Bourgeois Underground - Why Class Matters

[Political Heretic]

Since no one bothered to read past the opening statement previously, I decided to highlight some points about class.

I'm convinced that Democratic Underground is, by large, majority populated by white, upper middle class, Americans. In many cases I imagine they are upper middle class in literal income and Bourgeois in mindset. But in other cases they are simply Bourgeois in mindset regardless of literal income.

The Bourgeois become attached to their lifestyle, or to the dream that one day they might become rulers, and thus support and side with those that rule.

Establishment democrats as easily ignore their guilty consciences as they continue to feed the privileged elite first, throw scraps and crumbs to the "middle class," and let the poor people starve. From that middle class that at least get scraps it targets women, gays, and minorities and says "you don't want to starve do you? Then be our whipping boys.

Bourgeois Underground has become the place for the defense of the establishment, and of the system that feeds the privileged, gives scraps and trash to the middle class, and starves and marginalizes the poor.

The establishment looks to the workers and says, we will accomplish our top priorities for our privileged interests on your backs, by throwing away your rights, negotiating away your freedom, by offering our enemies your demotion to second class status as a bargaining chip. And then, we have accomplished our agenda for our premier constituency of wealth, privilege and power - we promise we'll get back to you and make it right.

And from the very poor they neither ask for anything nor give anything. They would simply prefer to ignore the undesirables.

When someone comes along and starts speaking about these realities, it stings the guilty consciences of establishment democrat apologists - usually - but not always - people in the upper middle class, who somewhere deep down inside realize they are betraying their own class and their poor to be the cheerleaders of the privileged.

Guilty consciences drive a lot of inflammatory posting around here. Guilty consciences, rational minds and feeling hearts are not easily quieted when one sells out to privilege in exchange for a pretend sense that you actually exist above your status.

Democratic Underground which is, I promise you, overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly upper middle class in income and most certainly predominantly Bourgeois in sentiment should just be renamed Bourgeois Underground.

[closeupready]

1. DU, like college or other experiences, is what you make of it.

I come here mostly for news discussions, and it works for me. Oh, and liberal use of ignore.

[bobbolink]

65. Which proves the OP's point.

[closeupready]

66. Yeah, actually, lol - I guess you're right.

I plead guilty. ;)

[CreekDog]

123. There was a point?

:wtf:

[virgogal]

2. Take a good,long deep breath and maybe you'll feel better.

No guilty conscience here.

[laconicsax]

3. While I'm not sure that you're completely correct, K&R.

I'm not sure the majority of DUers are upper-middle class by literal income, but it's entirely possible.

[Nikki Stone1]

4. I agree with you.

Rec.

[ThomCat]

231. Yes, K&R

I think this is getting very unfairly attacked for being more true than people can handle.

People need their illusions in order to be happy, and chief among those illusions is that they are good people and do whatever it is that good people do. Point out that they are neglecting to be good in some way, or doing something bad regularly, and people get defensive and hostile. That is what I think is happening here.

[gateley]

5. Hmmm. Gotta chew on this awhile.

Thought provoking. Well done.

Recommend.

[Beacho]

6. Classism sucks no matter which direction it goes

This is a bunch of generalizing horseshit that smears an entire group of people just because of their income and background. This rhetoric sounds like something you'd hear from a cheesy 60s revolutionary from central casting in a B movie.

It's bigotry, plain and simple, and there's no excuse for it.

[blindpig]

16. Depends who the aggressor is

The workers have been on the defensive forever, self defense is absolutely legitimate.

Equating the rich and the poor is absurd, who has all the power?

[Beacho]

19. You're talking about individuals based on their income

You want to address the system that is fine, but now you're indicting people as 'aggressors'. Why? because they make a certain amount of money? You call somebody an 'aggressor' that implies that they are taking a specific action. Either describe what those actions are, to each and every individual or your the same as those idiots that state that people are 'terrorists' because they are Muslim. I also hate to break this to you 'comrade', but some of the most counter revolutionary sentiment comes from the 'peasant' classes. You need to include them in your indictment as co-conspirators in the 'system', since they are just as much 'aggressors' that enables said system.

BTW, who the fuck elected you or any of these other ning nuts as representatives of 'The Workers'? I don't remember voting for you.

[blindpig]

23. I am talking about class

It is in the interest of the ruling class that we pretend that class doesn't exist or doesn't matter.

Think it doesn't matter? Try and get a politician to really listen to you.

That some workers are bamboozled is no accident, much effort and treasure have been expended to keep people confused.

Denial of the class issue is a sure indicator of which side you are on.

[Beacho]

39. I never said class didn't exist

Of course it does. But it's only one axis in society amongst several. I would also say that the issue can be discussed without the inflammatory martial rhetoric. The old timey Soviet style isn't the only way to talk about it

[blindpig]

55. Class is a matter of economics

It is about the means of survival and and how we are able to live our lives. What could be more important than that? It is counter-productive to tip toe around something so important.

[Beacho]

60. Matter of survival?

Now you're just trying to ramp up the discourse by an appeal to emotion, in this case fear. I also don't like your dichotomous 'with us or against us' false choice argument. This is the same Black vs White thinking that short circuits debate and prevents any solution based discourse. Just because I don't accept your logical fallacies means I'm 'tip toeing' around anything. The only thing that is counter productive is your rhetoric designed to incite. Once again I'm going to point out that you don't represent any particular class, just yourself and the ideology you've chosen as a path. Nothing more, nothing less. You show me that you have been chosen by any plurality of the oppressed classes and then you can talk. Just because you've accepted the Marxist view doesn't mean you've been appointed to represent anyone. That's the main reason I despise Authoritarian Socialists. You're a constituency of one and that's all you represent.

[blindpig]

84. Yes, survival.

In capitalists society one must submit to be a wage slave else homelessness and starvation loom.(Yes, one can be self-employed but that is an ever shrinking minority.) Furthermore, Capitalism, due to it's necessity of constant expansion(Grow or Die!) is by far the greatest threat to our biosphere.

Sorry you don't like discussing this without varnish but like the man said, " let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late"

[dionysus]

147. you must not be into that whole working for a living deal, huh?

[Selatius]

164. It depends on how one defines "living." Most people I know work to live.

They need to eat food and put a roof over their head. Whether or not they actually like showing up to a particular workplace is a different matter.

[JanMichael]

252. Not cool. Even the very poor have to do some sort of the "work" you speak of.

And I, a fairly privileged and secure middle management white guy, agree that many Americans are perpetually screwed by our exploitative system. I know quite a bit about how much low income people work and how much they pay for housing; it isn't pretty at all. Not at all.

The concept of "working" is hilarious when you actually know what many (not all. I know of a few that are stressed out to the hilt for legitimate reasons) high paid people actually "do" during their day in comparison with what they "earn".

Then compare that with what a dude or dudette has to do (meaning paying attention to anything per minute per hour and/or either immediate or contemplated) for $8/hr at Chucky Cheese or Walmart. It just isn't right...

These things may not seem relevant but that is by construct, developed for a reason, as well. It isn't intended to look equivalent - that wouldn't be cool now would it?

[annabanana]

142. (!)

[bobbolink]

68. Very well done. Your last sentence illustrates VERY well who the aggressor is.

Thank you.

[Beacho]

72. Uh yeah

what ever

[dionysus]

148. i'm waiting for one of them to call you a capitalist pig. you know they're going to do it to someone

eventually.

[Beacho]

159. Oh c'mon

Don't I even rate a 'running dog of the Imperialist Capatilistic Pig Dawgs? What does someone have to do to get some respect 'round heah?

[TBF]

132. Clearly you wouldn't be one to be voting for workers in any event.

n/t

[inthebrain]

35. I didn't gather that from the OP

Nor do I feel the need to defend myself after reading it.

[Kitty Herder]

50. To hugely different degrees.

If you are upper class or upper middle class, being resented by the lower classes is a minor irritation, barring out and out revolution--a vanishingly unlikely possibility.

If you are lower class or lower middle class, the effects of classism are real and tangible. As the upper class continues their wildly successful class war against you, you lose more benefits, your real wages stagnate as costs rise, you find the government is less and less willing to help you and more willing to provide massive subsidies and tax cuts for the very wealthy. You will be scapegoated for society's problems, from drug abuse, violent crime, and teen pregnancy to your own poverty.

[bobbolink]

71. Well said, although it is understood very differently, depending on which side of the fence you are

on.

And, I would also add, one HUGE addition to the suffering is the verbal denigration poor people are subjected to on a regular basis.

People who wouldn't talk trash to their boss think NOTHING of dumping all over a poor person they don't even know.

Enough of those experiences build up, and life becomes hardly bearable.

[notadmblnd]

7. I don't know what you're describing, but it's not DU

as another poster says, it is what you make of it. Sounds like you're suffering through a bad day though, so I'll not hold it against you.

[mullard12ax7]

17. Whaddya call this then?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6982498

[NeedleCast]

33. So a thread on the board with a handful of responses

makes this Bourgeois?

Lol.

[SoCalDem]

46. micro v macro n/t

[bobbolink]

76. good illustration.

I also would nominate for proof, the judgemental threads about FOOD, and how superior some are because they can afford to eat "better" than those they look down on.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

126. What's Wrong With That?

:shrug:

[notadmblnd]

153. 35 repleis out of over 100,000 posters

Not exactly what I would call a majority.

[bobbolink]

80. "It's what you make of it" -- The battle cry of the affluent.

It excuses all manner of inequities, doesn't it?

[TBF]

133. Just pull yourselves up by the 'ole bootstraps Bobbie -

can you believe this nonsense? Sounds like a Ronald Reagan speech from the '80s.

[bobbolink]

245. Thank you for pinpointing it. It's the Reagan democrats we are still saddled with.

x(

[notadmblnd]

152. I'm affluent with my whole 24k per year income.

[redqueen]

240. No response to this of course.

Christ this True Progressive shit is tiring.

[Political Heretic]

249. Class is both an income and a state of mind

Anyone can elect to align themselves with the ruling ideology rather than with people.

Saying "it is what you make it" is often a pretty good indicator of how that alignment has gone.

[Political Heretic]

248. Yup. Enjoy the flames for that little truth.

:hide:

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. There's a lot of evidence to support your view.

"OMG! H1-b's are ruining the country! It's a problem unlike those poor hardworking hispanics who only take the jobs of the unskilled"
"The healthcare subsidies won't do anything for me, they need to be expanded to x00% of poverty level, people don't realize how much it costs to live in some parts of the country."

Better yet, just do this search

[QC]

25. Cluelessness about class has always been a problem here.

I remember people squabbling over it back in the early days of the site.

[redqueen]

48. The evidence is overwhelming, really.

It seems like the vast majority of posters here love nothing more than looking down their noses at other people.

I know that's just my perception, but ... well, there it is.

[daleo]

9. There have been polls on this site, concerning income

As I recall, they don't skew particularly high in terms of income.

[geek tragedy]

10. Do you think a predominantly working class, African-American

and Latino board would trash Barack Obama and prattle on about single-payer-or-nothing and idolize Dennis Kucinich?

Pfft.

[redqueen]

12. *snort*

[ecstatic]

93. + 1000000000.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

94. lol...

Ok, you got me with that one.

[Nay]

97. Plenty of African-Americans at my workplace are pretty pissed off at

Obama, so I can't say it would be much different on DU if they populated the place. And we're all working class.

[superduperfarleft]

98. Yes suh, cuz we dumb minorities gots it so hards that we take any ol' crumb da white man gib us.

Wes not complainers, teh good lawd'll take care o us.

Your assumption that working class people of color could not possibly be politically involved, or could not oppose this shitpile of a bill, or occasionally disagree with Obama, simply because "they gots it too hard to worry about all dat stuff" is bigoted as shit.

[QC]

99. +1

[redqueen]

127. Wow... you read all that into that post?

Interesting.

[superduperfarleft]

140. Yeah, I did.

The fact that so few others did as well speaks quite eloquently to the OP's point. Of course, I'd prefer Privileged White Liberal Underground, but that's just me.

[redqueen]

197. LOL... right.

Yeah... NOW I remember seeing all those minorities at Kucinich's rallies... silly me, I can't believe I forgot!

[jonnyblitz]

194. wow, why am i NOT surprised you DIDN'T see it?

wow. :crazy: :eyes:

[geek tragedy]

129. Oh spare me. Of course black folks are going to have

problems with him from time to time.

But, they most certainly wouldn't be trying to demonize him like the crowd around here does. Because 90% of them are actual Democrats.

[superduperfarleft]

137. And who are you, spokesperson for the fucking NAACP?

Are you Al Sharpton? Jesse Jackson? What makes you think you can speak definitively for all black people?

Oh, that's right, you can't. Just like the Democrats usually do, you're just using them as a voting bloc, and not individual people, in order to make your point.

[ecstatic]

250. Not buying your disingenuous outrage

Sorry.

[Dorian Gray]

100. Got a point....

[reggie the dog]

102. Sure they would

Single payer health care benefits working class people more than anyone else, why wouldn't they call for it? What would working class people have against Kucinich? Are you insinuating that working class blacks and latinos would not stand up and fight for themselves even if it meant criticizing the president?

[geek tragedy]

130. I said "single payer or nothing" and "idolize Dennis Kucinich"

Sorry, but those are foolish notions most commonly associated with people who don't have to deal with the real world consequences of legislation.

[Number23]

161. Hoooo Boy! That's gonna leave a mark!

:rofl: :rofl: :applause: :applause:

[HamdenRice]

181. Zinnnggggg! Oh snap!!1 nt

[MellowDem]

251. You're right...

those Latinos and African Americans will take their marching orders from Obama and be happy with it, damnit! He's a darker shade, so they automatically love him! And those stupid whites, why the fuck can't they see that single-payer is too far of a bridge? And why would minorities ever consider reaching for more than crumbs? You hit it alright! That is, if you were aiming to be a bigot.

[Political Heretic]

253. No, think a working class board wouldn't have constant battles with those kissing the whip of power.

:shrug:

[geek tragedy]

11. Also, do anyone but pretentious coffee house types

from affluent backgrounds use 'Bourgeois' as an insult?

[Kitty Herder]

59. For your information...

I'm dirt poor, applying for disability(what a fucking nightmare!), have been forced to move back in with my mom so that I have a roof over my head and I haven't stepped foot in a coffee house in years. Hell, the closest coffee house is 40 miles away. I'm a coal miner's daughter. I haven't finished my bachelor's degree, but I do read a lot. I don't think I fit anyone's definition of a pretentious coffee house type.

But I do use "bourgeois" as an insult. First, I'm a socialist, so it's a natural part of my language. Second, if the shoe fits...

[dysfunctional press]

154. one needn't step foot in a coffee house to be a 'pretentious coffee house type'

"I haven't finished my bachelor's degree, but I do read a lot..."

well...that's over half the battle.

[Raineyb]

156. I guess you've never heard black people talk about bougie folk.

What do you think "bougie" is short for?

[Raineyb]

206. Plenty of people do.

Your question seems to say more about who you associate with than the person you're replying to.

[Political Heretic]

254. Funny and a little sad, isn't it?

Sigh..

[mullard12ax7]

13. That's a bad word, along with "philistine"

It's too accurate and does immediately cause "cognitive dissonance". I just read a thread about people making a quarter of a million dollars this year in the stock market; geez, I wonder where all this upper-middle class talk comes from? LOL.

Let's go count our money!

[LatteLibertine]

14. Overgeneralizing, stereotyping and

smells of projection. Yes, this nation is ruled by corporatism and Washington is largely directed by lobbyists. It's fact. We have a long history of oppression and being ruled by robber barons.

The middle class and poor are often turned against one another by the most wealthy 1-10% and their agents. It's a tried and true practice. The Republicans have been desperately trying to do a manner of this with a Southern strategy on steroids.

[Political Heretic]

21. Here's what I wrote in another post, that I thought I included in this post:

It say pretty much exactly what you said. So no, I don't accept charge of stereotyping. Please read below:

Bourgeois Underground is run by white upper middle class people, and populated in overwhelming numbers by white upper middle class members. This is something you can virtually guarantee.

As far as class warfare goes, just because someone is middle class, or upper middle class, or wealthy does not make them bad people. And just because someone is working class or poor does not make them good people.

But it is hard to deny that there is a great temptation among the upper middle class to identify in actions and opinions with the rulers rather than the people.

We should be honest about the fact that upper middle class persons face a special sort of challenge, and lots of pressures to end up being lapdogs of privileged interests rather than stand in solidarity with ordinary people. It is easy to loose tough with the realities of the working class and poor. Privilege can breed complacency. It takes conscious effort to resist those forces.

And its very necessary to point out the class component that goes into DU's modern trend away from a place that reflects and views and interests of the working class and poor, and toward a place that reflects the views of the powerful and privileged.

It's different than some conservative place. Where some conservative place might completely hug corporations, the insurance industry, etc., establishment democrats still speak form one side of their mouth against corporate exploitation of people, but at the same reflect a timidity and unwillingness to stand in solidarity with the poor, for fear of risking all the status and comforts they already have.

"Class" is a state of mind, not an income amount. You can stand in solidarity with the poor and with working Americans, or you can be a mouthpiece of the interests of the privileged and powerful. But you can't do both.

Race is something else that has a huge influencing factor... but I'm out of time. :P

[Hannah Bell]

37. the upper middle class is the buffer between the super-rich owners & the workers.

the upper-middle administers, supervises & manages the working class (& the non-working, unemployed class) for the bosses.

[Codeine]

15. DU will tie itself into knots

over race, religion, "liberal" vs. "progressive", Mac vs. PC, piracy, tipping, or breastfeeding, yet it remains curiously frightened about discussions of class, which is the only real distinction the ruling class makes.

Sad and revealing.

[mitchum]

24. +1

[QC]

26. +2

Class is the only real taboo around here.

[blindpig]

30. Because.....

if ya pretend it doesn't exist, problem solved. Which is why defenders of the ruling class insist that 'class doesn't matter' so strenuously.

[glitch]

52. Not just DU, the USA in general.

You get smacked down if you mention it, and I do believe it is intentional. Much easier to fight and win a class war if your opponents have no idea you have established sides and they aren't on yours, doncha know.

[anonymous171]

77. +3. nt

[Ignis]

108. "Perish the thought! It's just not DONE, sir!"

Can't fault us, though: Most Americans are still clinging to the notion that we're middle-class, when that category shrinks daily.

[leftstreet]

157. Bravo!

Well said

:applause:

[Captain Hilts]

213. Yes. NO ONE wants to talk about class, now that Obama has proven "anyone" can be prez....

Folks actually said that here. Anyone can be president!!!

Whew!

[Political Heretic]

255. So very true. I probaly already said this, but I just read your post again tonight.

[WeDidIt]

18. Da, comrade. The Proletariat shall prevail!

:eyes:

Take it back to your College Social Studies class. I've read Marx, which is why I reject Marx.

[Hannah Bell]

38. sure you have.

[dionysus]

75. shall you enlighten us to the superior ways of communism, comrade bell?

:rofl:

[Hannah Bell]

144. which has what, exactly, to do with anything under discussion? red-baiter.

[dionysus]

146. you see, you can't red-bait someone wearing a karl marx avatar. you don't even know what red baiting

means. how could anyone hold an intelligent conversation with you comrade?

[Hannah Bell]

155. i know what red-baiting means, & whether or not the baited is red is immaterial.

no one could hold an intelligent conversation with red-baiters, bullies, or folks like yourself who substitute personal attack for argument, that's for sure.

[reggie the dog]

105. Which part of marx do you reject?

the nature of capital as he explained it? the idea that the working people of the world should unite(this could easilt be trade unions). Where is his reading of society flawed?

[Political Heretic]

257. I can answer that, even if the person your asking can't:

I think he went wrong in his expectations of the future, or that the natural state of things was to ultimately lead to a socialism.

He critique of capital is pretty hard to find fault with.

[StrongBad]

20. Looks like someone just read "Das Kapital" for the first time...

[blindpig]

34. No harm in that,

it's good to know how things work.

[JackRiddler]

73. Did you?

[StrongBad]

131. Yes, about 5 years ago.

It was worth reading and very important concerning the inherent flaws of capitalism, but beyond that a lot is no longer applicable to modern economics.

[Hannah Bell]

168. "beyond that a lot is no longer applicable to modern economics"

how's that?


capital = three volumes, thousands of pages of dense prose. you must be one of the rare folks to have read all of it. and to have boiled it down to one sentence.

[blindpig]

242. So then tell me, smart guy...

Why does 20 yards of linen equal one coat?

[Political Heretic]

258. nice.

:D

[Political Heretic]

22. Something written in another post, that I thought I included in the OP - that adds some context:

Bourgeois Underground is run by white upper middle class people, and populated in overwhelming numbers by white upper middle class members. This is something you can virtually guarantee.

As far as class warfare goes, just because someone is middle class, or upper middle class, or wealthy does not make them bad people. And just because someone is working class or poor does not make them good people.

But it is hard to deny that there is a great temptation among the upper middle class to identify in actions and opinions with the rulers rather than the people.

We should be honest about the fact that upper middle class persons face a special sort of challenge, and lots of pressures to end up being lapdogs of privileged interests rather than stand in solidarity with ordinary people. It is easy to loose tough with the realities of the working class and poor. Privilege can breed complacency. It takes conscious effort to resist those forces.

And its very necessary to point out the class component that goes into DU's modern trend away from a place that reflects and views and interests of the working class and poor, and toward a place that reflects the views of the powerful and privileged.

It's different than some conservative place. Where some conservative place might completely hug corporations, the insurance industry, etc., establishment democrats still speak form one side of their mouth against corporate exploitation of people, but at the same reflect a timidity and unwillingness to stand in solidarity with the poor, for fear of risking all the status and comforts they already have.

"Class" is a state of mind, not an income amount. You can stand in solidarity with the poor and with working Americans, or you can be a mouthpiece of the interests of the privileged and powerful. But you can't do both.

Race is something else that has a huge influencing factor... but I'm out of time. :P

(I talked a lot about the fact that "class" isn't an absolute delineation in this post, though I included those comments in the OP, but later realized I didn't.)

[nemo137]

27. I think that there's a certain amount of privilege, to be sure.

But I think it tends to show more in the "purists" or whatever you want to call them. People who show up in threads where someone talks about actual, concrete things that they'd be getting out of the bill as passed and telling them it's not good enough. It takes a certain amount of comfort in one's position to make statements like "too many here would rather live on their knees than die on their feet" in these kinds of cases.

[bobbolink]

85. Your thesis doesn't work at all. I'm constantly flamed for being a "purist", and

I'm homeless.

Most of the "purists" I know here have close to NOTHING.

Nope, your thesis just doesn't pan out.

[Political Heretic]

259. Well that doesn't describe me.... seeing as how I'm homeless, unemployed and uninsured

and have been uninsured for most of my adult life.

I explain here
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6991641&mesg_id=6995601

[Starry Messenger]

28. Wow, what a surprise this isn't on the Greatest Page!

:sarcasm: Yeah, I've been getting that impression as well over the course of the last week.

[NeedleCast]

29. LOL

Really, that's all I've got.

No wait.

If we're all so contemptable to you, it just begs the question...why are you still here?

[bobbolink]

86. Now THERE'S a provocative rebuttal.

:crazy:

[Odin2005]

31. Marxist drivel.

[inthebrain]

40. Marxism and socialism are not longer considered dirty words

So dismissing something as Marxist drivel (If you've ever read Marx I don't understand how anyone could characterize what he wrote and said as "drivel") really doesn't have the punch you hope it does.

The cold war is over.

Hate to break it to you.

[WeDidIt]

41. Marx wrote drivel n/t

[inthebrain]

42. As I'm just as certain you feel the same way about Darwin and Einstein

In social science, Karl Marx is considered in their league.

I'm sure you'd be just as willing to cast off Caravagio as a charlatan.

[Odin2005]

47. Marx overgeneralized the social forces of his time to areas where they made no sense.

And his placement of economic forces as the prime mover of everything else in a society is ridiculously simplistic.

[inthebrain]

56. It's called a conflict theory

And it's not "overgeneralized" to anyone who's actually read it (One gets the feeling you C&Ped from some knucklehead or completely made it up).

In capitalist society, when you are of the working class, economic forces are the prime mover in a society. It determines your rights, access to free speech (especially in a court of law), the quality of schools you attend right down to the food, shelter and medical care you recieve.

Marx' theory is basicly taking Mazlow and applying it to social/economic theory. And yes, they are one in the same. Marx also criticized wage slavery of the industrialists as the same as slavery and indentured servitude. Not to mention that the laborer becomes private property (a materiel) the same as what he produces (The idea that is common in our society that we are all just numbers coincides with this). Man is removed from his natural state and Marx cited this as UNHEALTHY for any society.

In order to acheive this capitalism always requires an underclass to sustain itself.

[reggie the dog]

113. Some countries such as France or Denmark

have high quality schools equally funded across the countries, quality public housing, and quality medical care for all. Marx had some great influence on the continent, which is why I have decided to raise my children over here. By fate my wife is French so we can live in either the USA or France and I prefer Marx influenced France.

"In capitalist society, when you are of the working class, economic forces are the prime mover in a society. It determines your rights, access to free speech (especially in a court of law), the quality of schools you attend right down to the food, shelter and medical care you recieve." is what you said before

[Selatius]

163. France isn't that great of an example. There is an underclass of poor, mainly minority Blacks.

Unlike the US, France never went through the equivalent of the Civil Rights Movement. With the importation of people from North Africa as a source of cheap labor to fill the labor shortages of following the end of the last world war, a new underclass of workers was born who were easily exploited and easily dehumanized to allow for even more exploitation. Most of these immigrants came from countries France once subjugated and dominated in the old colonial era. Racial discrimination in the work place and in universities, overcrowded public housing, and a lack of social mobility led to the massive riots that swept across France a few years back.

[Hannah Bell]

169. mainly blacks? try arabs. unless you think they're coterminous.

[Political Heretic]

260. That caught my eye as well.

[reggie the dog]

Marx lived in revolutionary times

anarchists were attacking governements and civilians, workers were pissed off, hell in Paris the city was called a commune until until it was crushed by the army as it revolted as an independent city state "This article is about the government of Paris in 1871. For the Commune during the French Revolution, see Paris Commune (French Revolution).
Le Père Duchesne looking at the statue of Napoleon I on top of the Vendome column: "Eh ben! Bougre de canaille, on va donc te foutre en bas comme ta crapule de neveu!… (Well now! Damn rascal , we will knock you down just like your crook of a nephew!…")

The Paris Commune (French: La Commune de Paris) was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 28 (more formally, from March 26) to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and socialists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class. Debates over the policies and outcome of the Commune contributed to the break between those two political groups.

In a formal sense, the Paris Commune was simply the local authority, the city council (in French, the "commune"), which exercised power in Paris for two months in the spring of 1871. However, the conditions in which it was formed, its controversial decrees, and its tortured end makes its tenure one of the more important political episodes of the time." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune

funny but it is rare that I see working class people in power anywhere in the world.....

[WeDidIt]

49. Since your comparison is analogous to

comparing a MacIntosh and a Honeycrisp to a Kumquat, there's no point in answering.

[reggie the dog]

115. You really have no interest in, or do not want to

actually engage in discussion at an adult level do you?

[reggie the dog]

106. Ah the critique of a true historian

we really understand your reasoning and your logic so that way we can consider it for ourselves, thanks for making yourself clear to us.

[Odin2005]

44. I was a Marxist, then an Anarchist, in high school. You = FAIL.

[glitch]

54. Please consider the possibility you weren't very good at either. ;) nt

[superduperfarleft]

92. Double lulz. n/t

[reggie the dog]

118. I am a paid by the state, that makes me a civil servant

workers have a lot of rights in the public sector in France. Am I still a Marxist like I was as a teenager?

[NashVegas]

244. + 35

We have a tendency to judge others' behavior based on our own.

For example, someone who never cared about other peoples' breathing space when they were a cigarette smoker, after quitting, will claim ALL cigarette smokers are inconsiderate, rather than take responsibility for their own lapses.

[inthebrain]

57. Sounds to me like you're still in high school

[superduperfarleft]

91. Lulz. n/t

[reggie the dog]

119. I am a Marxist

and I teach history in a high school!

[proteus_lives]

167. "The cold war is over."

Remind us, which side lost? ;-)

[inthebrain]

204. LABOR!!!!

[anonymous171]

210. Oceania.

Or was it Eurasia? I can't remember. The elites all seem the same to me.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

45. Brilliant analysis

Sounds like the knee-jerk reaction of Cal Thomas or some such troglodyte.

[bobbolink]

88. Maybe we poor folk can take up a collection and spring for a new

playbook for those who only can respond with attacks and denigration.

[Romulox]

32. K/r for a very perceptive OP. nt

[pitohui]

36. no, DU (nor are other internet forums) ever populated by "upper middle class"

the upper middle class and the well-to-do are a minority on internet forums

internet forums as a rule are a home for not the very bottom of the underclass but certainly for at best the "middle" middle class and most frequently for the under-employed/under-achiever

i'm guessing average income on this board is v. close to the national average -- i've seen v. little to make we think we have v. many posters w. any high income -- in fact, it's abt the same proportion as we have posters w. v. low incomes


executives don't entertain themselves by posting on the internet, they entertain themselves with golf, poker, casino, foreign travel, mistresses, etc.

posting on internet forums is a hobby that costs absolutely NOTHING/ZERO and so it's a fallback for those of us who have to count our pennies

in my travels i meet people at all levels of income but those in the higher classes do not participate in websites or even know what you're talking abt if you refer to such and such website, i guess all they know of news is their subscription services or what they see on CNN airport loop as they're running thru the terminal -- this is prob. part of the reason why the upper class, to talk to, often seems so clueless abt what's going on (unless it involves glad handing the guy in charge of their property taxes or getting the new golf course approved on formerly public land)

i don't want to quite say "rich people are idiots" but they are largely un-informed and often converse (in person) on the most superficial level, they are not flocking to DU to talk to anybody that's for sure

[reggie the dog]

120. that acutally makes a lot of sense

so what we may actually have here is people of the working class who parrot the talking points of the DLC and Republicans and insist that class struggle never existed. Or perhaps people who are PAID to blog on sites like this. What interests do the paid bloggers serve?

[PSzymeczek]

125. I wouldn't say it costs NOTHING.

Internet access isn't free, unless everyone here is online at the public library. And I kind of doubt that.

[Prism]

43. Elegantly stated

A concise illustration of the dynamics at work with the Democratic Party currently in power.

[Tigermoose]

51. Care to join us in the 21st century?

Marx and a picture of Foucault. If you are going to go all Marxist on us, at least refer to someone like Habermas who is still alive and has at least attempted to make Marxism somewhat relevant to the 21st century reality.

[Kitty Herder]

61. Have we eliminated class in this century?

I must not have gotten the memo.

[JackRiddler]

62. The 21st? You mean when capitalism failed and most of the world looked for an exit?

Are you sure we're in the same century?

[reggie the dog]

121. Venezuela? Bolivia? Spain, the Czech Republic

Socialist goverments seem to be getting elected in plenty of countries today.

[muriel_volestrangler]

143. You can't call the Czech government socialist

It's a caretaker government; and given that the Social Democratic party pulled out of the agreement to hold a new election this year, it's not as if they're full of confidence they'd win in an election now: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1501239.php/Czech-Republic-s-snap-November-poll-likely-scrapped-1st-Lead

Ans Spain's government is in no way Marxist, which was what #51 was talking about. Few governments in the world are Marxist.

[Robb]

53. Blah blah blah bourgeois, blah blah blah democrat apologists, blah blah blah cheerleaders.

Forgive me, I never graduated high school. But my instinct is this is annoying drivel. I'll defer to someone with a degree.

[redqueen]

58. *roffle*

[SemiCharmedQuark]

111. You went to high school, huh?

Ohh, Mr. fancy park avenue here wants to force everyone to bow down to the man. You're the bourgeoisiest!

[starroute]

63. Looks like the usual middle class liberals to me

DUers can be way too intellectual and perfectionist, to be sure -- but that's liberals for you. On the whole, there seem to be fewer people here who are making six figures than who are unemployed and on food stamps. But then, being a liberal has never been a road to big bucks -- it's more likely to wind you up as a teacher or social worker or something bleeding heart like that than climbing the corporate ladder.

And it's definitely not a matter of guilty consciences or "people in the upper middle class, who somewhere deep down inside realize they are betraying their own class." (Which do you take to be their own class? The upper class that they're pretending to be against? Or the working class that they're really part of despite pulling in $200,000 a year and are pretending to be for?)

If you're annoyed that some people here aren't pragmatic enough for your taste, just come out and say so. But claiming DU is really a site where the almost-wealthy covertly play games of social discontent to salve their guilty consciences isn't useful to anyone.

[dionysus]

79. pragmatic isn't the word you're looking for. i think he's upset because obama didn't overthrow

capitalism or something.

[reggie the dog]

122. you dint need to overthrow capitalism

just highly regulate it like in France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland or Denmark

[dionysus]

138. i think everyone on this board is down with that.

[bobbolink]

89. Please, speak for your self.

You may have noticed if you read the replies, that some of us consider it VERY useful.

Thank you.

[Ikonoklast]

64. Disagree. I don't see that many higher-incomes here.

White, possibly, just as a function of demographics, but there are plenty of posters here that are in the lower income brackets.

And I take those that post on the internet about how much money they make with a jaundiced eye, but maybe that's just a product of my upbringing where discussing one's earnings was considered crass.

[dionysus]

70. b-b-b-but, we're all rich because the DLC pays us to post.... right!?!?!?!1!!11!!

:evilgrin:

[Ikonoklast]

78. Damn it, they're all on to us!!!!11!

First rule about being a paid DLC mole is...


Wait, there is no such thing, and anyone that believes that there is needs to adjust the tin foil hat.

[dionysus]

82. accusing everyone of being paid moles is what you do when you can't accept the fact that not many

people agree with you. or when you start calling fellow dems corporatists because you don't have a logical argument. but, you know they've *really* lost their minds when they bust out the lenin\marx\trotsky avatars.

[Ikonoklast]

83. I am actually a very clever Nihilist.

I pay other people to listen to my political spewings.



To tell you the truth, it's not working out that great, for some reason that I cannot fathom.

[reggie the dog]

124. the people I think are hacks and possibly paid on any board

are people who dont try to actually engage with others in discussion but throw insults. People who disagree in a reasoned manner come off as being people who authentically hold a differing opinion and are willing to discuss it with others.

[dionysus]

139. does that school of thought apply to the numerous people who do the

pom pom\cultist\koolaid\cheerleader\messiah crap as well?

[bobbolink]

67. Only one point I would take some issue with.... guilty conscience.

There are more and more people who not only do not seem to have a conscience at all, but take great pride in not being affected at all when they hurt others.

Sociopathology is alive and well, and growing by leaps and bounds.

Sociopaths cannot be reached, BECAUSE they have no conscience, or a very ineffectual one.

[dionysus]

74. ah, so now DU is full of sociopaths? you guys really are losing it. get a grip man.

[dionysus]

69. well, if you hate it here so much... leave

:shrug:

and your assumption everyone on here is so well to do is patantly absurd. geez, really burns you that a bunch people don't have the same opinions as you, doesn't it?

i'm sure the admins really appreciate you dissing the whole board in a tantrum.

[bobbolink]

90. Such a cogent, compelling counter-argument.

The RW school of debate.... attack your opponents, and tell them to leave.

Very good illustration.

[dionysus]

136. nope, not at all. if a message board made me that miserable, rather than insult everyone and pitch a

fit, i'd just stop frequenting said site.

[JoseGaspar]

81. Not many bourgeois here.

A few professional cretans and that is about it.

Now, if you had said, "Self-important toadies of the ruling class whose entire sense of their own status in society is summed up in a few stupid slogans and philistine cliches, borrowed from others, which they raise to the status of eternal truths" Underground, that might be slightly more accurate. There are more than a few.

But then, most of those don't really need an "Underground". The world revolves around them, don't you know?

As for the rest, it is mostly stages of grief (Denial, Acceptance, Anger, etc.).

[deaniac21]

87. A large number of DUers are totally without class.

:evilgrin:

[msanthrope]

96. I see you've been to the Lounge? n/t

[msanthrope]

95. You are white, bourgeois, and male. This is apparent from your

writing.

What is also apparent is that you have some education, but not enough that you are able to express self-introspection while attempting to deliver critical analysis.

So, I'll guess lower-tier liberal arts, or perhaps 'Christian' college, but definitely not Jesuit/Catholic or other well-regarded program.

And rural, as opposed to urban. I'll take a stab at your career--you 'help' people. This allows you control while you interact with 'the proletariat.'

I'm guessing you've read a great deal of political philosophy and think yourself very 'radical' in your outlook. You are are certainly fundamentalist and rigid, but that is hardly radical, given your upbringing.

You call yourself 'political heretic' but I'm guessing it's more 'poseur.'

[HamdenRice]

184. As we used to say in the 'hood, "Damn you READ him"!!!

Political Heretic
Gender male
City Eugene
State Oregon
Country United States
Hobby Mountain Biking, Computers, Philosophical / Political Literature
Comment About me:
Bachelors Degree in Philosophy (BA)
Masters Degree in Social Work (MSW)
Focus on macro public policy and political economy

To PHD or not to PHD - that is the question...

I have been:
...
--Project Manager, Fortune 100 Company
...
Bachelors Degree in Philosophy (BA)
Masters Degree in Social Work (MSW)

<end quote>

Yup, helping/controlling work, poseur.

[msanthrope]

217. Where did you get that info from?

(Because I'd like to know if I was right about the college!)

[HamdenRice]

219. Just click on his profile button -- it's his public DU profile nt

[redqueen]

241. Well done!

:applause:

[SemiCharmedQuark]

101. If this is true, then why, in general, are minorities the biggest supporters of Dems and Obama?

Wouldn't we be "establishment democrats"?

We have a higher approval rating of Dems and Obama in our communities than amongst white americans. Even white democrats.

[harun]

199. Two party system and they have no other options, the real question

is if the OP's opinion is correct, what could one do about it?

Under the current system I don't see a way other than what we are doing.

The Corporate Representative Republic train has left the station. There will be pieces of legislation thrown the way of the citizen but the theme and purpose of all legislation now is to benefit their corporate funders.

A revolution in campaign finance reform and corporate lobbying could yield change. However, this is asking the people being funded by that system to essentially kill that funding. Not going to happen.

[Name removed]

103. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[quaker bill]

104. A couple of points in your favor

White? Very likely

Upper Middle Class? I certainly am, but I rather doubt I represent the majority here.

Ignore the undesirables? No. I have a real life in the real world where I volunteer to help the poor and recruit others to the task.

Socialist? Absolutely, more a democratic socialist than an absolute leveller, but socialist none the less.

Toss my vote away on ideals because a candidate does not promise everything I think best? No. No candidate has ever promised what I am looking for. I found Kucinich and Jesse Jackson to be too conservative for my taste, so I vote for the person who will do as much as of what I want that still seems to retain a chance of victory. I do this because in defeat, folks well below me on the economic scale will take the hardest hit, not becase I will suffer, because I won't.

I have never voted for a Republican and never voted no on a tax increase and I do not expect to change.

[question everything]

107. Everyone who spends as much time on message boards

and on marching and protesting clearly does not have to do a job, or two, or three. And, on occasions, some would comment about it. Not only posting on message boards, but also watching MSNBC, or CNN, even Fox, reading other sites. Clearly have the luxury of not having to keep a nose to the grindstone.

[ipaint]

109. The middle class gatekeepers are allowing Obama to cover-up

war crimes and illegal spying so the millionaires in congress can concentrate on getting them ins. premium reductions and the illusion of regulatory power over pre-existing condition abuse.
Most can afford the mandate so the many in the lower classes that can't just won't be covered or that fall through the cracks are expendable. In fact 18 million of the working poor and illegal immigrants are expendable.
Good luck to the 20 million of the poorest that roll over into an already over burdened medicaid system. The upper classes will be too busy shopping the upper tier health care policies (the policies in which the ins. companies will behave) in the exchange.

Ironically it wasn't until the worst abuses started nipping at the edges of the perpetually comfortable and pandered to middle class did they even notice tens of thousands were dying year after year for decades. Now they decide to claim the high ground, well sort of high ground since millions are still tossed on the discard heap, claiming the folks that are and have been fighting for health care for every last person in the US are somehow lacking compassion and common sense that only they possess. That and the impossibly complex and intellectually challenging sausage making process that only "adults" can understand.

The very classes that ignored the problem for 30 years now know what's best.

Wash rinse repeat regarding NAFTA, welfare reform and deregulation.

The draft threads give it away though. Most who are fine with Obama's actions in Afghanistan are also just fine that it is primarily poor and disadvantaged kids that pay the price. The mere suggestion that their own college bound children, full of life and promise, may have to sacrifice too is met with all the outrage they can muster.

[ddeclue]

110. BU? BourgeoisUnderground.com? DUZY!

:rofl:

[SemiCharmedQuark]

114. Don't you mean a"BUZY"?

[ddeclue]

141. That's a BOUBLE BUZY!

:rofl::rofl:

[boppers]

112. The 20th century called.

They want their outdated rhetoric back.

[anonymous171]

166. How is any of that "outdated"? nt

[boppers]

170. Outdated: bourgeoisie, proletariat, oligarchy, etc.

Great terms to use for an agrarian, disconnected, world.

We don't live in that world anymore.

[Political Heretic]

171. You don't think we live in an oligarchic society right now?

Really?

Have you like... I dunno... picked up a paper lately?

[boppers]

232. "Picked up a paper"? Really?

Uhm, yeah, most people don't "pick up papers" anymore. Waste of trees, and it's a horribly constrained source medium.

It's like "using a phonebook", doing such is a relic of much older societies, ones that haven't entered the information age.

[anonymous171]

200. Those terms have little to do with an disconnected agrarian world

Marx and his ilk were writing their stuff during the mid 1800s, which was the start of globalization. Farmers were becoming less important while city factories were becoming more important.

[boppers]

233. I agree on the timeline.

They were writing in a framework where the wealth and knowledge was becoming centered in the regional cities, and they were romanticizing raw labor over knowledge and innovation. Paper mail was "communication" between places, supplemented by such wild inventions of the 1800's as the telegraph and typewriter. Heck, look at the symbols of Hammer and Sickle... this was very much a different world.

Now, we have farmers and factory controllers using complex machinery and computer models to replace labor, comparing results over the internet across the globe, within seconds, and yet, we're still using terms that might as well be describing a different planet.

[anonymous171]

237. A quote from Lincoln:

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

So would you say that Lincoln was simply romanticizing labor, or that he was denouncing "knowledge and innovation"? I would really like to know your answer.

[boppers]

238. In Lincoln's terms, in the mindset of his day:

I'd surmise he was stating that the robber baron, plantation owner, money (of his time), was the product of labor. I wouldn't say that he was denouncing knowledge and innovation, but he was emphasizing that the working class (of two centuries ago) was the engine of wealth for the upper class.

Was he romanticizing it? Well, it was part of his political image to be viewed as splitting logs, rather than reading and writing books. Fast forward to two centuries later, and we had another president "clearing brush", to project the very same, very republican, "common laboring man" image....

In actuality, though, Lincoln was a career lawyer and legislator, having decided become a politician (and later a lawyer) at age 23, and married into money at age 33. So, for not having actually been part of the working class, and viewing his agrarian farmer father as a failure, I'd say there was definitely an attitude that reflected the 19th century undercurrent of "the noble worker", undermined by a disdain for those who profited from the work.

[PVnRT]

201. Huh?

Take a political science class. Marx envisioned worker uprisings amongst the new urban industrial underclass, not farmers. Nice try, though.

[boppers]

234. The Industrial age came, and went.

Marx's vision did not pan out. He a bit like Ayn Rand in that sense... a visionary far too rooted in their own past of a pre-industrial society to accurately understand the future.

[rockymountaindem]

116. I don't know where you get that idea

Every time people mention the stock market or other things associated with the middle and upper classes here lots of DUers are quick to write them off as shallow, self-interested concerns of the rich. There's plenty of sentiment against the wealthy, "McMansions" etc. around here. Whether DUers really are mostly middle class and white, which I suspect they are, I don't think this is bourgeoisie central.

[CreekDog]

117. In grad school, they made me study Structuralism

fucking Structuralism.

100 PhD's no smarter than me explaining why I think what I think. :rant:

[Captain Hilts]

212. That should be "100 phDs no smarter than I...." nt

[CreekDog]

264. instead of grammar and usage.

which would have been more useful, apparently.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

128. So Many Logical Flaws In The OP.

What's sadder is the realization that you not only believe the drivel you posted, but that there likely isn't a power in the world that could sway you away from the ridiculousness of your position.

[TBF]

134. Why don't you lay out those "logical flaws" for us wise one,

I'd love to hear your analysis.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

135. Many Others Already Have.

And I have neither the time nor desire to waste my effort dissecting this train wreck of an OP, just for people who are incapable of understanding why what they're seeing is a train wreck to begin with.

[TBF]

149. Great way to deflect a question you can't answer. n/t

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

151. LOL That Would Entail You Having Actually Hit Something To Begin With.

But you actually struck out. Wait... No... You actually weren't even ever on the team to begin with.

[TBF]

247. And what does that have to do with potatoes?

Seriously, you are such a joke. Just proceed with your pom poms...

[Texasgal]

145. As much as I hate to

I agree with just about everything you said.

Makes me feel like shit, but you are right.

[smalll]

150. I agree with you, but it's a kind of obvious point you're making -- after all, we've all seen

the threads that:

-- applaud the punitive, regressive taxes placed on cigarettes, and the new federal taxes placed on rolling tobacco which went into effect on April 1st of this year.

-- advocate the banning of plastic bags at the supermarket. Poor people (or just frugal people) use those bags for so may things - everything from wrapping their lunches in to having something to sit on at the bus stop when it's raining and the seat is wet. The irony is that it's really only car people who face no hardship in driving around with their "green" bags in their cavernous trunks. City people, walkers, bus-riders, cyclists -- LOW carbon footprint people -- rely on those free plastic bags a lot! (I'm an example -- I get around a lot on my bicycle -- I can stop by at the supermarket at any time, double or even triple bag my groceries, and then wrap them around my handlebars.)

-- stand up for pit bulls (because the pit-bull lovers around here mostly DON'T live in the bad neighborhoods that are terrorized by gangsters and their canines bred to kill.)

-- assert that people on food stamps should have no right to buy soft drinks.

-- natter on about the latest episode of the latest distasteful series on the favorite channel of the upper-middle class: HBO -- the Pay Extra Network. Convicts, gangsters, whores, madmen, murderers -- the kind of people that the upper-middle classes tend not to run into in their daily lives, and so they can get their jollies from chaotic, hapless and violent lives vicariously, at a distance.

-- rave about everything from Apple, and bash everything from Microsoft. Too bad most of us can't AFFORD to buy computers for richies that get no viruses: PEOPLE DON'T BOTHER TO WRITE VIRUSES for computers whos market share is like what, 5%?

-- concern one or another aspect of AIR TRAVEL, which threads devolve into the most heated of flame-fests, because today's upper-middle class spends so much time flitting around the country and the world (with their Macs) getting paid far too much money to do nothing much that matters.

-- talk about "microbrews"

-- heap scorn upon people who ever shop at Walmart. Or eat at Olive Garden....


I could probably come up with some more examples, given time. Anyone else have any that come to mind?








--

[Political Heretic]

174. It is obvious, yes. But it's worth putting that fact right in the faces of those who deny it.

[boppers]

236. "can't AFFORD to buy computers for richies that get no viruses"?

Yo. Ubuntu.

A bunch of us IT geeks have been working on this problem for a while now, and now there's programs like:
http://www.freegeek.org/

Where you can get the operating system, *and* the computer, but if there isn't a program like that in your area, there's still Ubuntu:
http://www.ubuntu.com/

...So you can have a virus-free operating system, even on what used to be a "Windows" platform.

[Atticus]

158. "Bourgeois" is a state of mind, not a demographic.

I have no data on the racial and economic composition of DU. Do you?

You have used a shotgun when a rifle might have been more effective. I have been guilty of this same offense more than once. I beleive you have something worthwhile to say, but editing and focus could help you say it more effectively.

[anonymous171]

162. Huh? nt

[Political Heretic]

175. It is, and I said as much, right here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6982965&mesg_id=6983668

[Lucky Luciano]

160. Yawwwwwwn!!!!!!!!!! Booooring!!!! nt

[Lorien]

165. Hardly. It's mostly blue collar unions members

and a lot of college aged kids who won't attend college because it's too "elitist".

[Political Heretic]

172. That's not even remotely true.

Mostly blue collar union members.... that's a laugh.

[Kansas Wyatt]

191. Blue collar union here.

And I've noticed many union members.

I've also noticed 'Educated' people, who have bought into the present system, are comfortable with the way things are going, and think their Degree makes others inferior.

Then there are a few with money, that think they are entitled, because they 'earned' all of it, even though the playing field was more level, when they were getting theirs. Or mommy and daddy gave it to them, so it is their God given entitlement. Blah blah blah. These people are so very happy about the last 30 years, even if they say the country is going in the wrong direction, they will vote for their bank accounts and trusts.

I'll stop here.

[anonymous171]

214. Yeah, because everyone can afford to go to college!

If you aren't college educated, it's because you are lazy, stupid, and/or anti-intellectual. :sarcasm:

Seriously though, that's like saying that the poor are poor because they are lazy and don't want to work hard to get ahead. And yes, it is a classist and not to mention elitist argument.

[Political Heretic]

173. Despite hundreds of responses of namecalling and ridicule, there are still +26 recs.

Isn't it funny how much heated responses were generated by the topic? Now count the number of those responses that attempt to provide a substantive counter argument or engage the substance rather than belittle the person...

It's always interesting when you can strike such a sensitive chord...

[dionysus]

179. you wrote a flamebait OP insulting the entire board, then complain about getting ridiculed?

:eyes:

[Political Heretic]

203. Actually, I wasn't complaining. I was pointing out that even the attempts to shout down the post

haven't stopped it from being heard.

If hundreds of posters replying not with substantive critiques of the claims, but rather with defensive pettiness still can't manage to shout down and "rec" down the thread, that says to me that something good has happened.

It shows me that there are still enough people who recognize and understand the shift and drift of DU away from responsible solidarity with the poor and working class and toward being an enabling mouthpiece for establishment power to make to struggle for the community's soul still a fight with some hope.

You can "comeback" to that anyway you want. The fact remains attempts to shout down this thread have failed.

[HamdenRice]

176. Rolling on the floor laught my ass off!

Political Heretic
Gender male
City Eugene
State Oregon
Country United States
Hobby Mountain Biking, Computers, Philosophical / Political Literature
Comment About me:
Bachelors Degree in Philosophy (BA)
Masters Degree in Social Work (MSW)
Focus on macro public policy and political economy

To PHD or not to PHD - that is the question...

I have been:
...
--Project Manager, Fortune 100 Company
...
Bachelors Degree in Philosophy (BA)
Masters Degree in Social Work (MSW)

<end quote>

So comrade, how's the progress on the assembly line?

Hey, did you ever hear what Lenin had to say about multi-ton presses?

[dionysus]

177. ROFL. elitist!!111!! you don't want him to spill his latte do you?

[HamdenRice]

178. "To PhD or not to PhD"???

Da komrade! Dat is the question for da workers!!!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Starry Messenger]

180. lol

# HamdenRice Says:
March 5th, 2008 at 1:20 pm

Dear Ms. Sullivan,

It is very dispiriting to hear that people have been writing to you with such negativity. That’s the scary part about writing, isn’t it? You put your self out there, and no matter how skillful or beautiful your work is, someone is going to trash it out of his or her own insecurities.

I’m going to be horribly honest and say I haven’t read your book yet, but it’s on my reading/purchase list. So why am I writing into your blog?

Because I heard you interviewed on WNYC radio (it was the Lopate Show), and I was bowled over by how fresh and honest you were on the radio. I love to hear authors interviewed, but most of the time, I’m horrified by the pretentiousness and mystification that passes for author interviews. Your voice was so clear, fresh and unpretentious that I said to myself, I have to buy and read (no devour) that book to get more of that voice.

Since then, I’ve been pouring through your blog archives. The reason is that I have (insanely) done what you did — dipped into the 401K to write and at the time I discovered you, I was on the verge of giving up. Maybe you’ve saved an American novel from the fireplace, and maybe you’ve encouraged a fool to continue liquidating his retirement savings.

Anyhoo, one thing I’ve picked up from your blog is the necessity of interacting with other writers. That’s very encouraging to read. Generally, I am involved in the Brooklyn based Sackett Street Writers Workshop, but I think I’m going to have to go across the East River and check out KGB and othe venues where agents and editors actually frequent.

Thanks for providing the example, and perhaps I’ll see you at KGB

-HR


http://feliciasullivan.com/?p=844

[HamdenRice]

187. So? I've said many times on DU I'm a writer. I don't pretend to be the Trot leader of the workers

while deciding whether to get a PhD or not -- unlike certain hypocrites on this forum.

[Romulox]

188. OMG! "It is very dispiriting to hear that people have been writing to you with such negativity."

Incredible find! I kick I could kick/recommend a response!

"Since then, I’ve been pouring through your blog archives. The reason is that I have (insanely) done what you did — dipped into the 401K to write and at the time I discovered you, I was on the verge of giving up. Maybe you’ve saved an American novel from the fireplace, and maybe you’ve encouraged a fool to continue liquidating his retirement savings."

/bookmarked!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Starry Messenger]

202. :)

# HamdenRice Says:
November 24th, 2008 at 6:21 pm

Hi Felicia, I have always been fascinated by religion and even took courses in divinity school when I was in grad school. If you are interested in how the changes in words have changed the message, I can’t recommend two sources from div school days highly enough: “The New Jerusalem Bible” and John Crossan, “The Historical Jesus.” TNJB is the bible that div school students are often assigned use and it’s quite an eye opener. It is based on translations directly from the Greek and Aramaic earliest texts of each book available. Most plain language bibles today are just translations of the King James, from Shakespearean language to modern English and don’t get past the political editing of 1600s England. The Historical Jesus, also a div school requirement, is an analysis of the provenance and meaning of the texts that are most likely to have been written around the time of Jesus and most likely to have been actual things he said — plus lots of eye opening anthropology. Hope you check them out!


http://feliciasullivan.com/?p=1027

There's so much material, it's difficult to choose...maybe I will just dole it out.

[HamdenRice]

205. I don't get it. How is this any different from anything I've written on the R/T Forum?

Anyway, post away! Glad you think it's entertaining!

Btw, I did go to meet her and have a talk with her at KGB. She's a very cool writer -- very encouraging in our correspondence -- her memoire was terrific, and it's too bad she's not writing in the same vein on her blog anymore.

I'll save you the trouble. Here's another entry of mine about my late night phone call to the actress Patti Lupone:

# hamdenrice Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 10:13 am

Your post reminded me of an experience I had with Patti Lupone when I was just a kid and she was making her first star turn — I called her at like 2 am and had a conversation with her. I was working for People Magazine as a summer intern in the late 70s.

When, on rare occasions, I have picked up that magazine at the supermarket in recent years, I’m amazed at what it has degenerated into. In those days, Renata Adler was an editor, and the magazine actually had text.

It was part of the Time-Life family of magazines with that company’s legendary fact-checking system — which was where I was interning. Anyway, the magazine was being “put to bed” and the writer who had written a profile of the new star of Evita, had written that she could hit some note — like e above high c — and in the middle of the night realized he had no notes confirming that fact. In those days before personal computers, let alone the internet, we checked facts by going to the clippings morgue where people literally took apart every newspaper and magazine in the country every day, filing every article by subject matter in a gigantic warehouse like floor of the Time Life building. We couldn’t find any confirmation there as well that Ms. Lupone could hit this note.

So they told me to call her at home and confirm that she could hit e above high c (or whatever note it was). I think they asked the intern to do the dirty work, so that there would be no blowback if the star was annoyed. (A few days before someone had shouted down the hall that Sylvester Stallone was angry at something in the magazine, was in the lobby and was threatening to break a particular writer’s kneecaps.)

I called the number I was given and Patti Lupone groggily answered the phone. I apologized profusely, explaining the situation and the fact checking process and the deadline, and asked her if she could hit this particular note.

She was incredibly polite, wasn’t annoyed at all, and was patient with a nervous 19 year old intern. She even said a few encouraging things about careers.

I’ll never forget how gracious she was.

<end quote>

I confess. I've had a great education and some really, really cool experiences, and have some great writer friends here in New York! I was at a salon for writers and filmakers and artists last night, where writers from Russia, Zimbabwe, Britain and the US read works in progress, and tonight I'm going to a writing workshop!

[Starry Messenger]

207. You'd best go answer Prism

He just replied in your thread in GDP:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8747753#8749713

I saved your first deleted response too. How diverting and profane! I'll be sure to share it with him. You are the two faced one darling. If you wish to win popularity contests, perhaps you ought to stay in GDP. No one in here gives you a moments credence anymore.

[HamdenRice]

211. "If you wish to win popularity contests..." Uh, no. I'll leave that to you

I'd rather be right than popular -- especially among rather analysis-challenged fanatics.

:rofl:

Is that your goal? To be popular? To say anything, no matter how preposterous, so long as your personal peanut gallery cheers you on?

[Starry Messenger]

215. Poor Hammy.

:( Drinking in the morning again? There's help for that...

[HamdenRice]

216. Your posts are increasingly bizarre.

Are you projecting again?

:rofl:

[Starry Messenger]

222. Your posts are increasingly bizarre.

Are you projecting again?

:rofl:

[HamdenRice]

224. Btw, thanks for saving that deleted post! I thought I made some great points ...

if I say so myself, and it's too bad I didn't save a copy.

[Name removed]

226. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[HamdenRice]

227. You should have pm'd me. I'll copy it, then alert to have it deleted.

If the mods wanted it to stay up, they wouldn't have deleted it.

[Name removed]

185. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Political Heretic]

235. 65k of student loans, bankrupt, homeless.

I was, at 21, a project manager making a comfortably middle class income. I left all that behind to lead a campaign against my states anti-gay constitutional amendment.

I am now 33. A lot changes in 11 years.

I'm well educated because I borrowed every penny, and I cannot afford to pay it back. Not sure what I'm going to do about that.

I went bankrupt trying to pay my rent and medical bills.

Had to turn to social welfare services for assistance to avoid eviction.

That was then, current I am homeless, crashing on the couch of a relative.

I enjoy biking but my bike, which was a gift, has been broken for 2 years now and I have no money to fix it.

I enjoy computers, especially when I can access them. I happen to have access where I am staying.

In the last year I've had the actual experience of eating a half jar of Bacos as dinner because I had no food to eat.

I drive a smashed car, without front end, wrecked hood, broken headlight, smashed rear bumper and cracked rear highlight because it's all I could afford, having no car insurance and no money to fix it.

And yes, I enjoy reading.


Its interesting how context matters, isn't it?

[BzaDem]

182. Yawn.

[jpak]

183. Dumbest Post Evah!!!1111

Evah!!!!

:puke:

[Romulox]

186. Jesus Christ! This thread is like a fly strip for 'wingers! And more keep flying in the window...

buzz! :silly:

[Robb]

189. And douchebag assholes, I think. nt

[Romulox]

190. "...buzz, buzz, BUZZ!" LOL. nt

[Robb]

195. Yawn. Thank goodness you're protecting the internet. nt

[Cal Carpenter]

192. You're probably right

But why would it be any different?

The Democratic party as a rule supports a free market. It's a capitalist party. I suppose there is the never-ending debate about how much the wealthy are supposed to give to the poor, but there is not any real effort to change the mechanics of the economic system.

Do people here actually read the Democratic party platform? While it's couched in typical rhetoric, it is very clearly pro-free-market. It boggles my mind that people expect differently. If you are a Democrat and you support Democrats and you vote for Democrats (which I assume the majority of the people here do, given the purpose of the site), well, then, you are basically 'bourgeois' as defined by leftist economic theory.

Aren't most people here fully aware that the party supports (or actually, *is*) the 'establishment'? Duh! What, the dems are suddenly a revolutionary party that's gonna do away with poverty and bring down the 'owners'? Puh-leaze. Good luck with that, LOL.

No need for guilty consciences - there are haves and have-nots and most Dems I know accept that fact. I don't think many democrats (at least not those I know in the real world) think that things should be all that different. They certainly aren't trying to challenge the party to change their whole platform. Sure, maybe some fool themselves into thinking the Dems can/will/do more for the poor, and maybe sometimes they are right to an extent.

But who the hell thinks the Dems are secretly socialist and are going to dismantle capitalism or something? (other than rabid right-wing provocateurs, maybe)

Seriously, I highly recommend people actually read the Democratic platform. And if you agree with it then support the Dems, but don't deny that we're basically bourgeois, that's just silly - of course, in socialist terms, we are bourgeois. It always confuses me when people here call themselves socialist, when they support Democrats. You can't do both. Either own up to what the Dem party stands for and support it, or move the hell on...

:shrug:

[chill_wind]

193. Though we're DU and not DKOS, FWIW: The Score: Profile of a "Netroot"

And a little dated, but I remember something similarly but much more recently published and posted here on DU in the last year or so, with data about DU and DKOS, both. What I seem to remember most was that, comparatively, DKOS had the greater concentration of higher incomes and advanced degrees, while the average DUer was somewhat younger, high percentage of high school grad plus some college, comfortable living wage (from my self-admittedly low-income vantage point)

Maybe someone will remember or find that DU post.

In the meantime, this is just something from the google from 2006.

(...)


* Category visitation habits among DailyKos.com visitors reveals that these internet users are perhaps more philosophical (Politics, Religion), financially savvy (Online Trading, Finance -- News/Research) and more engaged in online entertainment (Humor, Entertainment -- News, and Retail -- Music) than the average internet user.

* DailyKos.com readers also appear to be internet news junkies, exhibiting very high tendencies to visit news sites. When looking at sites that they are more likely to frequent versus the norm, news-related sites account for eight of the top 10 such sites. For example, DailyKos.com visitors index high for visitation to the Independent News & Media (Index = 3,914) and Salon.com (Index = 3,872).

* The Demographic snapshot of DailyKos.com readers reveals that while all adult age groups are represented, there is a very large skew toward adults 65 and older. In fact, this age group is nearly four times as likely as the norm to visit the site.

* DailyKos.com visitors also skew toward higher income levels, with those households making at least $75,000 being 56 percent more likely to visit the site. Zuniga has noted that income is likely one area in which netroots might differ from a representative cross-section of the Democratic Party.

more: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/10139.asp

[PVnRT]

196. In general, I believe you have a point

Especially the past couple of years, this site has lurched rightward quite a bit. In the past few months, it's done so even faster. Now we have people thinking that restricting abortion access is "no big deal," that gays should just wait their turn, that the war in Afghanistan is "necessary," et cetera, et cetera. It's sad that just because the Democrats won, it means that any talk about class differences and the like is simply derided as "Marxist drivel" by people who think everything will be just fine if we wait.

Note: I am upper-middle-class and white. I have been lower-class as well. I can't help but wonder if the bourgeois elements you are speaking of have never really experienced living on the low end of the spectrum. Watching my dad go from well-paid factory worker to minimum-wage rental video store jockey thanks to Reagan reactionism is something that will stick with me forever.

[Echo In Light]

198. That likely does explain the snide belligerence of some posters...

... that sort of snarky, Know It All, ever "optimistic" mindset that's rooted in arrogance and denial, the essential qualities to being successful in the average professional capacity, and is indeed contemptuous of any who dare question its validity - -and as the OP points out, for some it really doesn't matter whether they fit the 'professional' mold or not: what counts is if they WANT and exalt that ideal, and all it entails.

That's why those types react so violently to dissident, heterodox views, b/c such views and ideas tend to undermine everything they were taught, believe in, and have acted upon in order to Get Where They Are, Inc.

Now, naturally most people are, by nature, quite unwilling to just surrender their belief systems when presented w/alternative ideas that are brought about via critical, institutional analysis and questioning ... but again, it's the shrill, combative tone that reluctance takes that frames it accordingly.

Good post, PH. Rec

[whathehell]

208. Can you give some concrete examples?

[Captain Hilts]

209. Blue collar folks fighting immigrants for jobs-racists. White collar fighting off Indians-Fair/just!

[Codeine]

225. You nailed it. Fucking NAILED it! nt

[Hello_Kitty]

229. You get called a racist and xenophobe by the Cheap Labor Elites Lobby for either. eom

[Captain Hilts]

230. Yes indeed.

[aikoaiko]

218. Is this another veiled fuck the Kennedys thread?

:shrug:

[anonymous171]

221. No, but the Kennedys are sort of overrated. Especially JFK

The only major acheivement of his presidency was his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Other than that he was pretty pro-rich. And Bobby died before he got to do anything.


Ted Kennedy was the only one out of the three who was really worth anything.

[LWolf]

220. I can't speak for the rest of DU.

I'm white. Mostly.

I'm female. I'm 49.

I come from the working class. My father quit school in 8th grade. He was a truck driver. My mother learned how to type in high school, and was a secretary for the decades until she retired. She was a single working mom who did not receive child support.

I was the first known person on either side of my family to go to college.

True to my background, I got married and had 2 kids first. Then I attended night school for 12 years to finish my AA, as a divorced single mom who worked during the day, and waitressed some evenings and weekends, and did not receive child support.

I finished my BA plus another 40 units when I was 34, and went to work to pay the student loans.

I cashed in my retirement to support my kids and myself while I did student teaching. When I got my teaching job, I didn't finish the last 3 units for my Master's, because I was worried about the time invested by new teachers in mastering the job, and about all those student loans.

I was naive. I didn't realize that I couldn't go back and finish that Masters at any time. A decade later, when I paid off the last of the loans and wanted to go back, I found out that none of the units are "new" enough, and I have to start over. Which I can't afford to do.

I'm still divorced. I raised my kids without help, and I bankrupted my own finances to rescue my grandson. I'd be in better shape now if I hadn't, but it was worth it.

I have been homeless. I have lived for a week or more on nothing but rice or lentils. I have been without transportation and had to hike 4 miles to and from a bus stop, with baby and diaper bag, to get to a babysitter and then to work.

I don't feel guilty for having my own roof over my head, even if it's a dump. I don't feel guilty for having a job, or a paycheck, or a vehicle to drive. I've worked, I've earned them.

Don't talk to me about "upper middle class," or "bourgeois."

[hippywife]

223. Oh, yeah...sure.

:rofl: :eyes:

[earth mom]

228. Guilt has nothing to do with it-it's about Greed and protecting the status quo.

I don't see any guilty consciences around GD-P at all. :puke:

[freddie mertz]

239. What happened to you?

Back in the day (like, a year ago) you used to be one of the biggest defenders of the "centrist" cabal.

"Practical Vision" and all that... no lefty nonsense for YOU back then (a few months ago)....

What made you see the light?

[Political Heretic]

246. We always agree on the problems, but often not the solutions. There's no inconsistency

Practical Vision still exists, though I haven't kept it up lately as I am poor, out of work and without a home of my own.

But were we to talk further we'd probably find that we agree on posts like this that identify the problem but disagree on the solutions... I like markets, I like technology, I like exchanging goods and services. But the way we do it now in modern capitalism is broken beyond repair. The solutions however, do not include going back to a simpler time, al la the "noble savage" that is anti-industry, anti-technology and anti-progress. Nor is it a socialism or communism that seeks to eliminate the marketplace.

That's typically where I run afoul of people that describe themselves as leftists. Then some of those people like to call me "centrist," which is fairly hyperbolic in my opinion - but that's their business and doesn't concern me anymore.

I'm sure there's probably a post here or there on Practical Vision from the least year or so that I'd write differently if I wrote it today. But for the most part, what you find there isn't inconsistent with what I'm saying here.

[freddie mertz]

262. OK. Maybe I'll look back over them.

But still what does seem to have shifted is your emphasis on CLASS in the above post.

I might personally suggest that your reading of DU class profile is a tad over-simplistic. .for example, I suspect that there are GENERATIONAL factors at work, as well as regional and even ethnic ones, in some of the discord we are seeing.

Not to mention gender and sexual orientation differences.

What disturbs me most (so far as DU is concerned) is that the advent of the new administration seems to have provided a justifying umbrella for the furthest right wing elements here to move aggressively against---forget the "left"--even the most traditional "liberal" or pro-civil rights, women's rights, and pro-labor elements in the community, and to do so in the name of "supporting the party and the president."

This sort of tactic is not entirely new in and of itself, but the ramped up energy, scope and depth of it certainly IS.

In the process of making their arguments, one often encounters something akin to the "practical vision" argument as I understood it, which was to fix sight of what is most likely to be accomplished in the short run, rather than work for larger reforms and changes that might not be so easily attainable, thinking of the long-run (as in single=payer vs. the present HCR legislation).

I would be interested to read your thoughts on these matters.

[Political Heretic]

263. My interest wasn't in covering every factor - only one.

It's the one I'm most interested in, the one that I've oriented my work toward.

I have to say, with all due respect, it sounds a lot like you just read the phrase "practical vision" and stopped there, making all sorts of assumptions. But maybe that's not the case. In any case, no problem...

So...

I did two things at practical vision. One was analysis of current policy and politics. I do that because its interesting to me, and I think it matters to be informed. And I also do it because I believe that there can sometimes be strategic reason to support policy even if it comes out of this broken system. But those times are increasingly rare.

The second thing I tried to do is talk about what a better world might look like, but a better world that was not anti-technology, anti-science, or anti-markets (though, by any sort of definition of justice, I'd argue it would have to be anti-"free" market.

I am a fatalist (not really, just when it comes to this one thing) - I honestly find it very hard to believe that a socialist revolution will spring forth from this culture and this context of our country at some point in the future. I wrote a bit about why I think that. And I think we are headed towards economic and infastructural collaps and some very hard times for people. So I wrote my thoughts about what we can do for people right now, even during the time when we don't have the government that is just, or the economic equality that we need.

I wrote making the case that when you are aligned with people, and particularly poor and working class people, there are sometimes strategic reasons to interact with even this failed system - so there might, on a case by case basis, be strategic reasons to vote for establishment candidates or spend time or energy advocating for a bill that cleared corporate controlled legislature. But only if doing so:

1. has sufficient benefits for the poor
2. has no critical flaws that harm the poor
3. the benefits for the poor sufficiently outweigh any remaining flaws
4. all things being equal, opposing the candidate or bill would be more harmful (to the poor) than helpful.

For example I think health care could have met those criteria, even coming out of this failed system. I was prepared to support an imperfect bill if it met those criteria above. Unfortunately, as things have progressed it looks more and more like this will not be the case. In this sense, thinking like this means that I'm not "pure" enough for some anti-capitalist revolutionaries.

I'm looking for tangible ways - large or small - that I can stand with the poor right now, not in some dreamed about revolutionary future, and I'm looking for practical and concrete ways to do that.

My interest has never strayed from poverty and class - its been at the heart of everything for me for a long time. Where change has come (and everybody changes over time, if they don't that's a sign of another problem) has to do with how much I think work can be done "within" the system.

My life has been a movement from childhood forced republican (i.e. parents were republican) to Democrat to Democrat-trying-to-Reform-Democratic-Party to Post-Partisan free thinker of neither establishment party who chooses, for strategic reasons, sometimes to align myself with democratic policy or candidates - when I think doing so meet those four conditions above.

I'm sure some of that journey is reflected on PV. :)

EDIT - you wrote:

In the process of making their arguments, one often encounters something akin to the "practical vision" argument as I understood it, which was to fix sight of what is most likely to be accomplished in the short run, rather than work for larger reforms and changes that might not be so easily attainable, thinking of the long-run (as in single=payer vs. the present HCR legislation).

No, the focus of practical vision, even if there may have been more of an evolutionary shift in my thinking about means-to-ends, has always been long term. Single-payer over HCR is a great example if something that would easily find its place on PV.

[MSchreader]

243. This place has always had problems with class issues

And if you're from the poor or middle layers of the working class, you are as much a target as are Republicans -- you're responsible for the health care crisis, the housing crisis and the economic downturn because you use hospital ERs as doctor's offices, you got a sub-prime mortgage and you're still unemployed. In short, you are responsible for making the White House and Congressional Democrats look bad.

* * *

I've been on DU since 2002. I've had enough time to gauge who is on here and who is not. For the most part, you have people from all classes on here, but the bulk are "middle class" elements (small shopkeepers, independent professionals and producers, officials, bureaucrats and functionaries, etc.) and the relatively privileged layers of the working class. Of these, the loudest -- the ones whose presence is the most felt -- are the "middle class" folks.

And for them, all of the "vices" you describe are little more than modus operandi -- par for the course, to use terminology more suitable for them. A leopard cannot change their spots, and a yuppie cannot but sneer at the poor. And decades of propaganda across generations has extended this condition to some privileged workers, too.

The only parts where I disagree with you (partially) are on the question of guilt and race/nationality.

The "middle class" elements feel no guilt, quite simply. They got theirs, and that's all that matters. The more privileged workers, on the other hand, still feel the pang of guilt sometimes, but they too also know they got theirs ... for now.

As for race/nationality, it's not all white. It might seem like it, but that's because class arrogance and anti-worker sentiment in our society is a point where race and class often meet. Just ask Bill Cosby.

[saltpoint]

256. I'd need to see a zodiak demographic breakdown before I could

enter the debate.

[Name removed]

261. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.