The lower middle class knows they are poor, for most practical purposes

[cthulu2016]

Last edited Fri Jan 6, 2012, 10:14 PM - Edit history (1)

but by identifying with government authority they can maintain a sense of empowerment.

A corollary to this: George McGovern (or was it Mondale?) was wrong when he said that working people favoring tax cuts for the rich must all expect to win the lottery. They do not. They identify with the rich to maintain a sense of empowerment.

ON EDIT: This is about the perplexing proportion of the working class (which we euphemize in America as lower middle-class) that does, in fact, identify politically with the rich. It is not to suggest that all workers do, of course. I think that the majority of working class people voted for Clinton and Obama. But that there is a good-sized swath of America that is almost poor yet identifies with the rich, and with state authority. There are people with little money, no health insurance and few propects rooting for the cops to beat down OWS protesters. Similar to the "hard-hats" beating down hippies circa 1970. Identification with state authority.

[orpupilofnature57]

1. The lower middle class are the people

who didn't aspire like say Bill Clinton, to scrape and scrap and do what it took to enter the realm of the lottery winner or 1% ,The lower middle class are cotent with Enough, and therefore are targets.

[FirstLight]

3. I'm sorry...did you use the word CONTENT?

Do you really want me to rip you a new one or are you quoting the RW on that?

[orpupilofnature57]

5. Yes Content ,if I ever quote a Puker Please

rip me a new one ,Slick shit on OWS so F-ck him.

[Luminous Animal]

10. Not everyone can attain the 1% no matter how hard they scrape & scrap.

Parameters of competition assure that outcome.

[orpupilofnature57]

11. I was talking about the desire or lack thereof to attain it.

Obviously Talent and Luck are essential. I used president Clinton because he was born lower middle class ,and he facilitated ShrubCo as much as anybody.

[Luminous Animal]

13. Familial wealth & connections and brains are important...

Though, the psychotic mind set that drives the 10% and a bit less to wield power no matter what them human cost.

[orpupilofnature57]

15. They are the reason for our, the 32% 's contentment.

Sycophants wasting away with narcissistic fibrosis.

[FirstLight]

2. wtf?

I don't identify with any such thing? where is this coming from?

is there some study out there that says the lower-middle class believes this...or do you have an idea who the Lower middle class IS?

The "lower middle" is just about everyone these days, BTW and most are too busy worrying about rent and food and gas etc to bother 'identifying' with anyone. Survival is the name of the game...

i just don't know where you think you're going with this...

[cthulu2016]

4. Not everything is about you. Sorry.

The lower middle class, in aggregate, supports RW policies all out of whack with their actual interests

There is a cultural and political divide between the lower middle class and the poor that is out of proportion with the relative economic station of those groups

This is due to people of little means maintaining a personal sense fo status by identifying up to keep themelves above the poor.


There is nothing even a little bit controversial in the OP.

[FirstLight]

6. not everything is so cut & dried, sorry

and i think you are using quite a broad brush. Do you even know the difference between the poor and the lower middle class?


just a BS OP that is so out of touch with reality... and yea, I happen to take it personally because today was a hard day moneywise...and being poor is not about who I 'identify' with FFS

[cthulu2016]

7. Anything with the word "class" in it is gonna be broad-brush

I am sure that you do not identify with state authority to construct a delusional sense of yourself. I don't either and I have plenty of money trouble (!)

A lot of hard-hats for Nixon did, however. A lot of Reagan-Democrats in 1984 did.

A lot of hard-working people of modest means go out every four years to support a bunch of super-rich people who wouldn't let them in through the front door.

The rich feed into that with a steady diet of "us versus them," dividing working people along racial lines, regional lines, and the line between being employed at crummy wages and being bust-out poor.

Most working people are a few paychecks at best from poverty but we stigmatize poverty to such a degree that people are desperate to be able to call themselves anything but poor.

We make poverty *shameful*

You and I both kow people without a pot to piss in who consider themselves aligned somehow with the super-rich. It's weird, but it's a real thing.

That's all I was talking about.

[orpupilofnature57]

8. Your the one Blurring Your experience ,

with spelling and dicerning The lower middle class being Content to survive as the Upper middle class Needing to Thrive ,Hence they aspire to be what is sending them to that dreaded place, Lower middle class, Downward mobility .The poor are the only people free of that superficial notion because survival not a " today was a hard money day " the poor have a hard money LIFE ,SEE YA.

[FirstLight]

9. ...

i know about the hard money life, just that some days are worse that others, so thanks to you for your compassionate reply

[cthulu2016]

12. Hope days to come are better

(for both of us!)

[orpupilofnature57]

14. Sorry about the Blab.