Labor/Class Issues & Strategizing Posted by Oaktown Girl, 04 Sep 2007 06:34 am

Guess What? You May Be Working Class!

The vast inequality of this new Gilded Age didn’t just happen. Nature didn’t ordain it, the market didn’t require it, and Adam Smith’s invisible hand doesn’t sustain it.What happened is the rich declared class war and spent what it took to win.

Not exactly a new story, of course, but the extraordinary new concentration of wealth and power created a juggernaut that makes it harder and harder for democracy to work for all.

From Bill Moyers on Class in America

About a year ago I heard an interview on Air America with a gentleman plugging something - a book, if memory serves - on labor and the working class. I can’t remember the name of the person being interviewed, so let’s call him Interviewee. Interviewee said something very interesting about the definition of “middle class”. He said that if you can’t afford to be without a job for at least six months, you aren’t middle class.

Whether you agree with this or not, it’s a vitally important concept. Why? Because until we as working people re-embrace (or, perhaps simply embrace) our very status as working people, the divide between the haves and have-nots in this country is going to continue to increase because we won’t be organizing as working people.

For quite some time now, America’s been a place where everyone who’s not flat-out rich or flat-out poor wants to define themselves as middle class. “Working class” has become a term only for the poor, and only for blue collar workers. This is bullshit. Being extremely conservative, I say that if after missing five or fewer paychecks you need to either run up your credit cards or have family or friends bail you out, you’re working class. If missing just a handful of paydays puts you up shit creek, that means you’re living paycheck to paycheck. That means you’re working class.

The reason it’s so important that Americans wake up and begin to wrap their heads around the fact that they’re working class and not middle class is so they will begin to think like workers. As a country, until we start thinking and proudly identifying ourselves as working class, we’ll never organize - and vote - in our own best interests. I strongly believe that someone who’s identifying as working class and not “middle class” is much more likely to ask themselves, “Why the hell am I not in a union? And why the hell am I working so hard and producing so much for so little pay and benefits?”; and that they are much more likely to hold their elected representatives’ feet to the fire about those issues as well.

Mindset and consciousness/awareness are key here. In addition to the 40+ year War on Labor that’s been going on, politicians and the corporate media have been feeding Americans a steady diet of non-stop hype about how we’re all middle class. This keeps everyone quiet and obediently in line, believing that they are indeed living the Great American Dream. How can they not be? They’re middle class. And the hype has worked. Boy has it worked. “Working class” has become a label educated people and white collar workers shun no matter how little money they might be making. To be fair, not every working class person calling themselves middle class is consciously shunning the “working class” label. They’ve simply been told their whole lives that they are “middle class”, so there you go.

On the opposite side of the spectrum from the politicians’ and corporate news’ “We’re all middle class” propaganda, we have the folks who sincerely want to get working class people organized. Gojira bless ‘em, but I have a bit of a beef with some of them too, epitomized by Interviewee. Interviewee believes that a big barrier to getting working folks organized is all the sub-movements/rights groups, primarily by People of Color. He said we need to stop focusing on ethnic differences so we can be more focused on workers’ issues. That drives me freakin’ crazy. As if we (People of Color) can simply change our reality by simply choosing not to make such a “big deal” about being People of Color - as if we’re the ones making a “big deal” about it. As if fighting for equality and justice is making a “big deal” about it. Well, I got news for you. Black people getting pulled over for “driving while Black” can’t just tell the cop, “It’s OK, you can let me go. I’m no longer making a “big deal” out of being Black.” Or, “Hey, you don’t have to deny me that business loan I’m more than qualified for - I’m no longer making a “big deal” out of being Black”. Or, “You don’t have to throw away my vote/deny me from voting/beat the shit out of me/hang symbolic nooses on the school tree, etc. etc. I’m no longer making a ‘big deal’ out of being Black”. Anyway, it’s not People of Color or Women’s groups fighting for justice that’s the problem here, so let’s put that to bed. That kind of finger-pointing is just another example of ego-centric activism: “If everyone would just get behind my movement and the way I want to do things, everything would be fine”. Besides, victories for people of color and for women are victories for working people. And most activist groups for and by People of Color have worker’s rights as a major part of their agenda anyway. [/rant off]

OK, so where do we go from here? Do you agree that the term “working class” has been marginalized and stigmatized in America? If so, and you think that’s a problem, what can we do about it?

In the meantime, how was your Labor Day? Did you get a paid day off? I didn’t. Oh, my office was closed, alright, but we weren’t paid. We don’t have any paid holidays where I work. None. But I’m not complaining. I’m a college educated white collar worker living the Middle Class American Dream. My TV tells me so.

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Responses to “Guess What? You May Be Working Class!”

  1. on 04 Sep 2007 at 10:57 am 1. Seattle said …

    So I was driving back from camping with 3 boys and one friend on Labor Day (appropriately financed with a credit card as I can’t actually afford vacations) one of the kids asked the question I’d been waiting for: “What is Labor Day?” So I launched into my patented “What Labor Unions Have Done For Us” Speech” in which I talk about what it was like for working people before labor unions were organized so that we might have payed work breaks and lunches and sick leave and vacation leave (payed or unpaid) and reasonable working conditions, etc. I didn’t try to explain the degree to which these workers rights have been eroded by the current generations who really have no idea what it took to get the rights they now accept as given. You haven’t lived until you’ve tried to argue a left leaning worker into joining a union. “We don’t need those.” Sure you don’t. You’ll gladly give away your rights for higher pay, telling yourself that you’re coming out on top of the deal when it’s really on top of you.

    Interestingly enough, I heard a short bit in the news this morning about Bonneville Power Administration finding it difficult to fill jobs paying $55K and more-too much physical labor…

    http://www.tri-cityherald.com/tch/local/state/story/9274630p-9189440c.html

  2. on 04 Sep 2007 at 11:50 am 2. Oaktown Girl said …

    Thanks for the link, Seattle. Well, I read the article, and it’s definitely a lot more complex than the physical labor aspect. A lot of it has to do with perceived status, as well as parental and self expectations. It’s very much related to this post - blue collar jobs being looked down upon these days by so many people.

    Problem is, a lot of these kids are gonna be begging for union jobs once they see and understand first hand the reality “out there”. It’s not like there’s high 5 and low 6-figure salaries for everybody, that’s for damn sure.

  3. on 04 Sep 2007 at 12:15 pm 3. Kiera PSI said …

    That’s why I’ve been hanging in doing temporary work at the community colleges. Once I do get in permanent, I will be a union member, and the benefits and protections are very good, especially in comparison to non-union jobs.

    I’ve been working class all my life. If you’re born in it, you’re often stuck. It’s rare that you can combine the hard work, talent, and blind luck that gets you out of it.

  4. on 04 Sep 2007 at 12:41 pm 4. Oaktown Girl said …

    I’ve been working class all my life. If you’re born in it, you’re often stuck. It’s rare that you can combine the hard work, talent, and blind luck that gets you out of it.

    Well, it’s even worse than that, Kiera. We have a system actively and deliberately working against us. All the while the myth of opportunity is churned out daily, the reality is this:

    The American Dream of “rags to riches” is less livable in America than it is in the aristocratic Old World that America rejected when its founding document proclaimed that “All Men Are Created Equal.”

    and this:

    By international standards, the United States has an unusually low level of intergenerational mobility: our parents’ income is highly predictive of our incomes as adults. Intergenerational mobility in the United States is lower than in France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway and Denmark. Among high-income countries for which comparable estimates are available, only the United Kingdom had a lower rate of mobility than the United States.

    But you won’t see that in the corporate media. Gotta keep people here thinking we’re the land of opportunity, no questions asked.

  5. on 04 Sep 2007 at 1:20 pm 5. Kiera PSI said …

    Why do you think I included “Blind Luck” in that list of attributes?

  6. on 04 Sep 2007 at 1:40 pm 6. christian h. said …

    Thanks for this post, Oaktown Girl - it’s spot-on. From the Marxist perspective, working class is a functional designation - pretty much if you work for somebody else’s profit, you are part of it.

    It’s not that simple now, if it ever was - there are managerial positions and so forth - but it is interpreted less as dependent on your income. (That’s not to say income isn’t important - a dependent employee - let’s just say a columnist for the Washington Post - with high income will naturally see his (usually, rarely her) interests to be in common with the “bourgoisie” rather than his fellow workers.)

    No matter the precise definition, though, it is a really important observation that ‘working class’ has become to connotate something negative, low prestige even among members of that class.

    In my opinion, this is what’s “the matter with Kansas” as much as conservative religion - the dissolution of the working class (as a class conscious of its existence) left some kind of identity vacuum that’s being filled by cultural identifications that have existed all along but didn’t manage to displace class solidarity.

    All this, it seems to me, also points to the ‘correct’ answer to identity politics (which, as you know, I’m not a big fan of, like your interviewee): the answer is solidarity with the oppressed, people of color, women - not excoriating anyone on their “misplaced priorities”. As you say, racism and sexism are realities that aren’t chosen by the oppressed - and these forms of oppression are important instruments in the exploitation of the whole working class. Meaning, resistance to them is integral part of the class struggle.

  7. on 04 Sep 2007 at 1:53 pm 7. James Killus said …

    I’ve known several people whose parents were highly paid professionals and because of that, their children grew up amidst real wealth, private schools, upscale residences, etc.

    The result has been a mixed bag, as nearly as I can tell, but in all cases I would say that the children developed a distorted view of the world, especially as regards to money and how it is acquired, social class and what it means, etc. It’s all too easy to conflate affluence with wealth and for professionals to identify with privilege.

    Which isn’t to say that many professions aren’t bastions of privilege, of course. Many are highly restrictive in their entry requirements, and inherited position counts for a great deal.

    A management consultant once noted to a friend of mine that, in every organization but especially corporations, there’s a line. Below the line people are not paid what they are worth; above the line they are paid more than they are worth. Everyone in the organization knows where the line is, but no one ever talks about it.

  8. on 04 Sep 2007 at 2:52 pm 8. christian h. said …

    Here’s a letter appearing in the Times today, via Altercation.

  9. on 04 Sep 2007 at 4:09 pm 9. Seattle said …

    I’ve talked about it. At work. The magical point at which the corporate mind believes that success equals over payment of CEO’s and upper management and underpayment of lower echelons of service. Somehow “keeping costs down” in terms of “head count” never means keeping down the pay of your CEO. Then you wouldn’t get good talent. But paying the lowest dollar possible for the people under (usually) him (occasionally) her somehow is supposed to be a good thing. What a riot. What a whitewash.

  10. on 04 Sep 2007 at 8:48 pm 10. spyder said …

    Do you agree that the term “working class” has been marginalized and stigmatized in America?

    From my current perspective i think there is a difference between working poor, and the working classes (assuming for no apparently good reason that one difference would be that the working classes are paid “living wages” while the working poor are receiving less than or equal to the minimum wage). Many in our society live below living wages, but make do with multiple jobs that provide access to the basic constructs of the American middle class lifestyle (whatever consumer periodical sets that value). Is someone who works three minimum wage jobs working class? I don’t think so.

    Talking to a friend today, she mentioned that this morning her boss told her she is eligible for a standard raise; but due to “the house rules” the first such raises must bring the employee to the state’s determined living wage minimum. For my friend this equals a whopping 5¢ per hour increase.

    Of course such living wages do not provide health benefits, ability to pay into retirement funds, and the other amenities that are considered part of a middle class (perhaps working class) total compensation package. A union-affiliated grocery checker receives sufficient compensation that they could not be considered part of the working class. Likewise postal workers, communications workers (AT&T employees mostly now eh?), and the public/civil servant classes of emergency services, teachers, and bureaucratic officers, receive total compensation that might be viewed as downright lucrative in the long run of things. I retired from teaching with a high five-figure salary, full medical/dental/vision benefits, a very generous retirement plan, and other direct and indirect subsidies and compensation incentives. I certainly was/am not rich by any measure, but the label working class did not seem to fit at all. Perhaps we were/are the middle class (blue and white collar) and there isn’t really much of an upper-middle.

    Is the owner of an autoshop or autobody repair shop substantially different than his/her employees (middle class versus working class)??? How would we classify those people who work in an employee owned corporate environment (management vs staff)???

  11. on 05 Sep 2007 at 2:14 am 11. JP Stormcrow said …

    Another YouTube I believe that I have posted here before, but could not resist Lennon’s “Working Class Hero” for this thread …

  12. on 05 Sep 2007 at 2:45 am 12. JP Stormcrow said …

    One of my fun little exercises is to take on of the various “criteria for outsourcing” that float around and apply it to most CEO positions.

    They usually have things like if it is something that you differentiate yourself by, or are particularly good at, need to be physically in a particular place etc. For most organizations the answer for the CEO is a resounding NO!, and in fact by definition 50% of CEO functions are below average (unless we are in Lake Wobegon - which we may be, for execs). The kicker is when they ask are there resources available to do the function cheaper … well, DOH! Yeah!

    In fact I maintain that most big companies could be run by one guy in Banglagore or Dubai or Omaha. .. or better yet an Eliza-type interface in front of a daily feed of “airline” magazines would do just fine. A film that touches on this a bit is The Boss of It All” in which the owner of an IT firm invents a fictitious boss (but more so he can have cover for his own unpopular and nasty decisions.)

  13. on 05 Sep 2007 at 7:03 am 13. JP Stormcrow said …

    You might want to take a look at this post by Kevin Drum on Jonathan Chait’s new book The Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics.

    Drum acknowledges that his review might not be universally admired because he downplays some of the negative features of the current Administration to focus on economic issues:

    The GOP’s jihad against the working and middle classes, however, is far more powerful, far more insinuated into the DNA of virtually every Republican politician, and undergoes far less scrutiny by the media. The great strength of The Big Con is that rather than reciting the usual laundry list of Bush-era conservative sins — as most books of this genre do — it focuses on the four or five of them that really matter, “all of them related because they’re in service to one great primal sin: the by now almost complete subordination of the modern Republican Party to business interests and the rich.”

  14. on 05 Sep 2007 at 8:17 am 14. Oaktown Girl said …

    spyder -A union-affiliated grocery checker receives sufficient compensation that they could not be considered part of the working class.

    Really? That person could go 6 months without a paycheck and be OK? Or by my extremely low-bar definition of even 5 paychecks with no problem? No, I disagree. And especially not in my region of the country where the cost of living is so high.

    And you still didn’t answer my question even though you italicized it! Good grief. Don’t make me have to put you in The Trunk your first week back. Sheriff Kiera tells me it’s rather toasty in there these days…

  15. on 05 Sep 2007 at 8:19 am 15. Oaktown Girl said …

    {And while in some cultures toasted spyder, er, spider, may be a delicacy, I’d rather take a pass.}

  16. on 05 Sep 2007 at 11:32 am 16. Oaktown Girl said …

    spyder - clarification of my comment in #14 (with the understanding that you are on the road and might not be able to reply anytime soon).

    What I meant was that I’m not at all interested in getting into a long discussion on the definition of middle vs. working class. For this thread, let’s just use my definition as I’ve laid it out in the post.

    What I want to discuss is how/if mindset and propaganda has negatively impacted Americans, and if so, what can we do to redress it?

    James (#7) Everyone in the organization knows where the line is, but no one ever talks about it Yeah, that’s brutal, and true. It’s clear why people below the line don’t bring it up - squeaky wheel gets labeled a “trouble maker”, and one step closer to the ax. As for the people above the line? Well, all that stuff you already mentioned, plus why mess up a good thing? Problem is, this race to the bottom is exactly what’s gonna mess up their “good thing”. The long-term blindness about it all is downright staggering.

    Seattle - yeah, the whole “we don’t need no stinkin’ unions” mindset is one of the major products of the War on Labor. And the irony is that the folks saying that probably fancy themselves as cutting edge and independent-minded, not realizing they’ve simply been totally played.

    And as for using “CEO” and “talent” in the same sentence? Well, how about if we define “CEO talent” as the person who can accept the most over-the-top salary and still keep a straight face while justifying it.

  17. on 05 Sep 2007 at 5:24 pm 17. spyder said …

    Really? That person could go 6 months without a paycheck and be OK?

    I know many, although suffering such a sudden loss of income, who would still be able to live quite well for a considerable period of time (owning their own home, living well within their means and owning useful and efficient, but inexpensive cars, etc.). I suppose that may depend on the location of one’s residence in what part of the country. If the standard for definition is the length of time someone can go without a paycheck before they lose any financial stability, then that may apply as well to new money nouveau riche too???? This would be particularly true in the Bay Area as the cost of their new mortgages and other amenities (styled cars and upscale shopping) would be very expensive to maintain without their incomes. Not that any of us should/could feel sorry for a millionaire, but a simple millionaire trying to live in Seattle or San Francisco or Malibu can’t make it if they lose that regular income. A million just doesn’t go very far today at all.

    And yet, could we consider a millionaire part of the working class, and if so under what conditions??? Because that is in essence part of your question. If a someone, who has an income of one million dollars per year (a whopping $100K per month roughly), and who chooses to live in a residence valued at more than $700K and drives cars valued greater than a combined $150K, is, in many ways, in danger of losing it all if they lost their job in six months (and this is happening all the time right now), then would they, by our working definition, be part of the working class? None of the MSM’s agency/reportage (particularly AM talk radio) would provide such a referent for that person, and that would be indicative and evidence for your suggestion that the term is maligned and defamed in our popular society and culture.

    What I want to discuss is how/if mindset and propaganda has negatively impacted Americans, and if so, what can we do to redress it? Do you agree that the term “working class” has been marginalized and stigmatized in America? If so, and you think that’s a problem, what can we do about it?

    Of course the term has been stigmatized, and has been for a very long time. The Wobblies (http://www.iww.org/en/culture) celebrated the singular importance of Labor to produce Capital. Today Capital is mostly produced by manipulation of portfolios and funds (and fraud in government contracted services it seems) as well as extraction of percents of wealth from various processes in the system particularly the housing industry in what could be described as a 21st century rentier economy (see Hudson’s essay “The New Road to Serfdom” in the May 2006 Harpers or use this link Michael Hudson). Our working classes produce very little in the way of manufactured goods; they are mostly providing service sector based processes for moving large quantities of currency from those who have little to those who have more. One of the failings of our education system has been to not keep the citizenry informed that all tax dollars are destined to end up in the pockets of corporations: either from direct contractual deals, or from those that work(?) purchasing the goods and necessities upon which they live (food, shelter, energy, etc.) As corporations skim and extract wealth from the system (some as profit and some as downsizing capitalization) they remove funds from the available pool of exchange (those super-wealthy CEO’s notwithstanding). They also contract with foreign companies and such thus taking more funds out of our economy. In order to keep doing this the working classes must be marginalized and stigmatized into submission. Where are the Wobbly giant fireballs when we need them???

    My sense is that there are two things working (hehe) to obfuscate the issues of being part of the laboring working classes. One is certainly the lack of interest in those who would be included in the working class for the realities of the US economic condition (as well as for the realities of the climate crises). The other is the intentional efforts on the part of MSM to not talk about the substantive issues at all. One must seek out and search in the blogsphere for the most part to read about the collapsing housing bubble and what that portends for the national economy. The rate at which the US dollar is falling against foreign currencies is another example. I doubt many who would clearly be part of the “working class” would allow themselves to be described as such. Most would tend to think they were simply amurkan’s living the amurkan dream. And that would be further evidence of the castigation of those that labor by those that extract wealth from the system.

  18. on 05 Sep 2007 at 8:37 pm 18. Oaktown Girl said …

    And yet, could we consider a millionaire part of the working class, and if so under what conditions??? Because that is in essence part of your question.

    Well, I strongly disagree that that’s the essence of my question, but you may interpret as you wish. If someone’s a millionaire, they likely did not get there by being extremely frugal on a working class wage, so I believe that particular example of “what if” violates the spirit of the post, as it were. And yes, I know we can run off and debate what is a working class wage.

    Now it’s true that there are all kinds of related issues in this subject, each deserving significant time and examination. But I do grow weary of us “lefties” trying to throw so much into the pot at every point along the process that little, if anything, gets accomplished at all. Another reason to bring on the GNF as soon as possible!

  19. on 05 Sep 2007 at 9:05 pm 19. christian h. said …

    I think we all agree that a whole lot of people who are part of the working class by any definition - functional or wealth-based - have been conditioned by cultural influence, upbringing and outright propaganda to not see themselves as such, and in fact perceive working class as being something negative or to be ashamed of; and that this is a problem.

  20. on 05 Sep 2007 at 10:15 pm 20. spyder said …

    Now Now dearest Minister of Justice
    I did say part of the essence of the question not the whole or most of the problem/question at all. We can easily find examples for all of the cases mentioned, whether they be those that came up by their bootstraps, or those that won the lotto, or those who used various strategies to garner higher and higher wages. But that too is not the point as you say. Does the individual person among a group that you have defined (for the sake of this exercise) perceive themselves as working class and as someone of less value than those that are not perceived as part of the working class???? I think the answer to both parts is NO! That of course doesn’t mean that they are not valued less by the society’s mavens and cultural hierarchy of wealth and elite. And it also doesn’t mean that the hierarchy doesn’t see them as completely expendable and unnecessary to a certain degree. And that is wrong…

    christian is dead-on in terms of describing the core of the problem, and i thank him for that.

  21. on 06 Sep 2007 at 10:38 am 21. Oaktown Girl said …

    Now Now dearest Minister of Justice
    I did say part of the essence of the question not the whole or most of the problem/question at all.

    True. That is what you said, and I stand corrected. Although I still disagree.

    christian is dead-on in terms of describing the core of the problem, and i thank him for that.

    Yes, christian’s brought us right back around to the point of my original post. All we need to do is add guns to this circle.

    Ideas? Solutions? Plans of action?

  22. on 06 Sep 2007 at 10:52 am 22. Kiera PSI said …

    Do we need a modern day equivalent of the Boston Tea Party?

  23. on 06 Sep 2007 at 11:37 am 23. spyder said …

    Ideas? Solutions? Plans of action?

    As long as the guns point outwards, yes??? Among the discourses this summer for which i was partially and/or totally responsible, were some discussions (at the Harmony Festival in CA, the Oregon Country Fair, SCI AHA Summer Camp in Oregon, and Big Summer Classic in the Ozarks) regarding the current above and underground secessionist movements across the US, particularly those predicated on Ecotopia. Indeed Callenbeck and Dannaher both advocated for efforts by communities of like-minded folks to seize control of their own lives: economically, socially, and ecologically (those pesky four E’s: economy, equity, ecologic, education; and the three/five/seven R’s: reuse, recycle, reduce, rethink, reengineer, re re re et al).

    For example, there is a rather large movement across Southern Missouri among the literati, the “working classes,” and the abject poor, to create their own bio-regional self-governance and integrated sustainable economy (see David Haenke’s work: here and here). They also talked openly about using physical force to secure their region, and to limit outside influences.

    There are others in CA who also see physical force as a necessary part of re-organization of the whole, separating themselves bio-regionally along watersheds, to secure the resources needed for survival. I was always struck by the emergency planning policies in LA County (developed under Reagan/Bush’s FEMA and others) that accepted (until the 1994 Earthquake) the collapse of freeway overpasses as a means of separating and securing neighborhoods from one another. If you know the greater LA region, you can see the problem if so many smaller units of city are cutoff from one another by huge dykes. Not exactly plans that incorporate resource distribution to everyone in times of emergency. And therein lies part of the issue (see i said PART), particularly in terms of those that would be considered the working classes, people of color, and the poor. Does one reasonably think that the governmental infrastructure would make any effort to protect and provide for these folks in times of emergencies?????

    As long as the masses of them continue to consume MSM, AM talk radio, video internets, and other entertainments designed to hide the real crises, they are much like sheep being led to slaughter: economically, environmentally, educationally.

  24. on 06 Sep 2007 at 11:47 am 24. spyder said …

    Then there is this in today’s news:
    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5a2869ea-5c80-11dc-9cc9-0000779fd2ac.html

    More than one in seven US homebuyers with subprime loans failed to keep up with their mortgage payments in the second quarter - the second consecutive quarter of record growth in the rate of foreclosures.

    And those are people still getting paychecks for the most part… Yikes…

  25. on 06 Sep 2007 at 1:08 pm 25. Oaktown Girl said …

    Do we need a modern day equivalent of the Boston Tea Party?
    Kiera, I’m sure we do. I think the leading impediment to action on a mass, national scale (such as a general strike) is that so little of the population is unionized and thus lives under the very real fear that the slightest sign of “uppity-ness” will get them fired.

    There’s no single “fix” because so many issues need to be addressed. The overall problem seems to be that in order for one thing to happen, something else needs to happen first, and it just keeps going round and round like that (and of course this is not unique to the labor situation). Not that I’m saying it’s hopeless, mind you.

  26. on 08 Sep 2007 at 3:18 pm 26. Zeus said …

    Reply to a working class woman

    OG, preach it sister. You’re “bang on” as they say in England. It seems like we have slowly but surely (like slow-cooked frogs) found ourselves in a pot of boiling water that has been obscured by the gauzy Reagan-inspired images of reborn 1950’s “prosperity” and traditionalism (you know the kind where Blacks knew their place) suffused in a nice stew of Gordon Gekko styled “greed is good” economic motivation, pasted over, and even somewhat encouraged under Clinton, and then brought out in all its ugly glory under Bush, the younger and dumber.

    Nothing like fake values to create fake wealth and make real work somehow “quaint,” to use Alberto Gonzalez’s term. (By the way, did you catch the apropos deeply offensive remark about his “worst days being better than his father’s best days”—his father an honest, hardworking day laborer, a “working class” mensch, made to be a bootblack to Alberto’s office-fatted, lying butt, from which he was fond of speaking).

    Forget middle-class. We can all be UPPER middle-class, or even just plain rich by “making our money work for us” rather than “working for money.” If we actually work for living, we can’t be a contenduh for the upper crust. So hide it, or at the very least never be caught dead supporting a union. The message: be a lazy ass. Only a sucker plays by the rules and contributes or produces. Real citizens make other people work and then fire them to increase stock profits for their own personal wealth.

    This is sick beyond measure but has surely pulled in not only the middle class, but the poor. Now, the poor aren’t out there buying stocks, but they are out there identifying with the bankrupt and self-destructive philosophy in the form of voting against their economic interests, supporting tax cuts for the rich, and hoping that giving the Man more money will mean more supply-side jobs for them (even as those jobs are shipped overseas, incentivized even further by taxes that are lower on capital gains then on income).

    Of course these same tax cuts not only destroy government programs that keep them alive, but actually preserve taxes for those in poverty. In Mississippi, for instance, people making as little as 4,800 dollars are taxed, while corporations are only taxed 1.25/acre to harvest trees. The socially conservative governor tried to change this and was unseated by Haley Barbour for his treason. Not only that, but the tax reallotment was overwhelming defeated by the very people who would have most benefited from it.

    This descent into ignominy has not been altruistic in any class or quarter, which just shows both the depth of the moral rot in our nation, the lack of courage and conviction, and the desperation. This “values voter” phenomenon is complete bull manure. It is about money, sure, but more importantly about IDENTITY, as OGirl observed, the screwed-up basis upon which we accord value according to rhetoric and symbol over actual justice. Exhibit A: Every politician, conservative, liberal, and progressive gushes about “working Americans” (yes pal, as in “working class Americans”) as some kind of bedrock bellwether of this country’s virtue. And yet no one wants to actually be called “working class”. What gives? Even progressives don’t often make this case effectively.

    Say it loud and proud, “Working America is working class America, period.” Ya in er out?

    Citizen Zeus

  27. on 08 Sep 2007 at 3:19 pm 27. Zeus said …

    OG, I also resonate with your criticism of (largely white male) wannabe progressives going on about class being somehow a priority over race and gender in addressing the exploitation here. “Okay, let’s do the work of the Man ourselves, establishing our own fiefdoms.” The only time working class America has ever been successful is when Irish (even those that were racist), Black, Latino, etc. honored their common condition and used that to attack inequality and injustice on a larger level. I don’t think it is any coincidence that the rise of labor unions helped to fuel feminist and minority liberation movements. One does not take from the other, nor does one have to be prioritized over the other. These only work in tandem, and are made stronger in tandem.

  28. on 08 Sep 2007 at 3:20 pm 28. Zeus said …

    First they came with Enron, and I did nothing.
    Then they neglected Katrina, and I did nothing
    And then they came (with their hedge funds and phony accounting) to take America (and me along with it) to the foreclosure auction, and I stare dumbly as my country is auctioned off to the tune of trillions of dollars by corporate raiders in expensive suits. The triumph of the swill. The first CEO president, adding a fifth bankruptcy to the four he already presided over before his days of “public service,” on his way to “fill up the ol’ coffers’ with 75k public (mangled) speaking fees. Values indeed. Values indeed.

  29. on 11 Sep 2007 at 7:10 pm 29. spyder said …

    I read about this on the plane today, and it shocked me to the core. The notion that unless you earn at least $40K per year you cannot be considered someone who is part of the market segments of the US economy and society, reifys the stigma that working class has got no class. The first link is the online source of the material; the second is the company’s own prizm ne segmentization of the markets:

    http://www.spiritmag.com/2007_09/features/ft2.php

    http://www.claritas.com/claritas/Default.jsp?ci=3&si=4&pn=prizmne_segments

  30. on 13 Sep 2007 at 10:16 am 30. spyder said …

    Another lovely news story this morning out of CA. Socking it to the working class, and using a dysphemic connotive: the guy who details his car.

    STOCKTON, United States (AFP) - A town in central California has become ground zero in the wave of foreclosures plaguing the US housing market in the wake of the sub-prime lending crisis.

    With a population of nearly 300,000, Stockton has acquired the unfortunate distinction of having the highest foreclosure rate of any US city, with one in 27 households left counting the cost of the credit crunch, according to Realtytrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure sales.

    Stockton’s Weston Ranch neighborhood, a 15-year-old subdivision of modest tract homes, has the worst foreclosure rate in the area, according to ACORN, a national advocacy group for low and moderate-income families.

    “It’s not the CEO of Intel who lives in Weston Ranch, but the guy who details his car,” Geri Taylor, broker at Weston Ranch Realty for twelve years told AFP. “They just were not prepared for this.”