Why the concentration on the middle class? Those candidates (and I assume all of the Dems) who consider themselves populists are not being very inclusive at all.
Have they bought into this exclusionary garbage too - gentrification and throw aways and all of that?
At least John Edwards addresses this concern. He is the only candidate who began to address the truly painful issues of economic injustics in the last travesty we called an election. This is why he will have my vote.
Do Americans get it now? It's not about you, median income and under worker? If you're not getting mad as hell right now, you've lost your collective minds. Whatever happened to protest and outrage?
I will tell you what happened. It was conveniently made "improper" to show righteous anger by the fawning mediocracy who decided to make such a ridiculous issue of the Howard Dean scream.
Worse than that, the American voters who drank the trickle down koolaid fell asleep at the wheel, awakening only when they were kicked out of their overpriced and overleveraged McMansions.
Where are the brave protesters among the poor? Their anger has been hijacked by right wing crackonomics which made them think they too could have the big time American dream.
They were too busy running up their credit cards, buying $400 cell phones and video games for their kids (when their weekly take home pay was not far from that amount)....and being drugged by the corporatocracy which does not encourage thinking for oneself but rather following others without reason.
Now they're too broke and tired from working two jobs to keep up and maybe they've already been foreclosed upon also.
They need to get really angry, period. Citizens, when you wake up from your empty consumerist anesthesia, look around you and get a grip.
Say something. Write to our candidates and ask THEM why they aren't saying more. But not Edwards - he's way ahead of the game.
Our lack of class consciousness seems to be one of the giant pink elephants in the room that even progressives want to avoid.
Poverty is the other GPE. I know why politicians avoid it. There are no votes or money in helping the poor.
And it's un-American, politically risky, and a bit depressing to attack our national myths--that anybody can make it here, that the poor are just lazy, etc.--especially during an election.
And most importantly, of course: most candidates are a bunch of spineless wussies who are afraid the wing-nuts will call them "class warriors" and take their lunch money.
What we need more of are trenchant analyses of class andclass consciousness, sadly lacking on so-called progressive sites.
Today's motto is: The poor should not be seen, nor heard.
It's survival of the richest.
A working class hero is something to be - John Lennon
Dear John,
What do you think about a "Working Class Hero" remix? Maybe change the chorus a bit. "A working class hero was something to be..."
In the years before your death, compassionate politics focused on the poor and the working class.
The politics of today, at least the "compassionate conservative" variety, has cut-and-run from the "War on Poverty," proclaiming the half-hearted effort a failure. In the new millennium, the "War on the Middle Class" is all the rage.
Oddly enough, John, serious people -- mostly Art Laffer lovin,' Ron Paul Republicans -- still argue we live in a "classless society," which means you're considered a "radical" provocateur of "class warfare" if you talk about class out loud. It's classy not to talk about class.
Apparently, panhandling policies geared toward removing the poor from sight aren't enough. Now, we don't want to even hear from poor folk. Today's motto is: the poor should not be seen, or heard. Next stop: eugenics. Survival of the richest.
It's no longer compassionate to serve the poor anything other than a nice, warm cup of shut-the-hell-up to go with their healthy portion of Bill Cosby sermon.
Outside of pious worship services and stop-gap charity organizations, you can't talk about poverty without explicitly or implicitly implying that the poor deserve to be poor because they're stupid and lazy.
Even the leading Democrat candidates are careful not to utter the words "poor" or "working-class" in their speeches. It's all about "the middle class" -- a phrase more slippery than a hockey rink covered in Crisco.
Of course, there's lots of vague and vacuous verbiage slithering out of politicians mouths.
Words like "change" and "hope" and "experience." And "middle class" -- for which, there's simply no consensus on how to clearly define.
Ask the world's economists for a definition, line their answers up next to each other, and you still couldn't reach a conclusion.
OK, that's an exaggeration. Economists have a squishy sense of what kind of loot qualifies as middle-class. But even that's misleading because being middle-class isn't just about income.
What's middle-class on Cape Cod is different than what's middle-class in Charlotte, N.C. or Marin Country, California, for example. Depending on where you live, the price of middle-class life varies.
And depending on what expert you ask, middle-class income ranges from $40,000 to $100,000 a year, give or take. But if you ask Mr. and Mrs. Average American, you'll get a much different picture.
According to the National Opinion Research Center, 50 percent of families who earn between $20,000 and $40,000 a year think of themselves as "working class" or "middle-class."
Nearly 40 percent of families earning between $40,000 and $60,000 annually, and 16 percent of families who earn over $110,000 a year, think of themselves as "middle class."
Congress recently asked its research service to define "middle class." Using 2005 Census Bureau data, and beginning with a look at income levels, CRS found 40 percent of the nearly 115 million households in the U.S. earned less than $36,000 a year.
The next 40 percent rung up the economic ladder made between $36,000 and $91,705 annually. The top 20 percent made $91,705 or more. But, as MSNBC reported, "those numbers don't adequately reflect the state of mind of those who consider themselves middle class.
Surveys have shown that, while people consider $40,000 a year to be the low end of what it takes to buy a middle-class life, some people who make as much as $200,000 a year still consider themselves middle class."
The popular middle-class state-of-mind may explain why politicians pander to the mushy middle but that shouldn't be confused with populism or appealing to the true American majority. Close to half of all American households are bringing in less than $36K a year!
Of course, John, it's ridiculous to think the life-opportunities for a family earning $40,000 annually -- a quarter of which might go to pay daycare expenses -- is even in the same ballpark as 200K a year families. And that's what's got me scratching my head.
When presidential candidates talk about "the middle class," are they talking 200K or the 20 to 40K range? It would be interesting (and maybe disheartening) to hear the candidates get more specific about which "middle-class" they're referring.
I won't hold my breath, waiting for an answer. So I figured I'd write to you, John, because you have a better view. Maybe you can tell me: Where's the working-class hero?