Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

You are here: Home / Economics / Fuck The Middle-Class / Class fucking warfare

Class fucking warfare

by | 121 Comments

This post is in: ,

Chris Bowers (via Upper Left):

As you read this, rich and powerful people in Washington, DC are trying to determine not whether they should cut programs designed to help low and middle-income Americans, but by how much they should cut those programs. The rich and powerful people in DC are making these cuts in order to pay for tax breaks they recently gave to rich people and large corporations. Additionally, the cuts are being made at the behest of the lobby organizations and media operations owned by rich people and large corporations.

If that isn’t a class war, I don’t know what is.

That’s the truth.

Reader Interactions

121Comments

  2. 2.

    hildebrand

    Next thing you will spring on us is the fact that sometimes (GASP)politicians will stretch the truth to get elected.

    What other earth-shattering truth will pop out next?

  4. 4.

    Lolis

    As Bill Maher said, working class Republicans are helping Republican politicians bury their own bodies, so to speak. I have no idea how we can change that.

  5. 5.

    jwb

    @hildebrand: I’m sure DougJ is just feeling guilty about have too much fun all day at the expense of Murdoch.

  6. 6.

    ira-NY

    @Lolis

    Similarly, Jesse Jackson said this about the Tea Partiers: “They’re turkeys at their own Thankgiving.”

  9. 9.

    Stillwater

    Is it class warfare or an example of why democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others?

    Both, obv.

  10. 10.

    DougW

    Let’s just say at the end of they day, that we’re all being screwed… Some of like it (because we’re on the screwers end). However most of us, are going to have to take it manfully (or not).

    The alternatives are not clear, but I understand the difference between Democrats (screwees) and Republicans (screwers). In upcoming elections I will continue to vote for those that aren’t trying to screw me or my family.

  11. 11.

    Cain

    What do you call the scores of assholes voting for republicans demanding exactly this kind of thing? Middle class assholes wanting to give everything to the rich for what exactly?

    Sheesh..

  12. 12.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @Cain: If you don’t give the rich everything, then the middle classer’s will never be able to become rich. Perfectly obvious. (Full blown snark).

  13. 13.

    OzoneR

    A war implies two sides are fighting it. The middle class isn’t fighting it, a good portion of them is aiding the enemy.

  16. 16.

    hildebrand

    Of course, even more head-smacking are the comments over at the GOS – I know, I know, it is not nutpicking season – that somehow sound shocked! shocked! that the Democratic party doesn’t always seem interested in fighting for the lower and middle classes.

    My question to all of this is straightforward – when in US history did we truly have a political party that looked out for the lower and middle classes?

    How about actual individual politicians who really slogged through the muck every day to do what was right for the lower and middle classes (and actually got stuff done)?

    I am not trying to be a sarcastic git, but this particular quote is simply and naively foolish – as if the writer (who clearly knows better) just realized that the lion’s share of these folks don’t quite mean what they say.

  17. 17.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    It is a war when both sides are shooting. This isn’t a war, it is an occupation.

  18. 18.

    Neil

    I’ve had this discussion with a tea party “libertarian” at work. For some reason, destroying the social safety net will get those lazy mooches back to work and make it easier for us all to become free from governmental interference and thus all become wealthy and independent. Welcome to the brave new world of the pre 1930s.

  20. 20.

    OzoneR

    I’ve had this discussion with a tea party “libertarian” at work. For some reason, destroying the social safety net will get those lazy mooches back to work and make it easier for us all to become free from governmental interference and thus all become wealthy and independent.

    He must be rich, cause the middle class is fighting a class war against the rich. Didn’t you hear?

  22. 22.

    Corner Stone

    @jwb: Who do you think this is referring to?

    The rich and powerful people in DC are making these cuts in order to pay for tax breaks they recently gave to rich people and large corporations.

    It’s obvious DougJ is a dirty and disgusting person of ill repute.

  23. 23.

    OzoneR

    @Corner Stone

    The rich and powerful people in DC are making these cuts in order to pay for tax breaks they recently gave to rich people and large corporations.

    who disagrees with this?

  24. 24.

    ReverseWeasel

    Since it has been reported in the press that News International paid hush money, it’s time to write the FCC and ask for a review of New Corporation’s broadcast licenses. And CC: the advertisers and your TV service provider.

  25. 25.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    It is akin to the “small business” mantra which the republicans spout, I do not know of any “small business” that makes over $250,000 a year, not one, and I know a boatload of small businesses (albeit mostly attorneys), the majority of small businesses operate at a net loss, if only cause of the loopholes that are in the tax code. Depreciation is one of those. Depreciation is the biggest set of smoke and mirrors in the tax code that you can imagine.

  27. 27.

    kd bart

    #24-My dad, who was an accountant, use to refer to depreciation as the gift that keeps on giving.

  28. 28.

    different church-lady

    I don’t like to be a demanding bother, but could we have an open thread soon so I can ask for psychological help and healing after my afternoon at the GOS?

  29. 29.

    Linda Featheringill

    @hildebrand:

    . . .when in US history did we truly have a political party that looked out for the lower and middle classes?

    The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the Wobblies) claimed some 100,000 members in 1923. They seemed to be on the way to becoming a viable third party. Verrry working class.

    They were repressed violently. Look up Mayday. Look up Haymarket Square. Look up Joe Hill. And if you really want to get depressed, look into the history of the UMW.

    Since then, only a few, probably insane people have been willing to pay the price for representing approximately 90% of the US population. Dougj, in his almighty wisdom, refers to these folks as “nuts” and makes fun of them and ridicules them. But we know what side he’s on.

    Edited for clarity.

  30. 30.

    OzoneR

    but could we have an open thread soon so I can ask for psychological help after my day at the GOS?

    you wandered into an Elizabeth Warren diary, didn’t you?

  34. 34.

    lifeboat ethicist

    Oh, come on, even you can’t believe that.

    If I decide to give a homeless man on the street $10, and then I check my wallet, see that I’m short on cash, and give him $5, have I stolen $5 from him?

    This is not ‘class warfare’.

    This is a government, that has been more generous to poor and needy people than any government in history, deciding to give slightly less to those poor and needy people than it is currently giving.

    Nothing is being stolen from the poor.

    Nothing has been taken from the poor.

    The poor are going to receive, as an undeserved gift from the productive taxpayers of this country, a certain amount of money.

    They should be on their knees thanking us for what they get.

    Instead, they’re whining about ‘class warfare’ because the gift will be slightly less generous.

    That is not ‘class warfare’.

    Class warfare is when an entire class of productive citizens has its earned wealth taken at gunpoint to buy the favor of the unemployed urban masses.

    When the looters in charge of government steal and distribute slightly less?

    That is not an attack on the poor.

    Grow up.

  36. 36.

    jeer9

    Playful splashing about in the shallow end is allowed for the politically disabled.

  37. 37.

    OzoneR

    This is a government, that has been more generous to poor and needy people than any government in history,

    I just did a spit take.

    Do you know anything about any other government in the world? Wow

  38. 38.

    Mark S.

    Oh goody, I never get to hear the libertarian viewpoint on the Internet. Thanks lifeboat.

  40. 40.

    OzoneR

    If I decide to give a homeless man on the street $10, and then I check my wallet, see that I’m short on cash, and give him $5, have I stolen $5 from him?

    Normal people check their wallet first, but I find it hard to believe you’ve ever given a homeless person a penny.

  41. 41.

    Dennis SGMM

    @lifeboat douchebag:

    Class warfare is when an entire class of productive citizens has its earned wealth taken at gunpoint to buy the favor of the unemployed urban masses.

    And when the cupidity of those productive citizens has led to even more unemployed urban masses? A self-fulfilling prophecy is not a prophecy – it’s self-justification.

  42. 42.

    Kirk Spencer

    lifeboat ethicist (34)

    If your company’s profits increased and it all went to you with none going to the workers and their families, you stole from them.

  46. 46.

    hildebrand

    I always find it interesting that the assumption about the poor is that they are unproductive, and more importantly, that they actively seek out ways of being unproductive. As if unproductivity is a desired state of being.

    I also find it interesting that say a hedge fund manager is, by implication, being productive. What pray-tell are they producing that actually has any tangible benefit?

    Another example: My brother in law is a mortgage broker – guess what, the only thing he produces is a rather large sum of cash for his family – for doing something (i.e. filling out the necessary paperwork for home loans, and then selling said loans to others) that doesn’t take an advanced degree or years of experience mastering the trade – it just takes a license and a bit of an attention to detail (not always necessary or even desired).

    God, I hate Randians and their foolishness about producers and other assorted knavery.

  48. 48.

    The Sheriff's A Ni-

    @hilts: Someone should remind the gov that while he’s playing footsy with the media, Bachmann, Romney, Pawlenty, and everyone else is out there pressing flesh and raising money.

    Then again, he might already know.

  49. 49.

    NobodySpecial

    How’s this ethicist guy using government interwebs to spew his propaganda again?

  50. 50.

    Yutsano

    @The Sheriff’s A Ni-: I’m thinking he’s playing Gingrich coy right now. He has to know that a Republican from Texas will have a bitch of a time getting elected in just four years after the Bush disaster. But then again Goodhair hasn’t shown too much in the way of self-awarness up to now.

  51. 51.

    lifeboat ethicist

    If your company’s profits increased and it all went to you with none going to the workers and their families, you stole from them.

    Liberal politics of envy (and ignorance of economics) at its worst.

    If workers are paid a fair price for the work they do, that is, by definition, not theft.

    If they do the same work, they deserve the same pay.

    Does it get harder to produce a good when demand for that good drives the price up?

    Of course not.

    If raw materials become more expensive, do the workers have to take pay cuts? Of course not. The owner raises prices on the finished item or takes the loss.

    So if raw materials become less expensive, do the workers get pay raises? Of course not. The owner lowers prices on the finished item and takes the profit.

    (And I love how you threw ‘and their families’ in there. As if capitalists don’t have families to support.)

  53. 53.

    liberal

    @34 blithered,

    Nothing is being stolen from the poor. … The poor are going to receive, as an undeserved gift from the productive taxpayers of this country, a certain amount of money.

    LOL. Another right-wing moron who doesn’t understand the concept of economic rent, why it’s essentially legalized theft, and why accruing rents is not productive whatsoever.

    Sadly, though, non-right-wingers with their hearts in the right place usually don’t understand the political economy of rent, either.

  54. 54.

    Dennis SGMM

    @lifeboat ethicist:

    (And I love how you threw ‘and their families’ in there. As if capitalists don’t have families to support.)

    “My name is Elmer J. Fudd, [And I just know I’ll be a] millionaire.”

  55. 55.

    Yutsano

    @lifeboat ethicist:

    So if raw materials become less expensive, do the workers get pay raises? Of course not. The owner lowers prices on the finished item and takes the profit.

    Wow. So the person who doesn’t actually DO the work gets to cash in by virtue of a state-created construct of ownership. You are aware that all corporations only exist inside the realm of the government, amirite?

  56. 56.

    OzoneR

    If workers are paid a fair price for the work they do, that is, by definition, not theft.

    who decides what that “fair price” is?

    If raw materials become more expensive, do the workers have to take pay cuts? Of course not. The owner raises prices on the finished item or takes the loss.

    Wow, do you have a job, because this is not how its been working in recent decades. When raw materials become more expensive, companies cut jobs/freeze salaries so they DON’T take the loss

    That’s the problem.

    Jeez, i’d be a libertarian in your fantasy world.

  57. 57.

    liberal

    @51 lifeboat ethicist wrote,

    If workers are paid a fair price for the work they do, that is, by definition, not theft.

    The problem isn’t the price workers receive for their labor; it’s the fact they pay for access to land and other scarce resources to parties who did not create those resources.

    But you’re probably just another crypto-feudalist, freedom-despising “libertarian,” and hence refuse to understand that.

  58. 58.

    Linda Featheringill

    You guys realize that the ethicist showed up only because we are speaking the truth here at the upper part of the thread. Can’t have that.

    I have something else to do. Bye.

  59. 59.

    Stillwater

    @Yutsano: You are aware that all corporations only exist inside the realm of the government, amirite?

    I think that’s his point: that government serves the interests of the wealthy, and the granting of corporate protections is merely an instance of good governance.

  60. 60.

    OzoneR

    As if unproductivity is a desired state of being.

    Met any rich people lately, they’re just about the laziest fucks I know. My millionaire uncle never goes to work and takes six vacations a year. How did he get his millions? Glad you asked…he inherited it from dead relatives in Israel.

    Of course they think poor people are unproductive, THEY want to be, why wouldn’t poor people be either?

  61. 61.

    Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)

    not really.

    cuts are being made to cater to the racist teabaggers who think every tax dollar goes to a minority.

    it’s not class warfare, but rather culture war with a dash of idiocy, as the teabaggers have no idea that so much money, like farm subsidies, home land securities, etc., goes to them.

  62. 62.

    Dennis SGMM

    If those Galtian supermen are doing such a bang up job then how is that the government is insolvent and unemployment is higher than it’s been for several decades? With eighty percent of the nation’s wealth in the hands of less than ten percent of the population it looks as like the Randians’ only accomplishment is perfecting the art of picking pockets.

    And, BTW, what’s enough? Maybe all of the nation’s wealth in the hands of less than one percent of its population? Indentured servitude?

    Self-justifying greed, for Libertarians, is a sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.

  63. 63.

    OzoneR

    If those Galtian supermen are doing such a bang up job then how is that the government is insolvent and unemployment is higher than it’s been for several decades?

    Obama’s big government silly.

  64. 64.

    Cain

    DougJ – I wish you’d stop trolling your own threads.. don’t tell me lifeboat ethicist isn’t you!

  65. 65.

    PurpleGirl

    In the musical 1776, there is a song — Cool, Cool, Considerate Men — in which the richer, more propertied members of Congress sing about keeping policy to the right, to keeping their wealth. During the song there is a spoken comment by either Dickinson or Rutledge about how other men, poorer men, won’t want to change certain things because they want to be rich and propertied someday themselves.

    I hear that sentiment echo throughout the ranks of Republicans. I think that’s also where lifeboat ethicist is coming from.

  66. 66.

    Lojasmo

    @lifedouche #34

    I love how glibertarianshave managed to do a 180 degree mangle of the term “class warfare.”

    Just because you people (yeah, I went there) misuse the term a million times, does not make your malapropism correct.

    It just makes you look dumb.

  67. 67.

    Yutsano

    @Stillwater:

    I think that’s his point

    Objection: assumes facts not in evidence. I have yet to see a libertarian make an argument other than to piss off liberals. This jerk isn’t here looking for converts.

  68. 68.

    Uncle Clarence Thomas

    .
    .
    I will be greatly interested in hearing all your opinions on this, just as soon as President Obama tells you what it is.
    .
    .

  69. 69.

    TenguPhule

    Nothing is being stolen from the poor.

    Nothing has been taken from the poor.

    Except tax cuts, cuts to programs, worse working conditions, lack of legal remedies through a corrupt GOP controlled Court….

    Besides that, everything’s just fine.

    May you too be up against the wall when the revolution comes.

  70. 70.

    TenguPhule

    If those Galtian supermen are doing such a bang up job then how is that the government is insolvent and unemployment is higher than it’s been for several decades?

    Feature, not a bug.

    Their end goal is feudalism.

  71. 71.

    Dennis SGMM

    @OzoneR:

    Obama’s big government silly.

    Sorry; I forgot that the only government that’s acceptable to Libertarians is that which keeps them from being hanged from lamp posts.

  72. 72.

    TenguPhule

    If workers are paid a fair price for the work they do, that is, by definition, not theft.

    But they’re not, so it is.

  73. 73.

    Dennis SGMM

    @Uncle Clarence Thomas:

    I will be greatly interested in hearing all your opinions on this, just as soon as President Obama tells you what it is.

    What they are, you sad little troll. As for me, I’ll be interested in hearing your opinions about pie from here forward.

  74. 74.

    Judas Escargot

    If I decide to give a homeless man on the street $10, and then I check my wallet, see that I’m short on cash, and give him $5, have I stolen $5 from him?

    The man is homeless because there are only 1000 housing units in town. And you own all of them. And occupy 999 of them personally, just because you can. And that last free unit is rented by some white collar worker who’s terrified of offending you lest he end up homeless himself. And whenever someone tries to build more housing, you call up the mayor (who you own) and get the building permits denied. Then, late at night when you are alone, you puff up your little chest and thump it hard and declare yourself a Producer.

    All hail the great Producer, from whom all goodness flows. May he let us lick from his frigid little fingers for the rest of his frigid little life. Amen.

  80. 80.

    Kane

    Many don’t realize that a middle class is not a normal thing. It is brought about by direct intervention in the marketplace by government, including laws protecting labor, defining minimum wages, and taxing great wealth. Without these progressive foundations, America would revert to what it looked like during the era of the Robber Barons, with the average worker earning the equivalent of around $9,000 a year in today’s dollars, and a wealthy elite so rich and powerful that every branch of government was under their direct or indirect control.

    America’s first middle class was based on land and the family farm, the agricultural nation that Jefferson idealized. That began to disintegrate after the Civil War when the railroads were so omnipresent that they made it possible for large corporations to drive small farmers out of business.

    In response, the Progressive movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries brought us the direct election of the Senate, the right of women to vote, laws protecting the right to unionize, the estate tax, the G.I. Bill, and a progressive income tax. These all set the stage for the emergence of the second American middle class, which only began to decay with the “Reagan Revolution” in the 1980s when Reagan declared war on organized labor, and conservatives in Congress began to systematically dismantle progressive taxes and laws responsible and necessary for a thriving middle class.

  82. 82.

    Uncle Clarence Thomas

    .
    .
    @73 Dennis SGMM

    I will be greatly interested in hearing all your opinions on this, just as soon as President Obama tells you what it is. What they are, you magnificent bastard.

    Butt silly Dennis, there will be only ONE opinion amongst you all. Therefore, my use of the singular is correct. Thank you for attempting to speak proper English though.
    .
    .

  84. 84.

    TC

    The more they cut, the faster will come collapse of the hopelessly bankrupt, leveraged Ponzi scheme they’re trying to prop up. MORE debt, and more debt alone, might sustain it. Less debt surely will collapse it. There is no soft landing.

    You can take this to the bank, but don’t expect to get your deposit back.

  85. 85.

    Uncle Clarence Thomas

    .
    .
    @75 Yutsano

    Sigh. He used to actually get under our skins too, remember that? Now all we get is weak sauce out of him.

    Noted – Balloonbagger Flaccid Comeback Strategery #14.
    .
    .

  86. 86.

    Xenos

    You will know the class war has started in earnest when the forces of reaction take the predictable response to anyone who talks like Wat Tyler, John Brown, or Rosa Luxemburg. Forces of rebellion need a deep bench of leadership and they need the express backing of at least half the middle class to prevail. See, eg., Lenin, Mao, Washington, the Roosevelts. Hopeless conditions for more that 30 years (1.5 generations) seem to be necessary.

    Futile gestures will be futile, or worse.

  88. 88.

    Uncle Clarence Thomas

    .
    .
    @86 Yutsano

    Sigh. Stop phoning it in.

    Start earning it, then. Saying “sigh” just doesn’t cut it. Or me. Or anyone else. In your heart you know I’m right about this.
    .
    .

  89. 89.

    Kane

    Most Americans don’t feel animosity towards the rich. We tend to celebrate the lifestyles of the rich and famous and want to be rich ourselves.

    So long as everyone feels that they have a shot at opportunity and there remains a promise of possibility that through self-reliance and individual initiative that we can obtain a level of success, most can accept the disparity of wealth.

    The problems tend to arise when the greed of those with the wealth and political influence seek to dismantle the very foundations in place that create the middle class, when opportunity is unavailable and people no longer believe that the American Dream is possible.

  90. 90.

    Yutsano

    @Uncle Clarence Thomas: That would require me caring about your input. On anything. Which I don’t. But it’s interesting you devote your attention to me. Especially considering your namesake could have some pending issues with my employer.

  91. 91.

    drkrick

    @65 Purplegirl – Cool, Cool Considerate Men was dropped from the original (1972) movie release of 1776 and the various home video releases until quite recently when a copy of the footage was found in very poor condition and returned to the “Director’s Cut.” Come to find out Richard Nixon thought the song made contemporary conservatives look bad and asked his friend Jack Warner to have it removed. Warner not only ordered it cut, he ordered that all copies of the sequence be destroyed. Can you imagine the uproar today if it came out that Obama had asked for edits to a movie to make sure the Dems look good? Of course, Andrew Breitbart probably pretends to think it happens all the time.

  94. 94.

    Brachiator

    If that isn’t a class war, I don’t know what is.

    Based on some conversations with fellow commuters, one problem continues to be that the average person believes that when Republicans say “tax cuts,” they mean across the board tax cuts for everyone, and that when Democrats say “tax increases,” they mean tax increases on the middle class.

    This is an ongoing problem. Even Clinton, the Great Communicator, had to deal with this. And it is not just the fault of the mainstream media or conservative media like Faux News.

    I would bet good money that even Balloon Juicers, a pretty smart crew, would have problems explaining how the extension of the Bush tax cuts benefit, say, those in the 15 percent tax bracket.

    But even though it’s complicated, the burden of explaining how the GOP is killing the middle class falls on the current generation of Democrats, including Obama. And they are just not doing a good job here.

    And again, it astounds me that they are not using video, visuals and the Internets to more clearly get a clear message across. They desperately need to steal a page out of Ross Perot’s book and put some charts together.

    And somebody needs to teach Obama how to do a PowerPoint presentation. Words alone just are not sufficient.

  96. 96.

    OzoneR

    it astounds me that they are not using video, visuals and the Internets to more clearly get a clear message across.

    I guess you didn’t see Austan Goldsbee’s white board.

  97. 97.

    Bruce S

    OzoneR – July 17, 2011 | 10:44 pm · Link

    They’re not even lying about it…

    Did you think these people didn’t exist?

    Huh? Of course I knew these people existed. You’re not making sense. Get back to me with your point. Or not…

  98. 98.

    OzoneR

    @Bruce S

    That was supposed to be someone else’s comment in mine, not yours. It’s late.

  99. 99.

    Brachiator

    OzoneR:

    RE: it astounds me that they are not using video, visuals and the Internets to more clearly get a clear message across.

    I guess you didn’t see Austan Goldsbee’s white board.

    I saw it. The vast majority of Americans did not.

    And only political geeks know who the freak Goldsbee is in the first damn place.

    Jebus, people, get a clue. The Republicans hold up a blank book and claim they have a plan. At least they know how to use props as a visual aid, even if they are a bunch of liars.

    Even Sarah Palin gets a zealot to make a film about her.

    The Democrats should be masters of all media, instead of relying on speeches.

  100. 100.

    OzoneR

    I saw it. The vast majority of Americans did notAnd only political geeks know who the freak Goldsbee is in the first damn place.

    I’m not really understanding. Should Obama be in the one with the white board? Maybe the reason nobody saw it is nobody WANTED to see it. Did it ever occur to anyone that THAT’S the problem.

    Even Sarah Palin gets a zealot to make a film about her.

    That opened to an empty theater

    The Democrats should be masters of all media, instead of relying on speeches.

    Dems use media all the time, they Tweet up a storm, the party updates Facebook like every five seconds. The President uses streaming video to get around the network news, and it STILL doesn’t work.

  101. 101.

    Brachiator

    Kane:

    America’s first middle class was based on land and the family farm, the agricultural nation that Jefferson idealized.

    Jefferson and Madison were exceptional political thinkers, but lousy economists. Jefferson’s idealized agricultural nation never really existed. Look to the mercantile Hamilton instead.

    That began to disintegrate after the Civil War when the railroads were so omnipresent that they made it possible for large corporations to drive small farmers out of business.

    And yet by 1870, the GDP of the United States exceeded that of the nominal superpower, Great Britain. And of course, the greater degree of industrialization made it almost inevitable that the North would defeat the more agrarian Confederacy.

    In response, the Progressive movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries brought us the direct election of the Senate, the right of women to vote, laws protecting the right to unionize, the estate tax, the G.I. Bill, and a progressive income tax. These all set the stage for the emergence of the second American middle class

    Fair point, this mixes social and economic forces, and strangely omits the massive industrialization of the same period.

  102. 102.

    Bruce S

    ” OzoneR – July 18, 2011 | 12:15 am · Link
    @Bruce S
    That was supposed to be someone else’s comment in mine, not yours. It’s late.”

    Okay. Sorry.

  103. 103.

    AnotherBruce

    My question to all of this is straightforward – when in US history did we truly have a political party that looked out for the lower and middle classes?

    From 1932 until 1972, at that point these United States of America decided that George McGovern was crazier than Milhous Nixon. From there it was all downhill.

  104. 104.

    OzoneR

    , at that point these United States of America decided that George McGovern was crazier than Milhous Nixon. From there it was all downhill.

    ironically, I know people who worked on McGovern’s campaign who are teabaggers now.

  105. 105.

    Bruce S

    “ironically, I know people who worked on McGovern’s campaign who are teabaggers now”

    Could you get me Jon Voight’s autograph?

  106. 106.

    Brachiator

    @OzoneR:

    I’m not really understanding. Should Obama be in the one with the white board?

    Wouldn’t be a bad idea. Ya know, like Perot and his charts.

    Maybe the reason nobody saw it is nobody WANTED to see it. Did it ever occur to anyone that THAT’S the problem.

    This is not the problem.

    RE: Even Sarah Palin gets a zealot to make a film about her.

    That opened to an empty theater

    The Internets is a powerful resource. As crappy as the Palin documentary certainly is, there is more to the marketing campaign than the empty theater opening.

    Sarah Palin documentary “The Undefeated” got off to a soft start in a lightly promoted 10-theater box-office debut this weekend, grossing somewhere between $65,000-$75,000, according to estimates confirmed by distributor ARC Entertainment.
    __
    Still, ARC Entertainment isn’t admitting defeat, declaring the film’s limited opening “strong” while pointing to several sold-out performances.

    RE: The Democrats should be masters of all media, instead of relying on speeches.

    Dems use media all the time, they Tweet up a storm, the party updates Facebook like every five seconds. The President uses streaming video to get around the network news, and it STILL doesn’t work.

    Again, my point is that the Democrats do not exploit visual communication effectively, not that he is not on Facebook and other venues.

    But then again, it’s always easier to fallback on the tired idea that the evil mainstream media, and Rush and Fox, won’t let the Democrats get their message across.

  107. 107.

    OzoneR

    do not exploit visual communication effectively

    I don’t know what you mean by this, they should have a YouTube channel? They do have one, each of the President’s weekly messages are on it, and they’re not very well watched.

    I don’t know what you mean by “exploit visual communications.” They do, there just doesn’t seem to be any interest in their message.

  108. 108.

    eric

    When I recently commented that we should reclaim Bastille Day by wearing period costumes and parading a mock guillotine as a warning to the oligarchy I was ignored or ridiculed. Now it seems that we’ll have to actually organize some real protests to make our wishes known.

  109. 109.

    fuckwit

    I think that the fact that the French celebrate Bastille Day every year is one of the main reasons why their government remains terrified of the people, whereas here, the people are terrified of the government.

    Nothing like an annual reminder of the rich and powerful being massacred en masse by the people that they impoverished and stole from.

  110. 110.

    Brachiator

    I don’t know what you mean by this, they should have a YouTube channel? They do have one, each of the President’s weekly messages are on it, and they’re not very well watched.

    It is not enough to have a YouTube channel. They need more stuff like you see on the site “Visualizing Economics,” but a lot less wonky.

  111. 111.

    Yutsano

    @fuckwit:

    I think that the fact that the French celebrate Bastille Day every year is one of the main reasons why their government remains terrified of the people

    One should think so. They are on Republic number five. With two dictatorial interregnums and two devastating wars intervening as well.

  112. 112.

    El Cid

    In no way does the presence of a governmental and societal infrastructure enable the profits and inherited aristocracy of the super-rich.

    They just sort of created the ability to make money by telekinesis, originating with a spontaneous generation of wealth.

    You don’t need a functional and healthy society to accumulate fantastic amounts of wealth, right? After all, look at juntas.

    Or the spectacular example of a Mobutu Sese Seko, the US-installed and generationally-backed tyrant of Congo (“Zaire”) who specialized in growing rich from the exploitation of the state’s resources as trickled down from the foreign mining corporations whose interests he existed to serve.

    And his country was one of the most extreme examples of a non-functional society to have been known.

    If you let rich people grow rich enough, then their example will generate a capitomorphic field, within which a stable infrastructure and repeat customers can appear even within the confines of a flask with a swan-shaped spout.

    You liberals just want to destroy the super-rich’s ability to give you the society you need.

  113. 113.

    Chris

    @ Cain,

    What do you call the scores of assholes voting for republicans demanding exactly this kind of thing? Middle class assholes wanting to give everything to the rich for what exactly?

    They don’t, exactly – they just want to give the working class’ stuff away to the rich so they’ll stop being so uppity, and are stupid enough to think it’ll end there.

    The “first they came for…” poem really applies perfectly here.

  114. 114.

    OzoneR

    They need more stuff like you see on the site “Visualizing Economics,” but a lot less wonky.

    I’m not sure how you make economics less wonky.

  115. 115.

    Chris

    This is a government, that has been more generous to poor and needy people than any government in history

    I take it you’ve never been to Europe. Or anywhere else on the planet, for that matter.

    I realize “America is the most generous country on Earth” is one of the millions of pat-yourselves-on-the-back memes that people are obligated to spout for no particular reason, but it’s demonstrable bullshit and I’m getting mighty fucking tired of hearing it.

    The U.S. has far and away the stingiest and cruelest safety net of any nation in the free world, and it did even at its high water mark in the 1960s. Calling America “the most generous government on Earth” is like calling Lithuania the greatest military power in the world. Only deluded morons stuffed to the brim with nationalist propaganda believe that crap. Sadly, the U.S. has no shortage of them.

  116. 116.

    Chris

    Oh goody, I never get to hear the libertarian viewpoint on the Internet. Thanks lifeboat.

    “Libertarians blog with a frequency that makes one wonder if they’re actually employed somewhere or if they have loved ones who miss them.”
    – John Scalzi

  117. 117.

    Chris

    @ Xenos,

    Hopeless conditions for more that 30 years (1.5 generations) seem to be necessary.

    Well… yeah.

    There’s a reason revolutions are rare occurrences. People are perfectly aware of how destructive they are, and will put up with a staggering amount of crap from the existing system simply because the alternative, to risk everything being destroyed in the chaos, is unthinkable.

    Revolutions happen when people have their backs to a wall, don’t see any way out and think that things are so bad that the chaos, anarchy and violence of a revolution are actually preferable.

  118. 118.

    Brachiator

    @OzoneR:

    “I’m not sure how you make economics less wonky.”

    Journalist Robert Krulwich does it all the time, has even won awards for his efforts in communicating complex ideas elegantly. Larry Gonick in his various Cartoon History of the Universe book series also does an outstanding job. 

    And that’s just two examples off the top of my head. The White House and the Democrats should be all over effective communication, particularly since the opposition love lies and distortion. 

  119. 119.

    CynDee

    I

    f that isn’t a class war, I don’t know what is.

    If these aren’t terrorists, I don’t know who is.

  120. 120.

    angrybitch

    I think that the fact that the French celebrate Bastille Day every year is one of the main reasons why their government remains terrified of the people, whereas here, the people are terrified of the government.

    VIVA LA REVOLUTION
    Let’s march to Washington and let some heads roll…..

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks