The Middle Class Needs to Strike Back

Lex · 10-11-2006

I thought this was an interesting piece from Lou Dobbs at CNN.com

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lou Dobbs @ CNN.com

NEW YORK (CNN) -- I don't know about you, but I can't take seriously anyone who takes either the Republican Party or Democratic Party seriously -- in part because neither party takes you and me seriously; in part because both are bought and paid for by corporate America and special interests. And neither party gives a damn about the middle class.

Our country's middle class is not just collateral damage in what has become all-out class warfare. Political, business and academic elites are waging an outright war on working men and women and their families, and there is no chance the American middle class will survive this assault if the dominant forces unleashed over the past five years continue unchecked.

... Lobbyists, in fact, are the arms dealers in the war on the middle class, brokering money, influence and information between their clients our elected officials.

Yet in my entire career, I've literally never heard anyone in Congress argue that lobbyists are bad for America. In 1968 there were only 63 lobbyists in Washington. Today, there are more than 34,000, and lobbyists now outnumber our elected representatives and their staffs by a 2-to-1 margin.

According to the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, from 1998 through 2004, lobbyists spent nearly $12 billion to not only influence legislation, but in many cases to write the language of the laws and regulations.
Individual firms, corporations and national organizations spent a record $2.14 billion on lobbying members of Congress and 220 other federal agencies in 2004, according to PoliticalMoneyLine. That's nearly $6 million a day spent to influence our leaders. We really do have the best government money can buy.

...These [wedge] issues are raised by both political parties to distract and divert public attention from the profound issues -- like educating our youth, economic inequality and the war against radical Islamic terrorists -- that affect our daily lives and the American way of life. Imagine the consternation in Washington if both parties had to contend with a national electorate whose political affiliation had dramatically changed within a matter of weeks or months.

In both Republican and Democratic administrations, Congress has passed and sustained billions of dollars in royalty payments and subsidies to big oil companies; pushed through a corporate-written, consumer-crippling bankruptcy law; embraced the death of the estate tax; approved every free trade deal brought to a vote; and supported illegal immigration for the sake of cheap labor.
...

Without that strong, clear and vibrant voice, all the major decisions about America and our future will be made by the elites of government, big business and the dominant special interests. Those elites treasure your silence, as it enables them to claim America's future for their own.

I sincerely hope that we will find the resolve to face these challenges to our way of life, and we do so soon. George Bernard Shaw said, "It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid."
I'm stupid enough to be absolutely sincere in the hope that middle-class America will awake soon and take action.

BlackCock85 · 10-11-2006

Very interesting........when I first read the title of your thread I could have sworn it said "The Middle East Needs to Strike Back" Sure had to do a double take.

Rikter8 · 10-11-2006

Well its true.

The Middle class does need to stand up and fight back.

But without support from everyone, it will never happen.

There are going to be tens of thousands of people homeless, jobless, roaming the streets, and only the Rich and elite will survive.

Unless..of course the american people grow a set of balls, and step forward and do something about it.

Fuck the legal system. It's broke.

Time for Brute Force.

DC_DEEP · 10-11-2006

Ha, is this or is it not basically what I've been saying in the last 20 or so political threads? I am usually ridiculed for pointing out what Mr. Dobbs says so eloquently and elegantly.

The republicans make no bones about the fact that they really don't give a shit about the average american. The democrats lie, and say that they care.

Neither actually cares about anything but his own power struggles and accumulation of wealth.

Lex · 10-11-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by DC_DEEP

Ha, is this or is it not basically what I've been saying in the last 20 or so political threads? .

When I read it, I IMMEDIATELY thought of you, DC.

Who loves ya, baby?!? /Kojak

SpeedoGuy · 10-11-2006

Joe and Jane Suburbanite are asleep at the wheel. Can't be bothered, don't ya know? They won't awake until the problems rock their quiet neighborhoods. Don't kid yourself otherwise.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lex

Who loves ya, baby?!? /Kojak

Who's yer daddy? lol

rob_just_rob · 10-11-2006

I agree completely.

And I stand by my previous comment about blood in the streets.

SpeedoGuy · 10-11-2006

Quote:

...and supported illegal immigration for the sake of cheap labor.

This one just fascinates me up to no end: America's ongoing love/hate relationship with immigrant labor. Illegal immigration's been going on for generations and politicians of all stripes have largely turned a blind toward it. Why? Because of the cheap labor pool they have provided.

One day America up and decides to act shocked....shocked ...that there are millions of illegal laborers inside the borders. And at a time when homeland security is supposedly a top priority. How could this have happened and who is to blame?

How indeed?

A better question would be: Who's been employing (exploiting) all those brown skinned undesireables? I wonder.

GoneA · 10-11-2006

*Jumps in from behind*

I read this [today] and immediately thought of DC_Deep, too. I think DC_Deep is really Lou Dobbs . . . it's a theory I've been kicking around.

RoysToy · 10-11-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by DC_DEEP

. . . .

The republicans make no bones about the fact that they really don't give a shit about the average american. The democrats lie, and say that they care.

Neither actually cares about anything but his own power struggles and accumulation of wealth.

Might you be prone to generalize? For instance: I don't doubt that some Democrats lie and I'm unable to compare percentages of those who do with those who don't, but laws put into effect by Democrats certainly prove that they "care" for the less fortunate and are less supportive of the wealthy than the laws instigated by Republicans. Along with power and the accumulation of wealth often goes love of money and sometimes it's put above the welfare of others, but, it's my belief, that there is less of this mental stance, historically as well as currently, in the Democratic party, than in the Republican.

madame_zora · 10-12-2006

Good to see you, Luke.

I have to agree with you on that, the middle class was doing rather well under the Clinton administration.

I also wouldn't feel comfortable guessing how many dems are liars NOW though, I think the point Dobbs makes about lobbyists and corruption is right on the money.

Some of us post here to understand the political system better, and some of us even use what we learn to actually write letters to try to influence our governmental system. What we find is that none of those efforts amount to a small ball of snot because we have not the money to back it up. What will the politicians care more about, 100,000 letters from constituants, or $100,000 from some special interest? The stack of "fuck you" letters I've received from MY politicians in response to my efforts tells the tale, to me.

tripod · 10-12-2006

I watch Lou Dobbs and have never found him as eloquent as that post, someone else must have written it for him. I've always thought that he was a douche and had no original ideas, but did have some kind of a heart, and a voice as smooth as silk.

Don't some of you be hatin' on the democrats... they are not anywhere near the problem.

That shit Madame Zora said about the fuck you letters she received back from her elected officials makes me sad...

headbang8 · 10-12-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by rob_just_rob

And I stand by my previous comment about blood in the streets.

People alive in the early 1930s are, nowadays, are few and far between. Many will attest that America came close to blood in the streets in the period between the crash of 1929 and the election of FDR in 1932. Workers, starving and with nothing left to lose, rioted in huge numbers. They identified the capital classes as their enemy--I wonder how many of the middle class would do so today, entranced by the dream of making it big in an America where, in theory, everyone can become rich? History books seem to downplay the level of civil unrest in the 1930s, and the level of political radicalism abroad in the air.

Almost unthinkable nowadays, as the baubles of affluence are dangled constantly before us; we believe that clever one-upmanship earns you wealth, that the cult of celebrity defines human worth. They have hypnotised the working- and middle-classes into not seeing their own economic interests.

I recently visited Roosevelt's presidential library in Hyde Park. The NPS guide told a cute story. An aide remarked to Roosevelt that if the many reforms of the New Deal (such as Social Security) worked, FDR would go down as the greatest president in American history. If they failed, he would go down as the worst.

Roosevelt replied: "If these reforms fail, I will go down in history as the last American president."

DC_DEEP · 10-12-2006

Luke, yes, of course I generalize when I'm talking about the national parties, as opposed to individual senators and representatives. In general, yes, the democrats are less-bad than the republicans, and there are exceptions on each side. But I stand by my characterization that neither party truly has the general welfare of the nation at heart.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tripod

<...>
Don't some of you be hatin' on the democrats... they are not anywhere near the problem.

The democrats may be outnumbered in the house and senate, tripod, but in numbers nowhere near enough for the republicans to have made this mess by themselves. They are too weak to dig in their heels and refuse to go along with the creation of the theocratic plutocracy which we already have fairly well in place. This theocratic plutocracy has taken over our democratic representational government in just 6 years. I'm waiting for an explanation.

Quote:

That shit Madame Zora said about the fuck you letters she received back from her elected officials makes me sad...

I don't know if it's true, or if she was just stroking my ego, but Madame told me that I was instrumental in getting her to write more letters to her representatives. I'm glad she does. I also get plenty of what she calls "fuck-you letters." My term is "non-answer answer" letters. They respond, but do not address the issue I requested. I usually have to write 3 times on any given issue to hold his feet to the fire and make him respond on-topic. Frustrating, but I won't give up. I just wish I could convince my fellow "socially liberal, fiscally conservative" citizens to write as often as Jana and I do. I've said it before, I will say it again and again and again. When a televangelist orders his sheep to write, they do. By the hundreds of thousands. One person can make a difference, but only if everyone else also makes their own difference.

We can strike back, friends, but only when we ALL have had enough. Until then, the fundamentalists and the rich will continue to have their way with us, and it will only get more unpleasant.

rob_just_rob · 10-12-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by headbang8

People alive in the early 1930s are, nowadays, are few and far between. Many will attest that America came close to blood in the streets in the period between the crash of 1929 and the election of FDR in 1932. Workers, starving and with nothing left to lose, rioted in huge numbers. They identified the capital classes as their enemy--I wonder how many of the middle class would do so today, entranced by the dream of making it big in an America where, in theory, everyone can become rich? History books seem to downplay the level of civil unrest in the 1930s, and the level of political radicalism abroad in the air.

Almost unthinkable nowadays, as the baubles of affluence are dangled constantly before us; we believe that clever one-upmanship earns you wealth, that the cult of celebrity defines human worth. They have hypnotised the working- and middle-classes into not seeing their own economic interests.

You have absolutely nailed it.

The overwhelming majority of Americans (and Canadians, and so on) will never be rich enough to benefit from tax cuts more than they are hurt by cuts to social services. This is an unfortunate fact. However, most people don't see it that way - they're mesmerized by the tax cut that puts a few hundred extra dollars in their pocket, and by the notion that the wealthy have earned their wealth by themselves and therefore owe the rest of society nothing, or next to it.

(Yup, you said it better)

The Middle Class Needs to Strike Back

I thought this was an interesting piece from Lou Dobbs at CNN.com Originally Posted by Lou Dobbs @ CNN.com NEW YORK (CNN) -- I don't know about you, but I can't take seriously anyone who