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Americans Fear Losing Affluence After Decades of Dole
Polls don't lie. If anything, they tell too many truths. But news editors present front-page results in fragments, usually picking the most sensational numbers at the expense of more telling ones. It's not malice. It's not journalism, either. It's a form of narrative herding that feeds assumptions instead of challenging them. The distortions can be fatal to good policy.
Take last month's New York Times/CBS News polls. One of them asked the usual question about presidential approval. The result was 50 percent, about where Barack Obama has been in most polls for weeks. The Times had also polled unemployed adults and asked them the same question. Approval among them was 61 percent. That number, extremely telling in my opinion, wasn't reported in the Times story about the poll of the unemployed, which focused more on who had insomnia and how many children of the unemployed had anxiety -- interesting numbers but hardly the sort that tell you anything about public policy, like that counterintuitive 61 percent. (The number is deep inside the raw 22-page poll results, which, to The Times' credit, are available online).
When the economy tanks, the president and his party pay the price in lower approval ratings. The jobless are last to reward the president. So, what's going on? This is: For the first time in any recession, including the Great Depression, health-insurance coverage for the unemployed was vastly expanded and made cheaper, unemployment insurance was expanded and homeowners, the jobless among them, got multiple lifelines to ward off foreclosure.
The segment of the population hurting most from the recession, in other words, got the most direct help. Those in the 61 percent likely aren't complaining about the stimulus packages or federal debt. They're grateful they still have homes and insurance for their families.
The proportion disapproving of the president's performance is much higher among those who still have jobs -- those more worried that their taxes might be slightly higher (they'd be wrong: Obama lowered them for most) or their health-insurance choices more restricted if they endorsed his proposed reform (they'd also be wrong: they'd be broader) than that they'd be homeless.
There's a similar disconnect in health polls, which now show a sizable majority opposed to "health care reform," whatever that is, but not to proposals in their particulars. Big majorities still think the uninsured should be covered, that government has a responsibility to cover them, that a government-backed public insurance system competing with private insurers is a good idea, even that Medicare should be expanded. Bundle all those proposals under "health care reform," and you get a big fat "No" -- not from those who don't have insurance or jobs but from those who do: the employed, the retired, the rich. In sum, what "rebellion" there is about Obama and his agenda isn't the cry of the dispossessed. It's the rasp of the misers. It's the size of a national character diminishing in tandem with its presumed returns. The greediest generation is in its prime.
The radical change isn't the kind Obama supposedly wants to inflict on the country. It's America's radical change from what it was in the middle of the last century to what it has become since the 1980s. When Franklin Roosevelt increased Americans' taxes faster and more than ever before, and Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower raised them even more, they paid up. There was a Depression to get out of, fascism to defeat, a postwar world that wasn't even our own to rebuild, a Cold War to prosecute and a national debt much fatter than it is now (in relation to the economy) to pay down. We did it all. And got richer for it, because taxes were seen for what they are -- "what we pay for a civilized society," in Oliver Wendell Holmes' words. The generosity spilled over to the 1960s in the form of the Great Society, when Americans turned toward each other and extended a further hand. The country was rich and confident. It could afford it.
It still can. But, for a generation, Americans have been turning on each other for being too fearful of losing what they have. It's not responsible government they want. Quite the opposite. They're worried about the end of the decades of dole -- of the tax cuts and artificially cheap credit and God-bless-us-chauvinism that posed as reinventions of American power even as it plundered that power to the point of catastrophe. We paid the price in 2008 and 2009.
Obama, more conservative than Bush ever was, was elected to clean it up. He had the right idea and the right words at Grant Park a year ago: "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible," he said, "tonight is your answer." It turns out that night of courage, Obama's included, was the aberration. We're still addicted to the dole.
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161 Comments so far
Show AllPiffle, say I. That was no courage. It was rhetoric in service of a continued transfer of wealth from poor to rich, such as mandating under law the purchase of private insurance, such as war, such as continuing the toxic policies of the previous administration on, ooh, "extraordinary rendition" and covering up torture.
Evidence matters more than glittering generalities. Tristam is right to decry the meaner and greedier direction of the culture, but wrong to project into the president some sort of opposite aesthetic. His funding came from corporate pillars of that same greediness and meanness. Connect the dots from A to B, Mr. Tristam.
I think it took courage to make the rousing speech at Grant Park. That was Obama's peak. But he's on a short leash. He's allowed to make rousing speeches but no to do anything about them.
Also, who are the real greedy people in America? Is it the rank-and-file or the top 1%?
I don't think lowering the top tax rate was an idea that the average Joe really cares about one way or the other-- it doesn't affect his taxes. No, it's the greed and shortsightedness of the top 1% that has done so much damage to us all, and there is no relief in sight as serious regulation and reform is off the table. And the president isn't talking about real reform-- only hinting at it in vague generalities in speeches.
If he's on a short lease, then he's on a leash of his own design, crafted by a leather vendor in Beverly Hills, and delivered to him personally at one of his house warming parties.
"who are the real greedy people in America?"
I do not recall any widespread outcry in the US when it crashed country after country with its vulture hedge funds, disaster capitalism, and IMF recipes to dismantle social services and reverse labor laws in the 3rd world. I do not recall any widespread discomfort during decades of low energy prices and cheap imports, credit, McMansions, and SUVs. What I recall is that all this proved that you were the Greatest Nation the World Has Ever Seen with the most efficient, hard-working, law-abiding, intelligent, and moral beings on planet Earth destined to be the world hegemon for another century.
The other 99% will not get off the hook so easily.
Where you from, anyway? It seems like Americans can pillory their own country without your help (unless you have some profoundly insightful comment--something I don't see here). Why not go after your own country--I am sure you will find as much injustice there as here. Or not?
If it took courage to speak in his hometown and neighborhood, it is too bad that the measure of it was so small he failed to fulfill a single campaign promise.
Obama never "peaked."
He is doing precisely what he was hired to do. He was selling us then. Speaking. Selling. We bit, but you still have that hook lodged deep in the jaw--
Observe. Don't listen.
In addition, your notion that the tax breaks for the top tier don't effect the "average joe's" taxes is, well, a bit misguided--in that it couldn't be more wrong.
You misunderstand me. I say that speech was Obama's "peak" because he hasn't followed up that oratory with action or leadership; it's been all downhill since then.
I'm not sure I follow your logic on the tax thing. The tax rate for lower earnings hasn't changed much; the tax rate on the highest income bracket has been lopped off since 1981, causing all sorts of economic distortions. Most of the tax "breaks" of the last 30 years have only benefited the top 1%, enormously increasing their wealth and power to the detriment of everyone else.
Sorry, but I think you are blaming the victim here. It was Reagan and his "It's your RIGHT to hate anyone you want" and his turning us against each other that started this. It was Reagan who said "It's an "I got mine" society, now, and you'd better start getting yours" who started this rush to selfishness in the country. GHW Bush didn't do anything to stop that, and by the time Clinton came around, it had been going that way for over a decade. W just cemented the final slab over us.
Conservatives are scared, selfish people. Everything that others might want for their own lives scares them, and makes them push back. Unfortunately, they are the ones who tend to have the money, because that is all they know and trust. It's the whole goal of their lives, and to give to or help anyone else is just plain wrong in their eyes. So they go around talking about welfare queens, and how they are destroying the country, when it's those at the top who actually control things that are doing that. The conservatives are so blinded by their fear and hate that they don't even see WHO it is that is screwing them, as well as the rest of us. And as soon as you try and point that out, YOU are the "liberal" who is the whole problem.
If you want to blame someone, Pierre, blame those at the top who have turned us against each other for political gain. Blame the top 2% who have made sure that our wages haven't even kept up with inflation, let alone given us a dollar to spend on something other than basic necessities. Blame those who declared war on the middle class over 30 years ago, all because they didn't think that people should be able to tell their gov't what to do and what NOT to do. Blame those who took away our jobs so they could be even richer than they were already. It wasn't enough for them to have more than everyone else, they had to screw us all as well. And blame congress, who sat by and watched while all this was going on, and either did nothing or were cheer leading for the big money all the while, passing laws and tax breaks that hurt this country far worse than any terrorist would have dreamed.
This article is bullshit. It's a complete whitewash of reality. We don't want to be on the dole, we want to WORK, Goddamnit, and it's those with too much to begin with that are the REAL problem here. It's those who have and have more who are screwing the rest of us so they can keep having more. It's driven us to a dead economy, based on principles put forth by an IDIOT with Alzheimer's. It's time to send the stake through that vampire's heart and it had better happen damned soon.
Go somewhere else to blame those who have gotten screwed. We hear FAR more of it than we need, and it's a goddamned lie. I'm sick of people blaming those of us who have gotten screwed over the last 30 years, especially since I was telling everyone back then what Reagan's stupidity was going to lead us to. And they told me I was wrong in no uncertain and very unflattering terms. But look at who was RIGHT when all the shit hit that fan.
Quit blaming the victims. You are no better than Pat Robertson and his bullshit about Haiti, or New Orleans, for that matter. What deal did we make with the devil to get so badly screwed? It's our trust in our gov't that has led us to this point, and I for one will NEVER trust it again until the private money is removed, and PEOPLE, not corporations, run things.
You said it better than I, and your anger is justified.
Best damn posting I've seen lately! THANKS!!!!!!
Thank you! Well said.
Reagan's Pres. Obaminable's greatest hero. He's fulfilling Reagan's dream of destroying the working class.
here here!!!!! And 3 cheers!!!!!
WJM you seem to be channeling the cartoon "Lucky Duck." If you're not familiar with it I know you can find fairly regular installments of it in "The Funny Times" a monthly publication out of Cleveland.
Excellent post.
"Blame the top 2%"
Actually, I blame 3rd world countries that grew strong enough and amassed enough reserves to stand up to US financial and military hegemony. This is why your hedge funds turned on the American people as the victims of last resort.
You are getting a taste of the medicine you forced down the throat of many countries. By "you" I mean the 98% that waved flags when the US occupied Afghanistan and Iraq; cheered when your investments, pensions and houses went up, up, up; felt happy driving to the mall to splurge on unnecessary imports bought on credit; and re-elected Bush.
Stop whining and acknowledge the role your country has played in the world since the fall of the Berlin Wall and how Americans have collectively supported and benefiting from it.
True America's obsession with fear and war...it is addicted.
Always somethin other to blame but they are all cogs in the War Machine.
I am all for third world countries advancing and raising their people's living standards. I personally have no investments in any financial institutions, so their raising standards haven't hurt me in the least. I am not a gambler with money, as I really don't have any.
I was against the invasion of both Afghanistan and Iraq. I knew, at the time, however, that W and Cheney would not be denied their chance to wage war like grown ups, and unfortunately, I was right. I honestly believe that if he hadn't bungled up both of those situations, Iran was next on the chopping block. Thank God that someone saw that besides me, and they got stopped.
I'm not going to glorify your demand for penance. I doubt that there is a country out there that hasn't had it's issues with others in the world. I'm not going to hang my head in shame for what happened that was out of my control. You can take that back home with you, thanks. You don't know who you are talking to, obviously. I've been against corporate power since I first learned about it at age 10 in 1968. I have no investments or pensions and I don't spend time at ANY mall, thanks again. And if you think I EVER voted for ANY republican, you REALLY have another guess coming. I know that both W elections were fraudulent.
I want justice for a country whose citizens have been screwed by those with too much money. Saying so should not demand that I hang my head in shame over something else. This is NOT the time for such crap. Go shill somewhere else. Yeah, 65 years ago something happened, we're all ashamed of it, SO WHAT?
You have the compassion of BOTH Phil Gramm and Pat Robertson all rolled up in one. And just as relevant. What is YOUR answer to the problem? Sit around and fell ashamed all you want. And then when nothing has changed because of it, you can try and DO SOMETHING about it. Only thing is, you'll be even later to the party than you are now. And it will be even harder to fix then.
"I'm not going to glorify your demand for penance."
Not penance but accepting the truth, that is, that the US is an empire and that it is in its last stage. Distinguishing between empire and nation will help you rebuild the latter and defend yourselves on the way down.
"I doubt that there is a country out there that hasn't had it's issues with others in the world."
I was not talking about "issues with other countries" but empire.
"I've been against" "I have no investments" "I don't spend" "I know"
Notwithstanding what individual Americans have been against, have, spend, and know, imperialism has benefited the US' citizenry. Now that the empire is crumbling, it will affect you adversely.
"I want justice for a country whose citizens have been screwed by those with too much money"
Again you focus on individuals, very American of you. The world has been screwed by Pax Americana, the global system controlled by Washington. The system is in its last throes.
"What is YOUR answer to the problem?"
The world has been successfully responding to imperialism for decades. It started with Brazil disrupting the WTO negotiations, producing generic AIDS drugs, and building pharmaceuticals in Africa. 3rd world countries accumulated reserves to defend themselves against hedge fund attacks. Argentina declared a moratorium. North Korea build nuclear weapons. Iran developed nuclear technology. Unasur. SCO. Neoliberal puppet governments overthrown in Ecuador and Bolivia. Bechtel thrown out of Cochabamba. And then there is China.
The empire is crumbling.
Lupita, you make some good points. I can see how people may feel offended - but, as you say, accepting the truth is important. Personally, I've been thinking that this "accepting" has to go back to cover what happened in the last few hundred years. It's really important - because a society that's built on wasteful use of resources cannot be sustained. It doesn't matter who's responsible, because everyone went along with it, and there never has been any mass movement advocating simplicity and sustainability. Unless someone has firsthand knowledge of what life is like in other countries with fewer resources, it would be difficult to even imagine that there's a lot that's wrong with the USA (and Canada, Australia and so on). The system is essentially unsustainable, although the victims do not have much say in how things are run. Auto workers who lost their jobs are paying for someone else's mistakes - but these mistakes started several decades ago when whatever public transportation that existed was dismantled. The only countries where people have to rely so much on cars are in the so-called "New World". Everywhere else, there are cars, but there is also decent public transportation. Oil production in the USA has peaked long ago - but the way people commute or the way cities and suburbs grew did not change. Most people have no idea what sustainability means - and the USA, the way it's set up and run, is far from sustainable, and has been so for a long, long time. The unfortunate truth has to be faced, and the changes needed are so damned drastic, that no one is even talking about them. Wealth is concentrated in so few hands - so whatever is needed for the masses has to come from other countries - or so it seems.
Virtually everyone in here is opposed to imperialism, and for that matter nationalism, which you represent in spades--Mexican nationalism. You can't find three people who come to this forum that champion American imperialism, and yet you constantly imply and insinuate that we're all closet imperialists. Merely because we live here, as if it's our fault that this imperialist government goes about its imperialist business. We haven't brought it down, so we're culpable. And yet there you sit in Mexico with Calderon's rightwing regime making everything fine and dandy for your own greedy elites, at the expense of your poor and powerless, just as it's been for many many years, but there's no contradiction at all. Look to your own failure to get rid of elitist pricks like Calderon before lecturing Americans. Fat chance. Lecture away, self-righteous one. Nobody's listening.
Hello Ephraim. Nice to see you here.
"Nobody's listening."
Well, Pierre Tristam made the original point that Americans are used to living on the dole and Alcyon explained very clearly the impact of Americans' unsustainable ways.
Yes, and I agree with Alcyon. But to say that our way of life is unsustainable and that empire is unsustainable is scarcely controversial. Everyone with two brain cells to rub together knows this. The best that can be said about Pierre's short essay is that it approaches incoherence. The worst is that he's been imbibing too freely from the conservative's punch bowl. I can't tell if he's lately embraced Milton or Tom Friedman, or if he just wrote that during a bad hangover. But he doesn't make a lot of sense.
The mistake you perpetually make, and are remorseless in making, is to not only point out to Americans that we live in an empire that exploits, undermines and/or destroys other cultures and nations, but that each and every one of us is as damnably culpable as our government and the corporations that run it. You do this ALL the time. And it's pretty clear how you delight in riling Americans up. You believe we're all greedy individualists who can't think about the larger good of any society.
The contempt you have for Americans, not merely as an "anti-imperialist" as you flatter youself always as being, is clear as a summer's day. That's why you always get a chilly reception, which, again, is obviously what you want. If I went to Mexico and started telling Mexicans they're not doing very well because they're lazy, ignorant and shiftless, how well do you suppose I'd be received? I know this isn't true but I could say it anyway, if I wanted to piss them off and make them feel really bad. Until I got my ass kicked, of course. You have the distance of cyberspace protecting you, and it's a good thing. Otherwise, I don't like your chances for good health very long, the way you love trashing Americans. I mean, um, "anti-imperialism."
Another apology for Obama is all this pretty useless piece. What's up CD, you been posting a lot of pro-Barak pieces recently?
But the president is a false idol, a label dressed in designer suits and moving in a cloud of meaningless rhetoric. He's a fraud as a progressive and the only reason he has a 61% approval rating among the unemployed is they credit him with extensions of unemployment insurance -- ignoring that was Congress's work.
Gary
PS BTW I am suggesting the name "The People" for a new unity party to bring together the dozen or so "third-parties" that better represent the actual positions of the American people than the present duopoly. Imagine campaigning for "The People."
"The segment of the population hurting most from the recession, in other words, got the most direct help."
This guy must be brain dead!!!!!!!
Does he know that the Fed's obligations are up past 23 trillion! Those funds weren't given to WE THE PEOPLE.
and That is more than enough to pay off EVERY RESIDENTIAL MORTGAGE IN AMERICA! two time over!
Those funds were given out at zero interest with no payments until the companies became "solvent"......
peole like the author above bug the heck out of me with their factless drivel!
Who are you calling "the greediest generation", Tristam? It's like talking about 'farmers' as a group when in reality, there is corporate farming that destroys the environment, produces substandard foods, receives massive subsidies from our gov., and negatively affects the domestic and world economies. And then there are the real farmers, people to care about the land and try to produce the best food possible.
Are the "greedy" those who want better jobs, affordable medical care for their families (and for everyone), etc. or those who are already well-situated and want more?
Trying to extract profound meaning from polls can be an exercise in futility since we don't know exactly why respondents answer the way they do. With Obama, there's always the chance that some polling results are racially motivated, for instance. It also matters where those polled get their news and information.
All polls can do, in agregate, is describe general trends, and yes, polls can "lie".
Obama doesn't get it.
He is POTUS, with all the power of the office plus the extra power for the office wangled during the Bush regime.
Time for him to crush skulls.
This quote by Obomba: " If there is anyone out there who doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, tonight, is your answer". Pierre, you call this quote an act of courage? You are still buying the con and no wonder your article is a piece of garbage! If you do not know by now that Barry is the master at persuading people that he is on their side, while doing just the opposite,you are either very sophomoric or a typical presstitute. If Obomba would have been truthful, he would have said: TONIGHT IS NOT YOUR ANSWER!
redwriteman
Another nice posting.
redwriteman: Right on, brother. I have been out of work since my layoff ONE YEAR AGO. In that time, I have had 3 personal interviews and 2 phone ones. I am an older, divorced woman who is self-supporting (let's just say I'm over 60) and needs to keep working. I don't look my age, but obviously I am over 50, so no one wants to hire me. I have a Bachelor's Degree and present a fashionable, neat and clean appearance. I don't want to (nor can I afford to) sit back and survive on "the dole". I am willing to pay taxes, and pay higher taxes, if it would mean all Americans would have health coverage. A healthy nation is a wealthy nation. I want my fellow Americans to succeed because that means I am more likely to do so. Taxes are what we must pay for a decent infrastructure and a decent public education system--without which we will not be a successful nation. The conservative point of view seems to be: I've got mine, go get your own and f**k off and leave me alone. Well, I am proud to be a liberal, progressive Democrat and think unless we all help each other (the government included), we are doomed to fail. Our nation is heading down a dangerous path to fascism and oligarchy where the poor and the middle class are just cogs in the wheel that runs the bus that carries the rich to their destination. And that health bill IS a piece of shit--just a big giveaway to the insurance companies and Big PhRMA. To coin a tired phrase, we need a rising tide to lift ALL boats--not just those lifeboats of the Titanic that were only for the wealthy and powerful.
glogrrl
Don't give up...not that I thought you would, I believe this tide is being pushed by neither the wealthy and powerful nor the victim and racism crowd.
It very well may be a real tide for your boat this time. Though I hope you find a job well before it comes in. We'll kick all their butt's before its over.
My respect's to you
Forgive me for lifting a paragraph from a previous poster WJM and putting it up again but I didn't want anyone to miss it.
"This article is bullshit. It's a complete whitewash of reality. We don't want to be on the dole, we want to WORK, Goddamnit, and it's those with too much to begin with that are the REAL problem here. It's those who have and have more who are screwing the rest of us so they can keep having more. It's driven us to a dead economy, based on principles put forth by an IDIOT with Alzheimer's. It's time to send the stake through that vampire's heart and it had better happen damned soon."
And I'd add its the fault of those that help them, the fault of anyone that conspires to take Americans jobs and give them away to anyone else so that they can accrue more power or money.
Though I try not to use curse words, this article, is indeed bullshit.
This is one of the most pathetic pieces I've read in a very long time. It is a good example of the Obama co-dependent mindset that will have his party get a bigger shovel instead of a course correction.
On Wednesday morning, for the first time, I saw Obama on teevee and thought, "Hmmm, maybe there's some potential in this president after all." Why? Because he made a short statement about collecting $5bn in taxes owed by corporations who also do business with the government. It was a concrete, achievable step.
Next day, the president is out talking about reinstalling a firewall between banking and investing. It sounded good. Everywhere I went on the internets people were saying, "It sounds good. Now let's see if he delivers."
The president has a credibility chasm. If he set goals for progress that would help the American people, AND THEN FOLLOWED THROUGH, he could rebuild his credibility and salvage his presidency. But, alas, no. Next day I hear that Obama is back on the campaign trail and bringing back Pouffle, Piffle, whatever his Rove's name is, which is the last thing this president needs and the last thing this country needs.
I too see this article as riddled with errors and misconceptions. I was actually fascinated as to how bad it is, at least in my opinion. I see that other comments are ripping into this article; it's always good to see CD comment writers right on the ball.
I nominate this article for Worst CD Article of the Year 2010. But I don't have time to specifically lodge my many disagreements with the article; I am just making a quick response to another comment....
The Obama modus operandi is that all actual budgets, laws and regulations will range from right to hard right, but occasionally, when for example his ratings are tanking even worse than usual, there will be some populist talk and a populist proposal or two. But notice that anything proposed during these little Obama populist talk fests never (or at least virtually never) actually becomes law.
I suggest this tripe be on some unreadable text link below the fold.
genicon
I have never seen an article on C.D. so misunderstood as this one, or is it just that the critics of this article are the ones Tristam is pointing the finger at.
"It turns out that night of courage, Obama's included, was the aberration" That is not exactly praising Obama and the point about Americans turning on each other because they fear losing what they have seems a fair judgment. We have become shoppers and consumers and obsessed with material possessions, citizenship and concern for each other be damned.
Tristram's comment about being on the dole does not mean welfare as someone here took it. I would suggest a slow re-read.
I don't believe anyone here misread his use of "dole" as welfare dole. I certainly did not. I suspect no one else did either.
"decades of dole -- of the tax cuts and artificially cheap credit and God-bless-us-chauvinism that posed as reinventions of American power even as it plundered that power to the point of catastrophe."
Indeed, Americans are being cut off the dole. You empire is crumbling.
That post makes no sense.
Americans Fear Losing Affluence After Decades of Dole = Americans Fear Losing Affluence After Decades of Empire. Dole = Empire. Get it?
Nope, its a Non sequitur.
Duh, imperialism=american fruit co.=dole pinapples
With all due respect to the posters here who are flaming this article, I demur.
Yup, Unemployment is about 17-20% in real numbers. That means 80% are employed and a majority (?) of them have some kind of Health Insurance. Many of them (majority?) are folks who say, "I don't want to sit in my doctor's office with MY children with those poor people and their children (read: Black Brown Poor White). We might catch something from them." (yes, the American disease called poverty)
We are as a people folks who have thrown bodies under the bus, for 40 years, just as long as we were not 'touched'.
And while I'm not clear that any body of folks have actually gotten any meaningful mortgage assistance and almost 30% are upside down on their mortgage, the Cobra system has provided at least some with a continuation of health care. So yes, the comfort level of people with some level of 'benefits' places them in a holding pattern until the ax is used on the White Majority during the 2nd & 3rd Waves of our ongoing economic Collapse. The White Majority neither sees nor believes this. They think if they just "stay the course" everything will work out for them. Regrettably, by the time the ax falls on them, there will be no money for UI, for Cobra, for SSI, or for Medicare - and "their jobs" will be gone. (This is the intended outcome by Larry Summers).
There is also however NO question that the (shrinking) White Majority has invariably said throughout my adult life: "I got mine, fuck you go away and die." Exclusion. They like it.
"It's the rasp of the misers. It's the size of a national character diminishing in tandem with its presumed returns. The greediest generation is in its prime." This is true.
WE my generation, baby boomers, have destroyed the environment, have gutted this society and transferred the wealth to the Oligarchy to keep "everyone in their place": Race, Gender, Class.
Yes, the crap on the table is crap, House and Senate, because EVERYTHING that wasn't crap was off the table before the opening bell - that too is part of the Exclusionary system.
What the White Majority fails to consciously perceive is an old, old lesson: Master never shares.
Where were the millions in the streets for Single Payer? Where were the Unions? Where was the Anti-War Movement for Single Payer? Which 'social forces' combined to demonstrate massive support in the streets for this approach? NEVER HAPPENED.
So no, I have no disagreement with the premise of this article. And yes, BHO is another Overseer on Master's Slave Plantation. I saw it in late '07 and '08 and '09 and now in '10. He's there for Master and the agony threshold has not touched the 80%. As far as they are concerned: "I got mine, fuck you go away and die." Exclusion. They like it. They will even accept the DEATH of 20% of the population as long as they can put a Black face on it, even though they are only 12% of Americans and the majority of those that die will be White. That's why they're doomed.
"I got mine, fuck you go away and die."
i was standing in line at early voting in 2008... right behind be came in three black men... i'd say each no less than 50 years old... and after some chatting... one told me he was 76 years old and had never voted...
but... what really stuck in my mind...
as the three black men took their place in line right next to me... one of them said... "...when it's our money no one cares.... when it's your money... everyone's all concerned..."... that's paraphrased... (remember - there was record turnout everywhere...)
this guy's comment i think said the whole thing...
and reading down this far in the comments... we're seeing something new here folks... the decline of an empire... and now it's reaching further down the economic strata than ever before...
FDR was an established entrenched elite... but... he enacted truly populist policies... and was forever hated by his brethern elite for it...
also... back then... there was similar disenchantment by those who would benefit from social security... that... it barely put the chicken in the pot...
and... one more thing... resources... cheap resources... cheap oil to be specific...
remember... through the 50's and 60's... the u.s. was the world leading producer of oil... by 1970... the continental u.s. hit peak oil... north shore and prudhoe bay extended the cheap oil to about 1995-2000... we controlled those fields... they could be considered to have reached their peak too (i'll let theoilddrum.com weigh in for expertise)... but the point is...
the u.s. empire's engine... is costing more and more to run... that combined with the exponential manifestation of greed... thanks now to computers... media spin 7/24... and global interconnections...
"...when it's our money no one cares.... when it's your money... everyone's all concerned..."
there never was a "middle class"... it was an artificial phenomenon in history... widly hated from it's inception... but took the elites 40 - 50 years to regroup - then 30 years to dismantle it...
industrialized europe had a different starting point... after devastation by wwii... they chose to rebuild the infrastructure from a collective viewpoint... that's why the social safety nets cover more...
here in the good ol' usofa... "I got mine, fuck you go away and die."... think john wayne... we tried to reprise that with ronald reagan... but... alas... he's dead too..
just leaves the rest of us to fight over what we can grab...
genicon
Caligula
You quoted it yourself " We don't want to be on the dole, we want to work" It sure has no reference to what Tristam called tax credits ,cheap credit, etc.
The benefits of living at the center of a world-wide financial and military superpower still seems lost to most Yanks. They cling to their belief that their comforts are due to their hard work. Bless.
Lupita-What benefits? You mean to tell me that the elites who caused this mess and profit from it are looking out for me? Oh well then, I guess I should be kissing Obama's ass then like too many others are doing since Third World people all want to take whatever I have.
Nonsense.
This is one reason why the American left is a subculture and not much more. You people couldn't care less about problems and solutions. You only look for excuses to resent and pretty much like everything the way it is. Hence your love of identity politics. Solidarity is hard to come by when some people on the Left basically teach and encourage resentment based on race and gender. Don't discuss class though. Oh no. Class is a uniter. Can't have that. Can't be making people with cushy university jobs feel uneasy. Can't be making black people in the projects, brown people in the barrios, red people on the reservations, and *GASP* white people in the trailer parks and rowhouses feel as if they have any sort of common cause.
"Stop whining and acknowledge the role your country has played in the world since the fall of the Berlin Wall and how Americans have collectively supported and benefiting from it."
I do acknoweldge that American domination has played a huge role in all of this. I'm no flag-waver. But only a small percentage of Americans have really seen any dividends from all of that, and none of them are in my corner. Most Americans are distracted, disinformed, divided, dejected, and disengaged.
Like Tony Benn said, people try to do what they're told and hope for the best. It doesn't work, but that's what they're taught. Stop blaming and hating victims.
People need to stop hating Obama, but at the same time, they also need to wake up and stop loving him unconditionally also. It angers we when the crank white contingent makes him out to be a Nazi of sorts, but it also bothers me when I see so many Democrats and people in the black community acting as if everything's ok now that we have a Black Democrat in power.
It's about money, and Obama is as corporate as any other U.S. President. They really don't give a fuck what your shade or sex or sexuality is.
"What benefits?"
You Yanks have had it easy compared to, say, an Argentinian, Mexican, Russian, or Thai with the same level of education and dedication to work. Is imperialism a taboo with you? Are you actually arguing that the military and financial supremacy of your country has had no bearing on the comforts you and your compatriots enjoy?
"You mean to tell me that the elites who caused this mess and profit from it are looking out for me?"
They looked out for you during the three decades a multitude of countries were crashed. As I stated, you were the victims of last resort. Welcome to the club but acknowledge that you are entering it with a much higher level of wealth than others. Stop complaining.
"This is one reason why the American left is a subculture and not much more."
Another one being that imperialism is a taboo in American political culture. If you cannot admit to yourselves that the US' wealth is in great measure the product of occupation, nuclear threats, financial blackmail, covert assassinations, torture, and bribery, then you cannot be a leftist.
"Don't discuss class though."
I will. Americans are one of the wealthiest populations, have the biggest, by far, military, control institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, and UNSC to your advantage, are members of the exclusive nuclear club, in short, the superpower. The American middle-class shares much more with that detested 2% you mention than with the middle-classes, forget about the poor, of the rest of the world. Remember, the rest of the democracies do have viable lefts, and there is a reason for this.
"only a small percentage of Americans have really seen any dividends from all of that"
Then why do you have such big houses, cars, and waste so much? Hard work?
"Most Americans are distracted, disinformed, divided, dejected, and disengaged."
But most of all, deluded that you are not an empire and that imperialism explains much of your collective wealth.
"Stop blaming and hating victims."
I do not hate Americans but you must admit that after witnessing your collective glorification of wealth and wasteful consumption, flag waving when your military is set to invade a country, re-electing Bush, and now arguing that Americans have not benefited from your imperial prerogative to cheap resources, energy, and capital, you must excuse the rest of the world for not considering the American masses as exactly blameless. You are a democracy after all.
Go gett'em Lupita, they don't get near enough salsa here. FL
Thanks for your support, mon frere. I am trying my best.
XXX
"If we have had a past century of relative wealth IT'S BECAUSE WE WORKED LIKE DOGS FOR IT"
That and because you were not invaded, occupied, bombed, your government overthrown by a foreign covert operation, your country split in half, and the IMF did not blackmail your government into cutting social services and overturning labor laws. Your government is the IMF.