You only illustrate how meaningless the phrase is. Okay, she is working
class. She doesn't want to say so though. She also exhibits the
attitudes that come with that phrase that make it so repugnant to me.
That only backs up what I have been saying. Most everyone can call
themselves middle class if they want to. It doesn't matter how poor or
rich you are. It may be that historically it has most often been used
for people who have attended higher education and work for a salary
rather than wages, but poor people use it to describe themselves too if
they want to appear to be something apart from what their class
backgrounds would have led them into and likely has led them into and it
allows them to think of themselves as superior. Most of the people I
have ever known do not call themselves middle class and do not make a
point of calling themselves by any class designation unless it is
relevant to a conversation specifically about class. The ones who do
call themselves middle class make a point of calling themselves that
whether the conversation is directly related to what class they might be
in or not. Furthermore, they call themselves that to differentiate
themselves from their inferiors. That is exactly what happened in the
conversation you related. She obviously could not credibly call herself
rich and she realizes that the rich have unfair advantages over her and
she resents that. However, she wants to feel superior to someone else
and so she disparages the poor. She disparages them as too stupid to
take their medications. She disparages them as undeserving of medical
care at all. And she makes a point of separating herself from them by
claiming to be middle class. I have noticed that all of my life and you
told me that it must be peculiar to my region. But then you describe
exactly the same thing from a Long Islander. If it is regional it
appears to be characteristic to your region too except that you do not
recognize it. I recall the time you said that most people do not know
any poor people as if poor people were not people. Then when I pointed
it out you said that you meant that most middle class people do not know
poor people. Have you ever thought that some of those middle class
people might actually be poor and do not want to admit it? Do you think
of yourself as middle class too and so somehow above and superior to
poor people? Whatever it is you described exactly the kind of
conversation that really grates on my nerves, the kind of conversation
in which a person just has to make a point of being so-called middle
class and at the same time slipping in a derogatory remark about poor
people, usually a stereotype of poor people that has nothing to do with
reality. Again, I do not deny that middle class has some kind of
meaning. Literally it is a class in the middle. That doesn't tell you
much, though, because it does not describe an economic role for members
of that class and I can't see that there is any clear dividing line
between middle class and other classes, but it would, at least, be
something in the middle. Every single time I hear someone describe
themselves as middle class, though, they are doing so in exactly the way
this person did. You called her an average Long Islander. I never spent
any time on Long Island myself, but if that is really the average Long
Islander I doubt that I would want to. It is difficult for me to
believe, however, that Long Island is full of nothing but snobs. I
suspect that it would be more accurate to describe her as the average
person who thinks she is middle class whether middle class is actually
what she is or not.
On 10/10/2015 9:07 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Well, I thought a lot about how you and Carl might react to that particular
phrase. So here I go, one more time, in the twenty first century, aside
from people who are conversant with Marxist theory and who use its concepts
as a way of describing society and our financial arrangements, most people
use the term, "middle class" as a default description. They are not being
specific or thinking about it. They mean that they're not rich and they are
not poor. In the case of this particular woman, her husband worked in
construction before he retired. I don't know her well enough to know if he
was a laborer or owned a construction business. She did office work and then
, I think, worked in a paralegal job for New York City. So these people were
working people, living in the city, and eventually saved enough money to
purchase a house in a modest suburban neighborhood in Nassau County. They
are active, do volunteer work for their church, driving people to dialysis
appointments, and she works in a part-time clerical job at the library.
People who live on Long Island and who own their own homes, define
themselves as middle class, regardless of how they make a living or of the
amount of their income. And everything that they see on TV or read in the
papers or hear on the radio, supports that definition. All of the articles
say that strong unions allowed people to move into the middle class. In my
opinion, the problem is not the label that she uses. It is in her attitude
that people who are poor do not work as hard as she and her husband have
worked, that they are irresponsible, and that society provides for them
while people like her are being left out. I have heard this attitude
expressed often, that the rich and the poor are cared for, but the people in
the middle are being cheated of what they have worked so hard to have.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2015 8:09 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Go Ahead, Back Hillary Clinton and Forget All
About Her Record
I don't know about average Long Islander, but I notice that your
conversation partner was self identified as middle class. That is exactly
the attitude that I have noticed from people who consider themselves
so-called middle class. Like I have pointed out, it is mainly a way to
regard oneself as superior when it is not credible to claim to be rich. I
bet she would also not want to even contaminate herself by contact with poor
people.
On 10/10/2015 11:54 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Last night I read an article about who rules the world financially. Itmedicaid.
described all these complicated interlocking organizations, the G 7,
the G 10, the G20, the IMF, the World Bank, the World trade
Organization, the International Monetary Fund, etc. After reading all
of this complex mumbo jumbo for a while, I wondered if Bernie isn't
just selling us a beautiful, but impossible dream.
And if we want to know what the average American thinks? Well, here's
a short version of a real conversation between me and an average
Nassau County resident. We were talking about the costs of medical
care and medical insurance.
Average Long Islander: Yes, the system is bad. All the money goes to
the rich. The rich are taken care of and the poor are cared for by
It's us, the middle class, who get the short end.strings.
Me: Well, not all the poor people are cared for by Medicaide. Perhaps
half are. Many aren't covered.
Average Long Islander: Well, the poor! They don't take their
medication half the time anyway.
Me: What do you think happens to them if they don't take their medication?
Average Long Islander: Oh, they die.
I am not making this up. And her tone of voice indicated that "the
poor" are really not of any real concern.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2015 11:12 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Go Ahead, Back Hillary Clinton and
Forget All About Her Record
I'm already bending way over backward in supporting Bernie Sanders as
the Democratic Candidate. At least with Bernie there are cracks in
the Empire's protective walls. Sanders could be pushed by popular
pressure, into becoming a People' President. No other candidate with
even a remote chance of winning, can disentangle from their puppet
But we must not go into this campaign with Rose Colored Glasses.move mountains.
Bernie Sanders will only be as good as the pressure brought to bear.
If the Establishment puts the greatest pressure on him, he will most
surely bend their way, despite his personal progressive leanings.
After all, Sanders is a politician. As such, he will work for
consensus over personal ideals.
But at least we have a glimpse into Sanders basic philosophy. We have
no such glimpse into that of any other candidate. Unless being a
mindless parrot is a personal philosophy. If Sanders has enough
support to be successful, we need to remember that he is only a step
in the right direction. He can never be the solution. He has been
swimming in the political Corporate Pool too long to be clean. But if
he can point us in the right direction, and if we can spread some
understanding among the Working Class, we might see the beginning of
the collapse of the Corporate.Military Establishment.
Along with pressuring Sanders to stand with the American People, will
be the need to begin conversation about what form of government we
want to replace the corrupt corporate capitalism now in control. If
we could all spend just as much time each week in serious discussions
as we do in cheering our favorite football team, we would find that we can
Which reminds me, what time do the Sea Hawks play on Sunday?judgment.
Carl Jarvis
On 10/10/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Go Ahead, Back Hillary Clinton and Forget All About Her Recordbe damned.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/go_ahead_back_hillary_clinton_and
_
forget
_all_about_her_record_20151009/
Posted on Oct 9, 2015
By Robert Scheer
Hillary Clinton speaks during a Step It Up for Gender Equality
event in New York City in March. (JStone / Shutterstock) Go ahead and
support Hillary Clinton, those of you for whom having the first
female president is the top priority. She is by far preferable to
Carly Fiorina, though of course no match for likely Green Party
candidate Jill Stein (I know: You want to win). Sen. Elizabeth
Warren, a principled and electable person, is not available, and
political integrity
Just admit that you will be voting for someone to be president of the
world's most powerful nation who has not only been profoundly wrong
on the two most pressing issues of our time-economic injustice and
the ravages of unbridled militarism-but, what is more significant,
seems hopelessly incapable of learning from her dangerous errors in
Revolution.Like her husband, she is certainly smart enough to avoid advocatingSyria.
what President Obama has aptly termed "stupid stuff." However, the
good intentions of the Clintons are trumped by opportunism every time.
For confirmation of the Margaret Thatcher hawkish side of Clinton,
simply refer to her book "Hard Choices," which clearly is biased
against choosing the more peaceful course and instead betrays a
bellicose posturing that seems to harken back to the Goldwater Girl
days that reflected her earliest political instincts.
What one finds is a litany of macho bleating in defense of bombing
nations into freedom, leaving them fatally torn-Iraq, Afghanistan,
Libya,
Honestly, wasn't Hillary Clinton's record as secretary of state
horridly devoid of accomplishment compared with that of John Kerry,
who achieved long-overdue normalization of relations with Iran and
with Cuba, to name two stunning accomplishments?
But it is in matters of economic policy-driving this election-where
the failure of the Clintons is the most obvious, and where Hillary
Clinton seems to be even less conflicted than her husband in serving
the super rich at the expense of the middle class.
A continued deep deception in such matters was once again on full
display in her major policy statement printed Thursday on Bloomberg.
In an article headlined "My Plan to Prevent the Next Crash," Hillary
began by blaming it all on nefarious Republicans led by President
George W. Bush.
Of course, the Republicans have been terrible in their zeal to
unleash Wall Street greed ever since the moderate Republicanism of
Dwight Eisenhower came to be replaced by its opposite, the Reagan
judgment.But the reality is that Ronald Reagan presided over theprimitive pro-Wall Street ideology.
savings-and-loan scandal and as a result was compelled to tighten
banking regulations rather than obliterate them. It remained for
President Clinton, in his patented zeal to obfuscate meaningful
political debate with triangulation, to enshrine into federal law
that
One key piece of that betrayal was the reversal of the New Deal wallshe is elected.
between commercial and consumer banking, codified in the
Glass-Steagall Act, which Franklin Roosevelt had signed into law.
When Bill Clinton betrayed the legacy of FDR by signing the so-called
Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, he handed the pen used
in the signing to a beaming Sandy Weill, whose Citigroup had breached
that wall and commingled the savings of ordinary folks with the
assets of private hustlers-a swindle made legal by Clinton's approval
of the legislation.
Hillary Clinton, in her statement this week, made clear that in
opposition to positions taken by Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and
even John McCain she will not revive Roosevelt's sensible restriction
if
Instead, Clinton blamed Republicans for the fact that "In the yearsof dollars.
before the crash, as financial firms piled risk upon risk, regulators
in Washington couldn't or wouldn't keep up." How convenient to ignore
that Citigroup, the result of a merger made legitimate by her
husband, was one of the prime offenders in piling up those risks
before taxpayers provided $300 million in relief.
Brooksley Born, a head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in
Clinton's second term, made a heroic effort to regulate the nefarious
marketing of dubious mortgage debt securities until Bill Clinton
betrayed her by signing off on legislation that explicitly banned any
regulation of those suspect mortgage derivatives, involving many
trillions
It was that president's parting gift to the banks but also to hisbe damned.
wife, whose Senate career would come to be lavishly supported by Wall
Street's mega-rich leaders. They are now quite happy to back a woman
for president, as long as it's not someone like Brooksley Born or
Elizabeth Warren who is serious in her concern for the millions of
women whose lives were impoverished by Hillary Clinton's banking buddies.
http://www.truthdig.com/ http://www.truthdig.com/ Go Ahead, Back
Hillary Clinton and Forget All About Her Record
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/go_ahead_back_hillary_clinton_and
_
forget
_all_about_her_record_20151009/
Posted on Oct 9, 2015
By Robert Scheer
Hillary Clinton speaks during a Step It Up for Gender Equality event
in New York City in March. (JStone / Shutterstock) Go ahead and
support Hillary Clinton, those of you for whom having the first
female president is the top priority. She is by far preferable to
Carly Fiorina, though of course no match for likely Green Party
candidate Jill Stein (I know: You want to win). Sen. Elizabeth
Warren, a principled and electable person, is not available, and
political integrity
Just admit that you will be voting for someone to be president of the
world's most powerful nation who has not only been profoundly wrong
on the two most pressing issues of our time-economic injustice and
the ravages of unbridled militarism-but, what is more significant,
seems hopelessly incapable of learning from her dangerous errors in
Revolution.Like her husband, she is certainly smart enough to avoid advocatingSyria.
what President Obama has aptly termed "stupid stuff." However, the
good intentions of the Clintons are trumped by opportunism every time.
For confirmation of the Margaret Thatcher hawkish side of Clinton,
simply refer to her book "Hard Choices," which clearly is biased
against choosing the more peaceful course and instead betrays a
bellicose posturing that seems to harken back to the Goldwater Girl
days that reflected her earliest political instincts.
What one finds is a litany of macho bleating in defense of bombing
nations into freedom, leaving them fatally torn-Iraq, Afghanistan,
Libya,
Honestly, wasn't Hillary Clinton's record as secretary of state
horridly devoid of accomplishment compared with that of John Kerry,
who achieved long-overdue normalization of relations with Iran and
with Cuba, to name two stunning accomplishments?
But it is in matters of economic policy-driving this election-where
the failure of the Clintons is the most obvious, and where Hillary
Clinton seems to be even less conflicted than her husband in serving
the super rich at the expense of the middle class.
A continued deep deception in such matters was once again on full
display in her major policy statement printed Thursday on Bloomberg.
In an article headlined "My Plan to Prevent the Next Crash," Hillary
began by blaming it all on nefarious Republicans led by President
George W. Bush.
Of course, the Republicans have been terrible in their zeal to
unleash Wall Street greed ever since the moderate Republicanism of
Dwight Eisenhower came to be replaced by its opposite, the Reagan
tp://www.linkedin.com/company/truthdighttp://truthdig.tumblr.com/http://www.But the reality is that Ronald Reagan presided over theprimitive pro-Wall Street ideology.
savings-and-loan scandal and as a result was compelled to tighten
banking regulations rather than obliterate them. It remained for
President Clinton, in his patented zeal to obfuscate meaningful
political debate with triangulation, to enshrine into federal law
that
One key piece of that betrayal was the reversal of the New Deal wallshe is elected.
between commercial and consumer banking, codified in the
Glass-Steagall Act, which Franklin Roosevelt had signed into law.
When Bill Clinton betrayed the legacy of FDR by signing the so-called
Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, he handed the pen used
in the signing to a beaming Sandy Weill, whose Citigroup had breached
that wall and commingled the savings of ordinary folks with the
assets of private hustlers-a swindle made legal by Clinton's approval
of the legislation.
Hillary Clinton, in her statement this week, made clear that in
opposition to positions taken by Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and
even John McCain she will not revive Roosevelt's sensible restriction
if
Instead, Clinton blamed Republicans for the fact that "In the yearsof dollars.
before the crash, as financial firms piled risk upon risk, regulators
in Washington couldn't or wouldn't keep up." How convenient to ignore
that Citigroup, the result of a merger made legitimate by her
husband, was one of the prime offenders in piling up those risks
before taxpayers provided $300 million in relief.
Brooksley Born, a head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in
Clinton's second term, made a heroic effort to regulate the nefarious
marketing of dubious mortgage debt securities until Bill Clinton
betrayed her by signing off on legislation that explicitly banned any
regulation of those suspect mortgage derivatives, involving many
trillions
It was that president's parting gift to the banks but also to his
wife, whose Senate career would come to be lavishly supported by Wall
Street's mega-rich leaders. They are now quite happy to back a woman
for president, as long as it's not someone like Brooksley Born or
Elizabeth Warren who is serious in her concern for the millions of
women whose lives were impoverished by Hillary Clinton's banking buddies.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/go_ahead_back_hillary_clinton_and
_
forget
_all_about_her_record_20151009/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/go_ahead_back_hillary_clinton_and
_
forget
_all_about_her_record_20151009/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/go_ahead_back_hillary_clinton_and
_
forget
_all_about_her_record_20151009/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/hillary_bernie_and_the_banks_2015
1
009/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/hillary_bernie_and_the_banks_2015
1
009/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/hillary_bernie_and_the_banks_2015
1
009/
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i
des_on
_trans-pacific_partnership_tpp_debat/
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i
des_on
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i
des_on
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o r_beca me_americas_third_largest_cause_of_death_/
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o r_beca me_americas_third_largest_cause_of_death_/
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o r_beca me_americas_third_largest_cause_of_death_/
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