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Well, I don't know how helpful the original MyDD article was, as the author seemed to be confused as to what the figures meant, but the issue of Democrats turning their backs on the poor and making a stereotype of them, is true. Ever since the entire political process got turned over to the corporations, the consultants and the media, everything has become a stereotype, of course, as nothing is dealt with as an issue, and everything is just "spun" or "sold." If Democrats are disproportionately rich, they are "limosine liberals," "latte liberals," and the "arrogant elite"; if Democrats are disproportionately poor, then they are "losers," "welfare-dependant," whatever else. It doesn't matter--they will spin it either way. The one important thing though, is that at some point, during the years of Clinton "D"LC, Inc., the poor became embarrassing and shameful to the official Democratic Party, and we have been losing ever since. Furthermore, the bigotry against the poor gets conflated with stereotypes about the South, my own Midwest, etc., and a really ugly thing develops. You start to get policy decisions based on it.
During the Clinton years, for example, we had deregulated corporations (tied to both Parties) slashing our throats, and Clinton offers us the "V"-chip, purchased from these same capitalists. No thank you. Manufacturing itself moved elsewhere, and the Clinton group gave us "retraining" for computer type jobs, that have also since outsourced out of the country. Good people were cut off of their meager welfare checks, and made to work for Clinton's corporate friends at poverty level wages, all so Clinton could play it as an "I am not an old-style Democrat" TV appearance. The more the rich consultants of the "D"LC take over the Party and its policies, the more the population of America itself--not rich, not corporate, needing help--is told to stand at the back, and get out of the picture. Nowadays, you almost never hear or read anyone who seems aware that there is any income level below $40,000 a year. Most Americans (can't remember exact figure) make less than $20,000 a year, and a large percentage less than $15,000. Democrats make these speeches about wanting to help "you" start "your own" business, then they killed us all by supporting the Bankruptcy Bill, seemingly unaware that almost all personal bankruptcies (NOT corporate, which oddly will be untouched by all this), are caused by medical bills and loss of jobs, not frivolous spending.
I have actually become poor this past year, badly hurt by the recent price-gougings and bill-gougings, which I am now unable to pay completely; I have no savings anymore. No Democrat ever refers to this. What is it like to be poor? I now know that dread that people feel whenever there is some strange new sound coming from your car, or anything in the house, because whatever it is, you can't afford to fix it. I now know the anger of seeing and hearing all these self-absorbed rich people on TV, with all their new electronic gadgets, clothes, vacations, SUVs, etc., etc., and I feel more and more that nothing on any of the media has anything to do with me anymore. Being poor means that no matter how good you are with budgeting money, you do not have enough. Being poor means that you can never actually do anything with your life: I would never dare take out a student loan or apply for any other courses, cannot just buy books anymore, etc., etc. All you can do is tread water, and worry about bills--there is no living progress anymore, or even any other issues.
Sometimes you notice these extremely poor people who are not on any government programs that might have helped, at all, and I always have to wonder whether they are so poor that they don't even know anything exists. After all, when does the corporate media ever refer to anything, except to lie about it and bash it. Further, when your overriding problem is that you have no money and no one is helping you, then anyone pitching any political activity at all, seems distant from you, and can even make you madder, as if you are being asked to advance and further their little causes, and yet no one even refers to your overwhelming suffering at all. No Democrat even fights to make corporations honor their after-purchase warranties anymore--just something as ordinary as that. There is a furious anger out here at corporate abuses, from price-gouging to underpaying employees, from deregulation to cheating their way out of their taxes, from outsourcing and downsizing to never answering consumers' questions and dealing with complaints--yet no Democrat seems even slightly aware of it or wants to respond. They as a group have been turned over to the corporate consultant "D"LC, Inc., and we are just a nuisance.
It never used to be that way. As it happens, I am reading an old book my Mom had, called "The Thirties: America and the Great Depression," and one thing this book is reminding me of, as it tells the events, is that people learned who the poor were, because it eventually came to be most people. They had not done anything to bring it on, but stupid, greedy management and its overreaching and speculation had; and once it had hit and there were no jobs, there was actually no solution on the individual level. It needed National policy. Thank God for Roosevelt, because they got it. People did not have "stereotypes" of the poor then, because they knew it was their own neighbors. Even desperate acts, such as the farmers highjacking milk delivery trucks and pouring all the milk out, to try to keep supplies down and a decent price for it, always used to be reported sympathetically, as what they were driven to, that they never would have done otherwise--until around the '80s, when everything started to change, the media was consolidated, and the message began to be that all the little peons should just suffer, and not solve their problems until their corporate master wants them "solved." Now, with everything "framing" and consultants and ad campaigns and corporate lobbying, there is no hope that Democrats will get back to a policy for the poor and middle class--they aren't even in the same world anymore. The only thing that will help is that, as the new Depression increases, the people will have to fight, as they did recently--(with no help from official Democrats)--on Social Security. No country will survive sacrificing its own people to global corporate greed and stupid overreaching.
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