Understanding America's Class System

Joe Bageant ^ | August 16th 2010 | Joe Bageant

[Cardhu]

A good read and right on the money.

[glorgau]

I hate it when the peasants mouth off like this. They really should remember their place </sarc>

[BenLurkin]

Sounds like a pinko to me — the pointless vulgarity is usually a tip-off.

[GOPJ]

There’s radical liberal elites - and the borderline criminal underclass that keeps them in power.

Then there’s conservatives workers ...

[PGR88]

You hear it all the time these days: The top one percent of Americans own more wealth than the bottom 45% of the rest of Americans combined. I have seldom met an American who thought this is a good thing, and seldom met one who understood how the ruling class got so rich. Simply put, it was through constant cultivation of bigger and more labyrinthine government, creating legal and technical complexities to sluice money nationally and globally in their direction, and to cover their asses in the process. The results are such things as 3,000 page health care bills (defining which corporate elites get which parts of the cake), or the 2,000-page NAFTA and its 9,000 tariff product codes.

The next time a lib tells whines about wealth-inequality and that we need to raise taxes on the rich, you can point out how their love of Big-Gov't caused exactly the thing they hate most.

[C210N]

No ... waxy little squares of toilet paper for those guys...

And I was totally sure that they used only one square per visit. Silly me...

[central_va]

Sounds like a pinko to me — the pointless vulgarity is usually a tip-off.

Looking at reality isn't pinko, I wouldn't change the system; I will acknowledge it's shortcomings.

[Mortrey]

“Meaning everybody in his class, the educated liberal class. Hard to believe their predecessors were the point men and women for the Scopes trial, the eight-hour day, unions, anti-McCarthyism, Cesar Chavez, Negro civil rights.”

I have trouble with this part of his article. Is he giving liberals credit for these? Is he being sarcastic?

[30Moves]

I know this man - he used to live in the same town in Virginia. He is a super-ultra liberal. A group of us used to hang out at the local pub and talk politics until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

Arrrgh! he has found his to Free Republic.

[30Moves]

Sorry - forgot the word “way”.

[OpusatFR]

He’s a whiney pinko mouth from Winchester, VA with an axe to grind and apparently a failure in just about everything he’s tried.

He hates suburbanites, the DC metro in particular, worships the poor in foreign countries as authentic, and just WHINES about everything.

[RobbyS]

What does he expect? It's a fallen world. I recall something else Galbraith says, which is seldom do men do so little harm as when the engaged in buying and selling. Businessmen are more like yapping dogs than wolves. Wolves kill without purpose.

[Carry_Okie]

The next time a lib tells whines about wealth-inequality and that we need to raise taxes on the rich, you can point out how their love of Big-Gov't caused exactly the thing they hate most.

If you think "Big-Govt" wasn't created of by and for the extremely wealthy, you don't know your history.

[Da Coyote]

And I hope and pray that I can witness the “ruling class” folks receive the same end as did those who formerly ruled during the French Revolution.

Really...death is actually a just end for these folks ...given what they are knowingly doing to us.

[cardinal4]

Coolest head shop I have ever been in was in Winchester. Coincidence?

[GladesGuru]

Here’s a great line. Actually, two.

“Side effects of Risperidone include a mild speed like buzz, a super erection lasting hours, lactation and suicidal tendencies. Phew!”

Just what America needs. Give it free to all of the Queer Nation crowd. They will like the “mild speed like buzz”, will they certainly appreciate (and unquestionably find socially unacceptable uses for). The “super erections lasting hours”, will be popular, by definition. And, the trans-gendered and most of the rest of Queer Nation will find perverse uses for the drug induced lactation.

For the rest of America, the “suicidal tendencies” part of Risperidone holds out some hope of eventual societal relief.

Big Pharma may become popular again.

;-)

[GladesGuru]

Please forgive the typos. Afternoon coffee needed.

[Ronbo1948]

Ditto! Leftist...Big time...a hate filled and profane parasite who talks like a defeatist and falls flat on his big fat liberal butt.

[Ronbo1948]

A French Revolution rerun may actually happen in the next few years and Leftist parasites like the author above may have their heads on the chopping block first.

[Pining_4_TX]

I am a populist in the sense of believing the rich will always get richer and dump on the little guys, but I differ in that I know that attempting to remedy these inequities by means of government only makes them worse. Big money and big government are certainly bed mates.

The only thing that gives the little guy hope of having a good life is freedom, the rule of law, and property rights.