How many members of Congress have held blue collar jobs?

[theHandpuppet]

Seriously, with cuts to SS, Medicare and Medicaid apparently on the sacrificial chopping block, I have to wonder just how many members of Congress have held blue collar jobs or belonged to unions? I'm not talking about some job they might have worked for a few months while in college, but years of punishing blue collar labor that erodes the health of mind and body over decades. How many have belonged to unions and had to fight for every scrap of benefits? How many of them will be depending on those benefits to put food on the table or pay for life-saving medicine?

What is happening in this country (and has been happening for decades) is class warfare and I'd really like to know how many of the working class are actually represented in the halls of Congress.

Also, how many here have held or currently hold blue collar jobs? Do you feel your interests are being represented on the state and federal level? Does the system need an overhaul because I don't see this one working at all for the poor and working classes.

[QC]

1. The average member of Congress now is a millionaire,

and that's how the ruling class wants it.

You raise an excellent question here, because the answer to it is at the very heart of what has happened to this country.

[robinlynne]

11. And the only solution to that would be the exact opposite of citizens vs united.

in other words, NO private spending allowed in elections. at all. ever. not even a little bit. period.
publicly financed elections with equal time on tv and radio, etc.

But then there is one more little problem. Privatized vote counting.

[QC]

13. You are absolutely correct. The rich have bought our own country right out from under us,

to the point that even Democrats are afraid to tax "the job creators."

Where do we even start?

[theHandpuppet]

15. Well that's the real question, isn't it?

And I haven't a clue how we turn this wagon around.

[QC]

19. I sometimes think there's nothing to be done until people are good and angry.

We might be past polite activism.

[cloudbase]

2. Gene Green

of Texas worked in a union print shop.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. A few,,, I can count them with one hand

and that is part of the problem...

Oh and those tend to be military vets. (And I am not talking of the officers either)... oh that lowers my count to ONE.

[Brickbat]

4. "Diversity" means very little if it doesn't include class dviersity.

[theHandpuppet]

6. Yes indeed

But that lack of diversity, no matter how obvious, doesn't seem to be a topic of interest among the talking heads. I wonder, compared to other democratic governments, if the percentage of millionaire representatives in the U.S. reflects the "norm".

[RKP5637]

5. I don't have a count, but one can be sure most congressmen are from

privileged class. One can be sure they do not think and relate for the most part to the world as do most of us.

I don't even begin to think my interests are being represented on the state and federal level.

Yes, the system needs an overhaul, because I don't see this one working at all for the poor and working classes. I have absolutely no idea how that is going to happen. These guys will never do squat.

[theHandpuppet]

8. Which begs the question...

Is it simply a matter of looking out after their own interests, or do they really lack any sort of empathy for working people? Listening to some of our so-called representatives, they talk about working folks as if they are a different species.

[RKP5637]

17. They clearly do talk of most Americans as a different species and their

actions indicate that's what we are considered. Citizens are an inconvenience to the new America. I would roughly guess at least 100 million Americans have been written off as in the way and dispensable.

[theHandpuppet]

14. Well, one of the problems...

... is that it costs so much damned money to run for office that our representation is for sale to the highest corporate bidder.

[RKP5637]

16. Yeah, it's literally impossible IMO for one to get elected unless they

have zillions to get elected and/or sell themselves to the highest corporate bidder. IMO the system is obsolete if it's intended to represent the majority of Americans. It's pretty much rigged now against most Americans.

[21st Century FDR]

7. Well, BONER worked in his daddy's bar

Didn't seem to help him much though (unless you count the part where it nourished his alcohol and tobacco addictions)

[smokey nj]

9. Maurice Hinchey worked as a toll collector.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Hinchey

[RoccoR5955]

12. Beat me to it...

He's my congressman, and I DID know that, but wonder if a toll collector can be really considered a blue collar job.

[valerief]

10. Bwahahahahaha! Funny. Lobbyists, I mean, Congress members don't get their hands dirty. nt

[Springer9]

18. How many Presidents currently residing in the White House

have ever held a blue collar job?