How do you argue with a 2%?

[The Backlash Cometh]

First, the background. This 2% became a 2% because of the WTC settlement. She was the first to let go of any hope of her son coming home, and didn't even go down to give them personal effects because she dealt with the loss by jumping straight into denial. So, she maintains her sunny disposition on the outside, and only mourns with a select few. I'm obviously not one of those.

Anyways, here's the thing. Before 9/11, we argued a lot about things that people on opposite ends of the political spectrum argue about. She and her husband are Republicans in a New York City suburb. The "game" comes naturally to them, and I'd say they are more sincere than most, jobs for the husband have come from networking, and she provides a retail service to her customers that gets her five times more money than she'd get any where else because she lives in New York where the trickle down effect comes easy due to those six digit bonuses that people tend to get from the stock and bond market. When you're one degree away from that kind of money, life can be good.

But along with the lifestlye, comes the attitude. Now, I'm not going to ask how you turn someone like this around, because it just dawned on me, we never will. I should have known this years ago in college when I tried to reason with a friend from New York. I couldn't fathom why New Yorkers held onto such superficial values (It was the roaring 80s), and his only comment was, "But you have to understand, for them this is not superficial. This is their reality."

So, now 25 years later, I get it. they live in a different world, one tier away from the top of the pyramid and for them, the trickle down effect works. We, all across America, send our savings to Wall Street, and there's a whole industry of people and jobs out there living off our commissions.

So, for them, there's no incentive to change. They WANT the status quo and we'd be foolish to believe they wouldn't. Based on their networks, their children can jump straight into lucrative finance agencies even with a liberal arts degree.

How do we argue with these people? How do we convince them that the system isn't working for everyone else? That soldiers they'll never meet are dying just to keep their bubbles intact; that their brothers and sisters who live in other states have to face conflict in the work force everyday just to hold onto a job, and that the loss in benefits is making it more and more unlikely that they'll ever get another chance to enjoy the "good life."

How do you argue with a 2%, because life is good for them. Bush has treated them well. How do you convince them, that they are being propped up at our expense?

[Horse with no Name]

1. You can't argue with them

Because many of them feel ENTITLED to that lifestyle. There is no shaking entitlement. No argument strong enough to withstand that.
Many people like this have also convinced themselves (and others) that somewhere along the line they SACRIFICED. Even if it was eating Ramen noodles while attending Community College...by the time that story is dressed up, they starved and got themselves an education.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. That's absolutely correct.

So, do we stop arguing and finally realize that, as another poster put it, that we're at a class war stage?

[Horse with no Name]

7. It is definitely class war.

Turning well-kept and well-maintained roads into toll roads run by private companies that not EVERYONE can afford to drive on amplifies the class war. The poor will end up driving on roads that have not been maintained and accidents will occur.
If the sheeple forget that their taxes have already PAID for these roads, and their taxes have already PAID for the maintenance of these roads and buy into the myth that corporations will take better care of them but never question the fact that their taxes haven't gone down and municipal and state government has turned into an entity that does nothing but pay the salaries of people who find corporations to take over functions that municipalities have traditionally done. That our taxes have always paid for...then maybe we deserve what we get.
We are getting double-dipped. Plain and simple.

[Hamlette]

19. it's not just the money

many wealthy people are liberal

I've always thought the difference between us and them is we feel grateful (in the "those to whom much is given, much is expected" sense), they feel entitled. What I hadn't realized is how it feeds itself.

Part of the entitlement is not only feeling you've sacrificed but that if you are not rich (or happy or whatever it is you value but don't have) it is because someone STOLE it from you. Damn liberals, blacks, "Mexicans" etc. The meme is not "anyone can live the American dream" but "I would have been a success (rich) like the people I admire had it not been stolen from me by the liberals giving my hard earned tax money to blacks." And keeping up with the Joneses playes into that. You have to have an expensive car/house/clothes and if you don't have them you are a failure but its not your fault because the damned liberals/blacks stole from you through affirmative action and activist judges or whatever.

And the right wing noise machine feeds that. They didn't go against Clinton because there was something different or bad or wrong about Clinton. They went against Clinton because they needed a whipping boy to get to their "permanent majority". It is the same thing meglomaniacs have done throughout history. Rally the troops by using God and convincing them they have been wronged by "the other side". You gotta get it strong enough to convince them to kill for it. That's where God comes in. Most people don't hate liberals enough to kill us BUT they live so close to the edge of complete hate that if you told them God wanted them to kill us it could happen.

Read Conservatives without Conscience. These people are incapable of shame and absolutely refuse, no matter what, to accept responsiblity for anything.

[AndyA]

2. Those who still believe will always believe, until something happens to them personally.

For instance, if any Republican family members were killed on that bridge in Minnesota, it might change a few minds, turn on a few lights, open a few doors. Suddenly, they will realize their perfect little world is forever linked to that of others, and no matter how much money they have, they cannot isolate themselves completely from it.

And even then, some of them are so far gone they will never change. It's best to work on those who show signs of hope, and allow the rest to rot in their own hatred and belief that they are somehow better than the rest and deserve more, more, more.

Lots who aren't so far gone are beginning to see the light now, and they are as outraged as we are. They still try to lump the Dems and GOP together, saying it's the "government" but we all know who the government has been these last 7 long years, and they didn't have D's after their name.

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. These Republicans know how to use Democrats.

In their local town, their landmark public recreation facility was about to get rezoned to condominium high rises by their Republican major, and they proudly announced that they donated to the Democrat who was filing the lawsuit against the city to try to stop him.

I just got angry thinking how much harder Democrats have to work for the worthwhile things in life. If they hadn't voted in the fucking Republican major in the first place, they wouldn't have had this problem.

[Lasher]

4. You can't pour tea into a full cup.

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. I know. But I feel like throwing what's left of my half a cuppa in their faces

when they get going.

[Lasher]

9. That's cool, I say do it.

But not literally of course. Just be mindful you will be venting. Communicating includes sending and receiving. While you are talking they will be thinking, "La la la la la la la."

[MisterHowdy]

8. You can't get through to them.

Even some slightly-upper-middle class friends of mine
are the same as what you described.
They often think they are better than us.
They often think they are, as you said, entitled to what they have.

Its awful, but I consider them my enemy.
They don't want whats right for us.
They vote against our interests (And often, their own)
They vote for the enemy.

[Buzz Clik]

10. We need to get you your own forum: Generality Discussion

Is it your nature to lump people in categories like that? Gotta love it: "How do you argue with a 2%?" and "I couldn't fathom why New Yorkers held onto such superficial values."

The irony of that last statement was rich and sweet.

Here's a clue for you: as soon as you start treating people as unique individuals and stop looking for trends in behavior because of social/economic/demographic status, you'll be able to communicate with them.

[ElboRuum]

13. I don't think the issue lies in the OP making...

...the distinction between an individual and a group. Pardon me if I misread the general gist of the post, but the fact is the people he/she is referring to don't really see themselves as individuals either. They're attitude is one where they're part of the club, an exclusive one to which they belong. That's the kool aid you can't communicate through, the sense of relevance, belonging, and comfort that this club membership provides.

America works for them. What do you say to them? What can you say that won't sound something like, "for the sake of everyone else, please give up what you've worked for?"

[The Backlash Cometh]

16. That's exactly correct.

They'd be the first ones to identify themselves as a group which has managed to "make it," and, therefore, is right about all the political views and prejudices that got them there.

[The Backlash Cometh]

15. Some of that is fair criticism.

In the 80s, however, New York was a bit superficial, being on the trend of so much. And I went to school where the children of the elite sent their kids, if their kids couldn't get into a North/East Ivy league, so perhaps I was judging based on that small spectrum.

However, jump to my current observations which involved a Republican family member which is not shy about giving me her elitist views on childrearing, including indoctrinating them into shopping tours so that they will grow up to want to work to afford expensive things. Yep, that's what she said. Certainly tied in with my observations in school.

I probably should have clarified and stated the 2%ers in the New York area? My lapse. As for lumping people in groups, that's the academic hazard of sociological observations. Can't help it.

[stillcool]

11. From the book...

"The Rich and the Super-Rich" by Ferdinand Lundberg..available for free download at the following link..due to it's copyright's expiration http://www.soilandhealth.org/03sov/0303critic/0303socialcriticism.html

A man whose entire worth lies in 5 per cent of the capital stock of a corporation capitalized at $2 billion is worth only $100 million. But as this 5 per cent--and many own more than 5 per cent--usually gives him control of the corporation, his actual operative power is of the order of $2 billion. Politically his is a large voice, not only because of campaign contributions he may make but by reason of all the legislative law firms, congressional and state-legislative, under retainer by his corporation; for every national corporation has law firms in every state. There is additionally to be reckoned with all the advertising his corporation has to dispense among the mass media as a tax-free cost item, the lobbyists his corporation puts into the field and the cultural-charitable foundations both he and the corporation maintain.

Such a man, worth only $100 million net, is clearly a shadowy power in the land, his ownership stake vastly multiplied by what he controls--other people's property as well as his own. And there are more than a few such.

On the other hand, many intelligent citizens today complain in the face of the alleged complexity of affairs of feelings of powerlessness. Their feelings are justified. For they are in fact politically powerless.

The actual power of such concentrated ownership, therefore, is much greater than its proportion in the total of investment assets. The corporate power of the top 200,000, and certainly of the top 700,000, is actually 100 per cent. The power of this top layer corporatively would be no greater if it owned 100 per cent of investment assets. Actually, it might be less: It would then receive no support from many tremulous small holders but would probably find them in political opposition.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Note on Neo-Conservatism

All the neo-conservatives from H. L. Hunt and Barry Goldwater on down resemble Buckley in that, whatever their rated wealth (which is usually small), they are insecure. Some feel subjectively more insecure than others; all are objectively insecure in a changing world. They are caught between big corporations on the one hand and big government, Communist or liberal, on the other. But, envying the big corporations and wishing to be included among them, they direct most of their fire against the cost-raising social aspirations of the people from whom established capital does not feel it has so much to fear. (If necessary, entrenched capital can stand social reform as in Sweden, passing the costs on in price and taxes. It has, in any event, more room for maneuver and holds all the strong positions.)

But the Goldwaters and Buckleys, with their obscure department stores and oil concessions, are in a different boat. They have begun to suspect that they may never make it to the top, there to preen before the photographers. Sad, sad. . . . Hence, they cry, government should not be used to meet the needs of the people, despite the constitutional edict that it provide for the common welfare; government should merely preside over a free economic struggle in which the weak submit to the strong stomachs. As for the Big Wealthy in the Establishment, in the Power Structure, the Power Elite, they should not, say the neo-conservatives, allow themselves to be deluded by infiltrating nurses, governesses, tutors, teachers, wandering professors, swamis, university presidents and others bearing the spirochita pallida of political accommodation. For accommodation has its own special word in the vocabulary of neo-conservatism. It is: Communism.

The neo-conservatives or radical rightists, like the radical leftists, are discontented. There is, however, a different economic basis to the discontent of each. The leftists own no property, therefore see no reason to embrace a property system; the rightists still have some but feel their property claims slipping, feel they are being precipitated into the odious mass of the unpropertied. They foresee being thrown out of the Property Party; for many of them, in fact, are heavily indebted to the banks. The illusion of the radical rightists is that they can yet save their property claims, not by restoring free competition and subduing the rivalrous Rockefellers, Du Ponts, Fords and Mellons (whom they admire and fear as well as envy) but by inducing these latter to join in an all-out assault on the sans-culottes and descamisados.

However, established wealth, seeing no good for itself in upsetting a smoothly running operation which it feels fully capable of controlling, is not interested in this vexing prospect, Hence the outcries of the neo-conservatives against "the Eastern Establishment" and the "socialism" of Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller. In Buckley's National Review these self-dubbed conservatives sound like inverted Marxists in yachting clothes.

http://www.soilandhealth.org/03sov/0303critic/0303socialcriticism.html

[The Backlash Cometh]

17. Strange subset in concentric circles, where the right-wing rich wannabes

and the rich collide...and collude.

[fasttense]

12. Since the picture you paint of their jobs is incomplete,

It is hard to tell exactly what they do for a living. But it seems to me they are in service to the elite. They manage the upper class' money and provide a retail service to them. They think it is wonderful because they have money in stocks and because they are paid well by the elite. But just let them try and make a living without bowing down to the lordly rich. Just let them express a dissenting opinion to those they service and see how their money evaporates.

What if they didn't want to service the rich and powerful elites? What if one of them wanted to help mankind? In today's economy they would never get the chance. They would have to bow down to servicing the elite because there is nothing else left. Even government jobs have turned into nothing more than a service to the executive branch. You can go out and help the poor but don't expect to make a living wage at it.

I'm sure if you pointed out how they are dependent on subjugating themselves to those with inherited wealth, they would deny it. They are courtesan clinging to the silk lining of wealthy skirts. They are just as much slaves to the rich as if they had been chained to their masters. You will never change them because they have blinded themselves with the trappings of wealth to compensate for their loss of freedom. I'm sure their wealth will appease their conscious when they look back on their empty lives.

[The Backlash Cometh]

21. You made a good connection.

First, those who service the rich and powerful elite DO have an opportunity for lucrative work because they are one degree away from the trickle down effect. However, because there is nothing else out there, in order to keep that lucrative customer, they must think politically along the same line as the customer, in order to keep the customer's comfort zone safe. THIS I do see even here in Florida. Everyone that I know personally in the interior decorating field is a Republican (I live in a Republican county) and they have some incredibly nasty prejudices and right-wing opinions. It gets reinforced from traveling all around Central Florida to service the rich elite. I know because they repeat some of their conversations to me. One has even taken to buying a Navy jacket and white pants for when he gets invited to formal affairs in Palm Beach. It takes him a day or two to come down from that atmospheric level.

[Dogmudgeon]

14. You don't argue. You demand and command.

If you don't have money, all you have is your moral force and your charm.

Be thou rich in those things thereof. Or something like that. So don't argue. Just appoint yourself God instead and tell them how to spend their money.

I know I'm talking like a wiseass, but it's true. Money isn't the only wealth. We often forget just how powerful we can be.

--p!

[Norquist Nemesis]

18. At some point, the well runs dry for the "trickle down 2%"

Unfortunately, it's the other 98% that have already been squeezed to a water content equal to dust.

There is no way to argue with the Trickle Down 2% Club. It's pointless. The one and only possibility to have a reasonable argument about it is if/when they've lived in the shoes of the 98% Suppliers. But even then, it doesn't register because they still have contacts with that 2% Club giving them eternal hope vs. reality.

[The Backlash Cometh]

22. I understand, but I think the most important thing I learned on this thread so

far, is that it's not just the 2%ers, but the people that get their business which will make up a very tight group, wanting to continue the trickle down effect. It is a closed circle. THAT's its flaw.

[porphyrian]

20. In the past, it was usually done with violent revolution.

That never prevented them from re-emerging, however, in later generations.

Their disconnect can be used to our advantage without violence, though. If we can convince them that they'd be just as comfortable or moreso by doing things our way, or if we can simply leave them out of the loop (which shouldn't matter in an election - they're only 2%, and many of them don't bother voting), the only problem would be agreeing amongst ourselves how to proceed.

[The Backlash Cometh]

23. It's not just the 2%ers. It's also the people who directly service them.

Under a Republican Administration, that's the only group who will find steady work.

[porphyrian]

24. Yes, but they're whores, their loyalty is bought.

And loyalty that is bought can be bought by anyone.

[The Backlash Cometh]

25. I know. But now you know how the circle closes.

[porphyrian]

26. Not a circle, a spiral, and at any step the course can be altered. - n/t

[Boojatta]

27. The war in Iraq: necessary in order to maintain what?

How do we convince them that the system isn't working for everyone else? That soldiers they'll never meet are dying just to keep their bubbles intact

You could say that all people who ever supported a policy of borrowing by governments were living in a bubble. However, in that case the accusation would be purely financial and wouldn't hint at blood money.

Is there some obvious stock market play that the war in Iraq made profitable? Why not start a mutual fund called the "War in Iraq Mutual Fund"? Then you could use profits from it to rally public opinion against the war.