Working Poor Unready to Revolt

Joel wrote: Here we are with a two-party plutocracy that preferentially serves corporate and wealthy interests and lets the middle class suffer and sink.

True, due to these 10+ abuses, resulting in the continued deterioration of these 17+ economic conditions.

Voters obviously are not yet feeling enough pain to question their voting habits, and to stop repeatedly rewarding bad politicians with 85%-to-90% re-election rates, despite a dismally low 9% approval rating for Congress.

Joel wrote: They [proletariat and/or most voters] remain overly confident in voting as the path to change.

True, since most obviously still believe that repeatedly rewarding bad politicians with perpetual re-election is the solution, despite simultaneously giving dismally low 9% approval ratings to Congress. And simply letting the two-party duopoly take turns running the nation into the ground isn't working, is it?

Joel wrote: The ruling class has successfully used propaganda to dumb down and manipulate most of the public because delusion has become the opiate of the masses.

True. It is delusion, fueled by apathy, complacency, ignorance, blind partisan loyalties, distracting partisan warfare, irrational fears and hatreds, greed, and laziness. We truly only have ourselves to thank for all of it. In a voting nation, an educated electorate is paramount, and too many voters have doomed themselves to get their education the hard and painful way.

But, perhaps enough voters will get sick and tired of wallowing in the petty partisan warfare, and be less apathetic, complacent, and blindly partisan when enough of the voters are deep in debt, jobless, homeless, and hungry? After all, in year 1933, 3+ years into the Great Depression, unhappy voters finally ousted a whopping 206 members of Congress. Too bad the voters have forgotten that lesson, and choose to learn the hard way again.

At any rate, the voters have the government that the voters elect.

Joel, Obama is not the problem. If he is elected or not, that is the people's choice and democracy in action.

It is important to separate the results of problems and the causes of problems. You do rightfully identify the source of the problem, or imply it clearly, the political parties themselves.

About half or a little more, would say political parties are their friend and empower their voice. This, of course, is not rational or logical at many levels, but, it is the prevailing view. Devise a way to alter this prevailing view, and the path to better government and a better future for American citizens will be possible.

I just completed an article on this very topic over at Vote Out Incumbents Democracy (VOID). It is entitled, What is Non-Partisan?

Perhaps I will cross post here in a day or two.

BTW, Joel, you've written a very fine article here, touching on many of the salient factors as to why the working poor are not ready to for a revolution at the polls.

Mike Gravel has much to say on this topic as well, pointing out how representative democracies are all governed by elites who have become self-serving, as opposed to public serving. Only in Switzerland, I believe it was, did Gravel state that the people truly took the power of governance for themselves in a more direct democracy.

He likens our citizenry as adolescents striving to become mature responsible adult voters but within a political system hell bent on keeping them adolescents. There is merit to some of his arguments and views.

Joel you wrote: “Though there is widespread pain and discontent there is also a stubborn faith in the American dream despite little help from government.”

The middle class and near or below poverty level are the result of long standing policies by the duopoly. The situation is little different around the world. Recall that the U.S. and world bodies are always going to save the poor in Africa. This is no more than codeword for dumping a lot of money on corrupt heads of government in exchange for access to their natural resources. Europeans want fishing rights, we want tantalum for manufacturing electronic components, etc. Not so much about the poor. You have to ask why things are what they are in this country. Why does it now take two family members working to support a family? Why is a 1950 dollar only worth a dime today? Why did Congress go ten years without raising the minimum wage? What is the effect of printing money on demand and faking the CPI figures to devalue that same money once it is in hands of the middle and poor classes?
It’s true the Democrats have long propagandized themselves as the party of the people. And lots of poor people are bent to vote that way. A single political party is not the culprit. It is the oligarchy, the Shadow Government …..why am I relating all this to you….it’s all in your book, Delusional Democracy! Well, I’m posting to other readers as well. So, the poor and the middle class are easily controlled by the oligarchy but only at a level of pain they will accept. The oligarchy has squandered trillions of taxpayer dollars since WWII. Give $1.5B to Mexico for their corrupt officials instead of putting US workers to work building a fence with that money shutting and simultaneously shut out drugs that drains more billions from this country, etc. The oligarchy has just gone crazi to break the back of the poor and middle class i.e. the Iraq war, jobs to China, outsourcing, defense manufacturing to the EU, etc. How is it possible that our education system is remarkably less than it was 50 years ago? We have a shortage of 60k nurses and the government plans to bring in that number of Philipino nurses to fill the shortage. Last year 40k qualified students applied for a nursing curriculum and was turned down because THEIR WEREN’T ENOUGH FACULTY TO SUPPORT THEM. And so it goes. Status quo as you like to say. Talk about the poor class being distracted or having little hope!!! I can post an article here, there, and everywhere calling out for REVOLUTION or REFORM and basically get ignored. Not just with the poor these conditions exist. Well, we are looking at $65T debt and the old money machine can’t perform it’s magic much longer. A look at inflation eyewash charts exemplifies that very well (d.a.n. hint-hint)
Here is a quote from a “quote to ponder” on HMT’s homepage:
Civil disobedience, that’s not our problem. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem.
~ Howard Zinn

Here is an excerpt from one of Jeanette’s post on HMT re “Are we Bankrupt yet?” by CNSnew.com :
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) asked the Congressional Budget Office to determine what the tax rates would need to be to cover federal spending at that level. (($53T of debt))

"What they told me was really startling," said Ryan. "They said that the current low rate, the 10-percent bracket for low-income Americans, would have to go up to 25 percent. The middle-income tax rate for middle-income Americans would have to go up to 66 percent, and the top rate, which is what small businesses pay, would have to go to 88 percent.”

Doesn’t sound good for anybody, poor, rich, or in between. We should all hope we can hang on the Status Quo a little longer.

Otherwise, we have to government we deserve.

Hardball - 8/10/08

Doesn’t sound good for anybody, poor, rich, or in between. We should all hope we can hang on the Status Quo a little longer.

The magnitude of the current debt (not future debt, which is more alarming) is staggering. Most of the rich are likely to remain rich, since they have Congress in their pocket. 99.7% of all voters are vastly out-spent by a tiny 0.3% of voters that make 83% of all federal campaign donations of $200 or more. The shrinking middle-income group, the largest group, is the hardest hit, due to the increasingly regressive tax system, and other abuses. A myriad of sales taxes hit the poor hard, since all sales taxes are regressive.

Joel is one of the few people that blames the voters, instead of only blaming politicians. And why shouldn't he, since it is most voters who repeatedly reward bad politicians with perpetual re-election ?

And why do most voters giver Congress 9% approval ratings, but 85%-to-90% re-election rates?

At any rate, the voters have the government that the voters elect.

This nipping around the edges of reform with a different taxation program or modified SS, or pushing thru FOAVC, or etc. will not get us very far very fast. In the news this morning that the white race will become a minority around 2040-50. The white race has held steady at 200M since about 1950. I think each of us agree that voter education is key to political change. Thus, the longer we delay major reform of government and the political system the exponentially harder its going to get. The Blacks and Hispanics will cling to the Dems for social programs. The white race will be split into several factions thus preventing any kind of reform movement. I believe hope for reform can be lost as early as 2012 IF the duopoly is able to citizenize the 10-20M illegals and get them to the polls. I can imagine the whites going to the polls and voting out all incumbents within their power and the Hispanics preventing their favorite amnesty minded representatives from getting voted out thus putting them in senior positions within congress. I’m on board to try and VOID them but I also want broad reform carried out. Unless we start with new, clean, political parties with built-in citizen oversight nothing much is going to change and any changes achieved will be very short lived.

Otherwise, we have to government we deserve.

David Remer wrote: You gotta admire American political capacity for avoiding the right thing to do. It is afterall, unprecedented unless you go back to the historical record of the demise of Ancient Rome.

True. Congress is a graveyard for good ideas and solutions.

When history books are written about the fall of the United States, they should include this article, The Great Consumer Crash of 2009.

I'm not convinced things will bottom-out as soon or as suddenly as year 2009, because things take longer to unfold than many realize (2012 is more likely, because the government will delay the collapse by creating more money out of thin air, and even give away more money if necessary in the form of more stimulus checks and tax cuts, which will make things worse in the end).

At any rate, the voters have the government that the voters elect.

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Root causes and consequences...

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