at the same time, promote generational transmission of the values and commitments we desperately need young people to carry forward.

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» Don't worry Posted by: stormchilde1975
» RE: Don't worry Posted by: pondering
Swan-Song From An Educated A**hole
Posted by: NeoCogito on Aug 2, 2007 3:55 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
(Do Demcoracy A Favor; Wise-Up Or Stay Away From The Polls)

"WHAT CORPORATE America wanted was nothing less than the Third Worlding of the US, a collapse of both present reality and future expectations. The closer the life and wages of our citizens could come to those of less developed nations, the happier the huge stateless multinationals would be. Then, as they said in the boardrooms and at the White House, the global playing field would be leveled" (Sam Smith, Pro-Review)

This was the program, and what did Big Media share w/us?-- Monica. Is this the "lesser" evil you meant, democrats?--a deregulated USA w/ GWB as outlaw beneficiary in a chaotic regime? Look around, democrats-- Iraq/Iran?/Pakistan?/Syria... et al, the NAFTA War(s), now a big part of daily life. Is This What You Had In Mind?

Like so many good Democrats, we want to believe.... But you and millions of others will be going to the polls w/o a clue about how we got here from the 80's. A democracy cannot function without a free press, and this, coupled w/NAFTA & the merging of our 2-pty system were/are capable, each by itself of destabilizing if not crippling a viable democracy. Pay attention, democrats--the list of right-wing reforms Bill Clinton engineered in the 90's were/are mind-blowing but the only information the press shared w/us was the steady drumbeat, Monica, and again, we're learning more than we care to know---now, about Hillary's cleavage. And, still, not a single VERIFIABLE word about their political activities since the 80's. . .

I'm not thinking you, or anyone, should take my word for it--all I'm saying is Clinton knew what he was doing when he eliminated the free press in '96 and the Corporate Media Giants have had the Clinton's back since then. It's scary how successful they've been at suppressing public access to information; they work so hard at this because they know, the only enemy! powerful enough to defeat the Clinton's is the truth!! Please, if you think you have a right to know BEFORE! you vote then -- do your homework, democrats. .

"Clintonomics" don't hear that term much anymore? It was openl