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jazzoLOG: I Am The Middle Class |
Category: Dreams 11 comments
10 Mar 2007 @ 17:06 by vaxen : Wot?! 10 Mar 2007 @ 17:11 by bushman : Hmm Happy B-Day :} 10 Mar 2007 @ 18:59 by quinty : Marvelous quotes at the beginning. Especially the Don Juan.... Where I went to grad school, Cal Berkeley, will be paying, I only recently heard, more than a million bucks per anum to its head football coach. That? In the People's Republic of Berzerkley! Even if today's student body and faculty may not still carry the flame Mario Savio (of Free Speech Movement fame) held high that does seem like a lot of wasted money. Especially for a public, tax supported institution. The administration though, at Berkeley, has always been: well, you know. White men. Those "Gilded Agers" were sure successful. They not only managed to turn Socialism into a heretical concept worthy of ostracization but managed to demonize the term "liberal" too. Socialism is only a theory, after all, on how to organize society, which you can either agree with or disagree with. And was, historically, in many of its manifestations (not necessarily Marxist) merely a reaction against the injustices and abuses of industrial power. So why is that so bad? It may not work, or, maybe, if properly attempted, it does? But being a Socialist does not have to morally land you among Satan's Legions, unless you happen to be a Gilded Ager afraid of losing power. For, as already noted, Socialism was merely a reaction against the abuses of Capitalism. And the sufferings and needs of working people should be heeded. And, yes, the far right wants us to return to what we had before Roosevelt. Which is why they devoutly love Ronald Reagan. Their flame bearer who made greed acceptable and "good" once again. For in this form of rightwing thought school only prepares the masses, for lack of a better word, to be smiling, happy employees who never talk back to the boss. For this students need to learn how to count, read, and to be good team players. Thought is a dangerous frivolity and programs in music and art and even gym classes are a waste of the tax payer's money. In their world the Ivy schools were made for men like George Bush junior: and brains have nothing to do with it. Elite schools are for the elite: the world of Jay Gatsby. What’s more, the rich always seem to do well. Even in third world countries, which is the direction the United States has taken over the past several years. I have gone on too long but Vax will set me straight. Happy birthday - - - - 14 Mar 2007 @ 13:02 by nraye : Tough Birthday article Jazzolog, hope the cake was better eating. I read all 41 pages of the Krugman article. He can barely write, I certainly could barely read it without dizziness setting in, no footholds or handholds not even earth below. Goodness me. But the comments made up for it, a little democracy here Ho HO! Forget all the reasons everyone cites, the unions, and dates and events. My one reason for the sad demise of the stalwart class is TV and Hollywood. Have a daily diet of what has become essential mind bruising for too many too young and they will lose any handholds or footholds on society and its entrenched systems which they MUST join to change some. I was raised in the wild, no TV, no nothing but hide of croc!! Still young then? have a lovely Birthday week. . . . 16 Mar 2007 @ 13:26 by nraye : More reasons ... The cost of Insurance added to everyone's service (professional indemnity) - now it is the Midwife's turn to be enforced to pay for this, only to pass the cost onto Mother's to be. Exactly that which has happened throughout the professional working sector. Dentists, architects, all manner of people, passing on the cost to patients and clients. Then there is the cost of other insurance, flood, fire, theft, house, ad nausem, which must all be passed on. Into the equation must go a negative decline in individual work expertise as technology advances and replaces the workers task which was in itself A Very Important Learning Curve - done automatically during the course of work, which over time allowed them to rise within the ranks of a firm, by dint of their own interest, initiative, elbow grease, team effort, dedication, etc etc and or start their own business. The job specs of many many people is simply limited to certain tasks on a computer. No dialogue with others, no viewing of reports, they are no longer a cog in a wheel, they are just the slave labour turning the wheel, largely blindfold to the overall issues of their work. This has taken away the all important LEARNING curve and handing it to the INSTITUTIONS who can now set millions of courses (a degree in surfing), which can be paid for by those keen to get on. In other words the only way one can get on is to continually do courses, and be brainwashed by someone else, to do the work their way. This is pure Android life. The middle classes were a group of people with a little spare time and a brain. They used their spare time in all manner of ways usually adding SPICE to all our lives, and creating a magic DIVERSITY and THRIVING and relatively HAPPY people, not necessarily dependent on more and more Money, but being able to provide a really good life on thrifty spending and myriad interests. Many Many people do rely on TV to make themselves feel in the Know; not only is just filling up on rubbish, but it removes from them the valuable spare time they used to have deploying their hands, minds and hearts from whatever interests and hobbies or studies or projects they used to persue, without financial cost but to huge personal gain and in the process becoming that most valuable middle class group of healthy societies. 30 Mar 2007 @ 13:13 by nraye : Stereotypes formed by the Media and thrown especially to the college agers will affect self perception which will greater distort the rich/poor gap and in turn college ambitions. Unless the particular less well off individuals have strong mentor figures in the church say or some supportive entrenched organisation, I imagine it would be difficult for them to conceive of the option. I have just read more of the links, especially the last. If I had known that there was no chance of my going to university, I doubt my efforts in top grade science and maths class with latin etc would have been maintained. I was told by a head teacher (a nun) that I was one who would definitely go on to university, without question, and I worked accordingly. This is not what transpired, but the point is I would not have been able to do so much without consistent moral support. 31 Mar 2007 @ 08:14 by jazzolog : A Matter Of Class I'm glad nraye is continuing to contribute to this thread. In the States we've been taught never to speak of "class warfare" because only Commies do that. It's a wonderful brainwash the rightwing engineered back in the '50s, and we still swallow it...even after the rich have sucked our treasury dry and moved all their digs offshore. 2 Apr 2007 @ 13:03 by nraye : Interesting, So that is perhaps the factor giving a false impression of Serendipity as it is known in academic circles in the UK. There is definitely the overall impression given by the media that most folk in the US are quite happy with their lot. It may also affect the amount of time given to listen to those who dare to "complain" - they may be seen as wet blankets against the whole utopian message given out by the rightwing engineering you mention here. Very interesting indeed, Jazzo. Thank you. If I may from time to time, as I commute to and fro daily, new thoughts come to mind on this vexing question, perhaps they can be added. ###### Without doubt. Your comments, observations always welcome. ---Jazzo 3 Apr 2007 @ 09:58 by jazzolog : Quarter Century To Destroy Middle Class Distract and Disenfranchise By Paul Krugman The New York Times Monday 02 April 2007 I have a theory about the Bush administration abuses of power that are now, finally, coming to light. Ultimately, I believe, they were driven by rising income inequality. Let me explain. In 1980, when Ronald Reagan won the White House, conservative ideas appealed to many, even most, Americans. At the time, we were truly a middle-class nation. To white voters, at least, the vast inequalities and social injustices of the past, which were what originally gave liberalism its appeal, seemed like ancient history. It was easy, in that nation, to convince many voters that Big Government was their enemy, that they were being taxed to provide social programs for other people. Since then, however, we have once again become a deeply unequal society. Median income has risen only 17 percent since 1980, while the income of the richest 0.1 percent of the population has quadrupled. The gap between the rich and the middle class is as wide now as it was in the 1920s, when the political coalition that would eventually become the New Deal was taking shape. And voters realize that society has changed. They may not pore over income distribution tables, but they do know that today's rich are building themselves mansions bigger than those of the robber barons. They may not read labor statistics, but they know that wages aren't going anywhere: according to the Pew Research Center, 59 percent of workers believe that it's harder to earn a decent living today than it was 20 or 30 years ago. You know that perceptions of rising inequality have become a political issue when even President Bush admits, as he did in January, that "some of our citizens worry about the fact that our dynamic economy is leaving working people behind." But today's Republicans can't respond in any meaningful way to rising inequality, because their activists won't let them. You could see the dilemma just this past Friday and Saturday, when almost all the G.O.P. presidential hopefuls traveled to Palm Beach to make obeisance to the Club for Growth, a supply-side pressure group dedicated to tax cuts and privatization. The Republican Party's adherence to an outdated ideology leaves it with big problems. It can't offer domestic policies that respond to the public's real needs. So how can it win elections? The answer, for a while, was a combination of distraction and disenfranchisement. The terrorist attacks on 9/11 were themselves a massive, providential distraction; until then the public, realizing that Mr. Bush wasn't the moderate he played in the 2000 election, was growing increasingly unhappy with his administration. And they offered many opportunities for further distractions. Rather than debating Democrats on the issues, the G.O.P. could denounce them as soft on terror. And do you remember the terror alert, based on old and questionable information, that was declared right after the 2004 Democratic National Convention? But distraction can only go so far. So the other tool was disenfranchisement: finding ways to keep poor people, who tend to vote for the party that might actually do something about inequality, out of the voting booth. Remember that disenfranchisement in the form of the 2000 Florida "felon purge," which struck many legitimate voters from the rolls, put Mr. Bush in the White House in the first place. And disenfranchisement seems to be what much of the politicization of the Justice Department was about. Several of the fired U.S. attorneys were under pressure to pursue allegations of voter fraud - a phrase that has become almost synonymous with "voting while black." Former staff members of the Justice Department's civil rights division say that they were repeatedly overruled when they objected to Republican actions, ranging from Georgia's voter ID law to Tom DeLay's Texas redistricting, that they believed would effectively disenfranchise African-American voters. The good news is that all the G.O.P.'s abuses of power weren't enough to win the 2006 elections. And 2008 may be even harder for the Republicans, because the Democrats - who spent most of the Clinton years trying to reassure rich people and corporations that they weren't really populists - seem to be realizing that times have changed. A week before the Republican candidates trooped to Palm Beach to declare their allegiance to tax cuts, the Democrats met to declare their commitment to universal health care. And it's hard to see what the G.O.P. can offer in response. [link] 5 Apr 2007 @ 08:41 by jazzolog : NY Times On The Upper Class Maybe following up on Krugman's column Monday, the editor collected these facts for us yesterday on distribution of money in these United States~~~ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The New York Times April 4, 2007 Editorial It Didn’t End Well Last Time Not since the Roaring Twenties have the rich been so much richer than everyone else. In 2005, the latest year for which figures are available, the top 1 percent of Americans — whose average income was $1.1 million a year — received 21.8 percent of the nation’s income, their largest share since 1929. Over all, the top 10 percent of Americans — those making more than about $100,000 a year — collected 48.5 percent, also a share last seen before the Great Depression. Those findings are no fluke. They follow a disturbing rise in income concentration in 2003, and a sharp increase in 2004. And the trend almost certainly continues, spurred now as then by the largess of top-tier compensation, and investment gains that also flow mainly to the top. For the bottom 90 percent of Americans who are left with half the pie, average income actually dipped in 2005. The group’s wages picked up in 2006, but not enough to make up for the lean years of this decade. Sensing a political problem, administration officials from President Bush on down have begun acknowledging income inequality. But in their remarks, they invariably say it has been around for decades and is largely driven by technological change. Translation: “We didn’t cause it, and trying to do something about it would be silly.” Let’s get a few things straight: First, the economic gains of the last few years have been exceptionally skewed. From the 1970s to the mid-1990s, the gap between rich and poor widened considerably, but produced nothing like today’s intense concentration of income at the very top. And from 1995 to 2000, the long trend toward inequality was interrupted by general prosperity. The richest Americans did best, propelled by stock market gains. But the lower rungs also advanced. Second, government policies do matter. Part of the reason for the shared prosperity of the late 1990s was an increase in the minimum wage and a big expansion of the earned income tax credit. During the same period, a strong economy coupled with fiscal discipline — including tax increases, spending cuts and binding budget rules — conquered budget deficits and furthered job growth while providing a foundation for reasonably adequate social spending. In contrast, the economic policies of the Bush years have failed to benefit most Americans. The tax cuts have overwhelmingly benefited the richest. As a result, the tax code does less to narrow the income gap now than it did as recently as 2000. At the same time, important social spending has been cut. That exacerbates disparities, because middle-class and poor Americans use government services more than affluent Americans. The nation needs an administration that will offer solutions for the scourge of income inequality. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company [link] 6 Apr 2007 @ 23:15 by quinty : I hope Krugman is correct. If you listen to rightwing radio (I admit I do. It's a vice.) you might believe liberals are furtive Socialists who hate America. But the notion that there is any significant true left in this country is a joke. (I understand that leftwing parties in Europe are becoming more centrist?) Krugman puts it nicely, I think. The Democrats "spent most of the Clinton years trying to reassure rich people and corporations that they weren't really populists." Those of us with progressive tendencies fear now that Hillary may bring on more of the same if she becomes president. She has never been good on the war and promises now to keep bases in Iraq. Precisely what Bush and the Neocons originally desired. There are those who believe the "middle course" is by its nature the right way to go. Bill Clinton called it "triangulation.." But there is nothing innately sound or wise about a middle course. While politicians may sometimes be forgiven for compromising (that’s how deals get done) the center shouldn't be seen as a goal, not when the problems are large and require strong remedies. And we have so many enormous problems in this country! All of them ignored! Will we have to wait for a disaster before finally acting? This needless and catastrophic war has served as a kind of wakeup call. So did Katrina. And I would be happy if the Democrats simply became Democrats once again. But we can't even significantly agree in a bipartisan manner on the existence of global warming. And a powerful rightwing tide has also gripped this country. We have a society (as Vax likes to remind us) founded upon fantasies and lies. The war, global warming, national health care, the economy, religion and science: the discourse is no longer even vaguely rational. Since whatever empirical basis we may have once had for viewing the world we live in appears to be gone. Why? Because the electronic media has become the cultural framework of our world? Greed, opportunism, religious fanaticism and ambition straining, each in its own way, to rise to the top? Coloring our world? The best news today is that Bush’s poll numbers are low. Does that reveal a groundswell of sanity rising throughout the American heartland? That many of us are finally saying, “Enough is enough?” Other entries in Dreams 21 Jun 2008 @ 11:14: My Piece Of The Pie 16 Mar 2008 @ 11:12: Hope 30 Jan 2008 @ 10:27: Making The Best Of The Toxic 25 Nov 2007 @ 11:18: A Mournful Thanksgiving 1 Aug 2007 @ 13:19: A Year Without Tagliabue 8 May 2007 @ 08:58: Death Of A Bebop Wife 22 Dec 2006 @ 09:54: Christmastime's A-Comin' 4 Nov 2006 @ 13:02: Phil Mattson Brings Us Jazz Choirs 24 Jul 2006 @ 12:23: The Hi-Lo's I Presume 15 Apr 2006 @ 11:39: Easter In Lascun
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10 Mar 2007 @ 13:08, by Richard Carlson