GOAL: "drive a stake through heart of anyone who still believes he/she is a member of middle class"

[kpete]

Steven at the Booman Tribune summed it up perfectly Thursday:

.....................

The Republicans in Congress, and in states across the country are making no bones about their agenda: they desire to kill unions and worker's rights. They desire to kill the EPA, and kill any regulation regarding worker safety, drug safety, food safety, environmental safety-- you name it. They want to destroy Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and healthcare reform with a thousand cuts until nothing is left but private accounts managed by by their buddies at Wall Street to which you are forced to contribute. They want to privatize prisons and schools.

They want an end to financial assistance to college students and their families (except football and basketball players, of course). They want to kill any investment in alternative fuels and public transportation. They desire the awarding of no-bid contracts to their "friends," i.e., the people who contributed the most to their political campaigns. Oh, and they want to make it ever more difficult, if not impossible, for innovative small businesses to compete with the corporate behemoths that dominate our political landscape. Indeed, without a middle class how can small businesses not dedicated to serving the desires of the rich survive?

In short, the goal of the New and Improved Tea Party Republican Governors and Legislators is to drive a stake through the heart of anyone who still believes he or she is a member of the middle class. As one of their own recently remarked those of us "slobs" in the middle class are a "different breed" the implication being that we are parasites on the body of corporate wealth and power rather than the collective engine of human labor and productivity that made that wealth and power possible.

the rest:
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2011/3/3/132515/5187

[Tansy_Gold]

1. I've been saying this for years. K&R

[Octafish]

2. Witness.

Since I remember on DU. And Tansy_Gold getting the word out has helped delay, if not prevented, the fascist turds' totally instituting their Feudalism for the 21st Century.

[Tansy_Gold]

10. I am one small voice, among many. Thank you.

It's not as if we haven't had ample warning:

Global tensions, racial strife and other circumstances that have prompted the growth and activity of ultraconservative organizations today may ease tomorrow, dropping the Far Right at least temporarily out of the limelight. Yet the current surge of these groups, however unstable and erratic, is a phenomenon that has made an impact on the political and social life of the nation. It is a phenomenon that has occurred in related forms in the past and in all likelihood will recur in the future. Because of the changing nature and fleeting fortunes of many of the Right-wing organizations of today, this book does not attempt to draw a final picture of the Movement. It does seek to catch its image and assess its importance.

In compiling this report, we traveled to most of the states of the Union and spoke with or listened to most of the leaders of the Far Right. We attended meetings, both open and closed, of the principal organizations of the Movement, and read much of the swelling output of "Americanist" literarure. Where neither of us was able to go, we enlisted the help of informed persons on the scene.

This report is on the Far Right, and distinguishes throughout between this extremist element and the responsible conservatism represented by Right-wing spokesmen of the major political parties in the United States and others. Although the views of the Far Right and the "responsible" Right frequently coincide or overlap, the two groups differ in their approaches to achieving their aims. Only the Far Rightist attributes pro-Communist notivation to all who disagree with him.



From the introduction to "The Far Right" by Donald Janson and Bernard Eismann, copyright 1963.

I first read this book in the fall of 2000, during the presidential campaign. Nothing in it surprised me, other than the fact that so few had paid heed to it. I acquired a copy for myself just this past week. You can expect to see excerpts in my posts.


Tansy Gold, who like Anon neither forgets nor forgives

[snot]

3. Good article; K&R'd.

[Ilsa]

4. I am constantly amazed by anyone who believes that they are going to

Be quickly elevated to billionaire status while working their menial jobs for decades, yet some people think it will happen to them. It is up to us to remind them that there isn't a tooth fairy or magical event that will give them glass slippers, a carriage, and a billion dollars.

[RKP5637]

5. The Stupid runs pretty deep, like a plague. Some of these people are unreachable IMO. Their

Stupid to them is like a religion. What easily led fools.

[Kievan Rus]

6. George Carlin said it best: it's called the American Dream...

'cause you have to be asleep to believe in it.

[Ilsa]

12. That's great shpiel by him; I've seen it on YouTube. nt

[Lorien]

11. The existence of State lottos keeps this absurd fantasy alive

most Americans will now die far poorer than they are today, some probably know it, but the fantasy keeps them from sleeplessness-and from fighting for honest change.

[liberal N proud]

7. And they use the support of many in the middle class to achieve that goal

One thing I will never understand it the support for the GOP from anyone making less than a million dollars.

If they think the republicans will do anything for them, they are dumber than their vote.

[socialist_n_TN]

8. And this is what I mean when I say that .......

it's only class war when we fight back. Until then it's a class massacre. This spells out what a class massacre looks like. And, so far, it's the middle class as an institution that's being massacred.

Disgusting, but kick for awareness.

[MedleyMisty]

9. I've never thought of myself as middle class

Don't own a Lexus SUV and a BMW, our house has enough room for us but not rooms that we have to make up names for and that are basically for storing and showing off expensive furniture, can't afford to travel abroad, etc.

All the talk about the "middle class" turns me off. It's basically saying that you don't care about working class and poor people, that they don't exist to you, aren't part of your worldview.

So I did some research after my husband told me that most Americans see themselves as middle class, even the ones that most sane non-propagandized people would see as working class.

I found this interesting blog post on Black Agenda Report, about how when people say middle class you should mentally substitute working class. Food for thought.

http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/freedom-rider-middle-class-means-working-class