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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe 99% is not valid percentage to be using...
I'm sorry, but about 47% of that 99% are right wingers who would never vote for the things you want.
So, that leaves 52% if you include right leaning independents...
It sounds nice like 99% of the people in this country aren't being represented... but it's just not accurate. Many of them are being represented by voting against the things you may hold dear.
That my friends is why being a democrat matters and the Democratic Party matters. That is why social justice matters.
You want some party that would represent the full totality of 99% of people in this country, dream on.... You could never get 99% of the people to agree on one thing.
BlueCaliDem
(15,438 posts)You ROCK B.B.
betterdemsonly
(1,967 posts)but I think your stats are hyped too when you consider all those who don't vote. "Black Lives Matter" is recruiting people who traditionally didn't vote and electing non-traditional candidates in a red state. I think "Fight for 15," is doing that too, though the candidates maybe "Socialist Alternative like Salwant.
boston bean
(36,186 posts)betterdemsonly
(1,967 posts)I am not into its memes and think anarchism a dead end, but when you consider OWS isn't interested in electoral politics, who are you talking to precisely?
boston bean
(36,186 posts)If they don't mean the totality of the 99%, explain what they do mean.
52% of the people who do agree with them on one issue, but not all?
I mean, I just think it's better to state what you stand for. Because there is no way in hell 99% of people in this country stand for any one thing as a voting block of 99%.
betterdemsonly
(1,967 posts)but have been browbeaten psychologically. 99 vs 1 is not a measure of sentiment. It is a measurement of power. Even if many vote against their interests there are still about 1 percent of the population owning a disproportionate percentage of wealth and political power relative to 99% of the population.
boston bean
(36,186 posts)I'm sorry, that is just not the case... The sentiment of a good portion of that 99% they are talking about agrees with them on NOTHING!
betterdemsonly
(1,967 posts)It isn't about opinion polls. It is a measure of wealth, power and influence.
boston bean
(36,186 posts)about this country...
So, just because there are wealthy in this country described as the 1%, doesn't mean that the whole 99% is in the same place or wants the same things.
I will agree there is too much money in our politics and that the rules are skewed, so I am a portion of the 99%, but there is a significant portion of that 99% who disagrees with me vehemently.
betterdemsonly
(1,967 posts)inequality. It isn't an opinion measurement anymore than the fact that 2 to 8 percent of the population being gay or lesbian is an opinion measurement.
boston bean
(36,186 posts)I'm pretty sure most black persons vote democratic.
I'm pretty sure most women vote democratic.
So, there is some truth there in the statistics behind which party and issues gets the support.
With the 99% there is not. It's a cute saying that in reality means nothing...
Caretha
(2,737 posts)But you are incorrect to compare OWS with anarchism. OWS was a ground-up populism movement. A movement to show that no matter what party you affiliate yourself with, you are not part of the 1%, and as long as the economy is run by the elite, there will be no way for you to have any economic advantage.
The OP is trying to twist what OWS was about, and she is way off in some fantasy make-up thingy to prove "what point", I don't know, but I do know this, it wasn't about right vs left, or Dem vs Repub.
brooklynite
(93,878 posts)I would suggest that OWS evolved in this direction, in its attempts to set up a mini society at Zuccoti Park that avoided the used of any traditional governing structures (e.g. no delegated leadership).
Keep making analogies that have no meaning...that works.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)Party represents the interests of that 1% but uses age-old tactics (racism, sexism, homophobia) to keep the 99% divided against itself. Don't make the mistake of confusing and conflating a 'class in itself' with a 'class for itself'. The task of the Democratic Party should be converting the former into the latter.
boston bean
(36,186 posts)is something people just fall for, because republicans are using that shit to divide us?
I'm sorry... makes not an ounce of sense.
I think the division may arise from those who are willing to toss the fight for better ideals out the window, because they think the above issues are just used for division.
Every single thing that has been done for those with less in this country, including the poor, are built off of social justice movements. So, if you want to ignore that be my guest, but I think it's a poor and losing strategy.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)working class. Democrats try to unite the working class around its common class interests.
I'm going to ignore your silly straw-man attempts.
boston bean
(36,186 posts)and the once you folks get this class issue straightened out you will then throw some support to those issues? Cause they aint going away.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Why not economic justice and social justice?
I don't get why it's supposed to be one or the other. We need both.
boston bean
(36,186 posts)that call it division.
So, can you please go respond where it might be more pertinent?
Caretha
(2,737 posts)You are the OP of this thread. So you don't like a question posed to you....you tell them to go away? WTF?
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)struggle in this country, long before it became fashionable in liberal circles. The old pre-Browder CPUSA would argue that social justice can only happen with economic justice, not independent of it.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)nor about the movements that advance those issues. What are the top historic issues of LGBT politics? First and still number one, discrimination in employment, fully legal in 29 States to this day, the big issue Harvey Milk organized around was also a jobs issue, teacher employment. When ACT UP started doing street actions to raise awareness about AIDS issues, what was target #1? Wall St. 'No More Business As Usual' was the tag line and profiteering Pharmaceutical Corps. ACT UP did protests on Wall St year after year, with mass arrests and big headlines. Where was the famous 'economic left'? Unable to protest and chew gum at the same time.
It's always been both, for those actually in these movements. It's only for the theoretical straights that do not actually take part that they seem separate.
LGBT groups are doing far more about the TPP and TPA than DU's blustering straight white populist crowd. Can you figure out why? Human rights yes....but also issues of intellectual property as related to medicines, issues of immigration, employment protections, on and on and on.
Back in June people from my LGBT Union organization joined Congressional Democrats in calling on the administration to halt these talks because of Brunei's horrific laws. Back in June, the DU folks who are currently shouting about TPP were promoting the Pope and saying that LGBT issues are insignificant 'social issues' compared to their own concerns.
As a person who first demonstrated for Universal Health Care as a 'gay issue' way back in the early 80'sI find it comical when straight folks yap about these 'social issues' that are not economic. The first 'gay rights' legislation to come to Congress did so in 1978. It was of course about jobs, the Equality Act, an early form of ENDA. How is job discrimination not an economic issue?
Why do you think that people who have been fighting for decades for equal protections in employment are not concerned with economic issues? That they need that explained to them by 'straights, the true left'? We don't, kid. It's you that needs the lesson. Sorry.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)that Democrats don't fight racism, sexism, and homophobia, but instead only concern themselves with class issues. That isn't so. Democrats fight racism, sexism, and homophobia, and also try to unite the working class around its common class interests.
Sorry if I misinterpreted what you were saying.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)homophobia. Maybe not quite as vociferously as my Socialist and Communist comrades do but Dems are most definitely on the side of the righteous and have been for the past 50 years.
Please allow me to elaborate: a Republican will tell a white laborer that he or she is superior to a black laborer merely by virtue of his or her skin color. That's what I mean by 'uising racism to divide the working class.' The reality is that class status is far more essential than skin color, gender or sexual orientation and, by that standard, black and white laborers are united by virtue of their membership in the working class.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)It's based on economic facts, not who they vote for.
boston bean
(36,186 posts)If you can't get them to vote with you, what the hell good is it?
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)I assume you support those rights for all (even conservatives and Republicans), not just those who vote Democratic.
boston bean
(36,186 posts)CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)to get a fair piece of the economic pie?
Even those who vote against their own interests?
boston bean
(36,186 posts)Cause you seem to think womens, minority, LGBT issues are not real issues... but are created only by the Republicans to "divide us"? That somehow we are the yoke around your neck, preventing a class utopia from being achieved.
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)for the "rest of us", people who are not super-rich and who are not making ground in this economy. The poor, working class and middle class and upper middle class.
boston bean
(36,186 posts)that causes them additional burden?
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)boston bean
(36,186 posts)Does it include, women, LGBT, minorities and the particular issues they face that causes them additional burden?
Please answer the full question. It's too simplistic to say the 99% includes everyone... Of course it does, it's almost 100%, but it is meaningless without specifics and ideas and strategies.
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)to democratic forces and take it out of the hands of the cabal of bigoted billionaires who control the media and lobbyists.
boston bean
(36,186 posts)and I'll make my own assumptions on what your answer is.
ie, we'll work on those issues some other day... so, please just support this and maybe we will get to you some other day.
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)Using a label is not the same as making a strategy.
Using the label "the 99%" is just a way to highlight the financial disparity betweeen the majority of people and the super-rich.
However, strategies that follow from trying to narrow that disparity would be to impose a higher top marginal tax rate, a higher minimum wage, stronger labor unions etc.
boston bean
(36,186 posts)no issues?
I see where you are going and my assumptions are correct. You think class will fix the social ills of this country. You couldn't be more wrong. Why do you think there are social justice movements for the above, that aren't just based in labels, but with specific strategies and goals?
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)We can fight for a higher minimum wage and minority rights at the same time. They are part of the same thing and reinforce each other.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)la·bel
ˈnoun: label; plural noun: label
1. a small piece of paper, fabric, plastic, or similar material attached to an object and giving information about it.
Identity:
noun: identity; plural noun: identities
1. the fact of being who or what a person or thing is.
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)we can fight for a higher minimum wage and equal rights for everyone at the same time. They are part of the same thing and reinforce each other.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)The 'equal rights for everyone' part. 29 States allow discrimination in employment against LGBT people, no recourse, no protections. Correcting that injustice was the first stated legislative goal of the LGBT movement, Congress has still not passed such law.
The 29 States that allow discrimination are of course also the States with the lowest minimum wages, weakest protections for all workers.
The first 'gay issue' I voted on was Briggs Amendment, which was also a jobs issues 'Should we fire all the gay teachers, yes or no'.
Up thread I pointed out that the first 3 occupations of Wall Street were ACT UP events, 'gay protests' with mass arrests on Wall St, targeting the financial piracy and Pharma profiteers.
So jobs, fair wages, equal protections, these are key and founding issues of the LGBT movement and rather obviously also the women's movement.
Why in the world do you think you need to explain that to anyone who is LGBT? If we demonstrate on Wall St against Corporate piracy, that's a 'social issue' but if straights do the same, it's 'economic'?
boston bean
(36,186 posts)When women make less than men for the same work.
It's funny how all of that is just seems to be forgotten in the midst of all of this....
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)by your logic?
brooklynite
(93,878 posts)There is a large chunk in the middle that are not in the top 1%, but also aren't in the poverty group at the bottom, and don't hold income or wealth against those who have it. You can argue that they "vote against their economic interests", but that's not necessarily an irrational choice, anymore than it is when I vote against my (1%ish) economic interests by supporting progressive taxation, Government spending and a social safety net.
I think the biggest problem is with those (here) who imagine that "the 99%" will be rising up en-masse any day now to bring economic and political justice to the land. It's an illusion that's going to lead to eventual disappointment.
treestar
(82,383 posts)Cheese Sandwich
(9,086 posts)It draws a sharp distinction between the middle class and the super rich.
It describes how the middle class has more in common with poor people than they do with the top 1%.
It's a slogan for people who acknowledge that class is real, that class conflict is already existing, and we want to drive this wedge to win over the 99% as much as possible to fight on the right side of social and political battles.
Like any slogan, it's simply a shorthand way to invoke larger ideas with just a few words. But like any slogan it can be deconstructed to show how it's incomplete or inaccurate if taken literally.
boston bean
(36,186 posts)It is just a slogan, it is truly meaningless.
Cheese Sandwich
(9,086 posts)That is the meaning.
boston bean
(36,186 posts)us from uniting against that 1%?
That we are falling for some republican folly and aren't bright enough to figure it out?
Cause I certainly don't believe that.
And I am not making an accusation, I am asking..
Cheese Sandwich
(9,086 posts)But thanks for not jumping to conclusions.
Look there are a bunch of racists and homophobes in this country. That's undeniable. You made that point in the OP. I think you're right about that. And it's also true that those people are voting Republican.
I agree with you. We can't relax our commitment to human rights and social empowerment on these so-called "social issues" in hopes of appealing to racists and gay-haters.
What we can do is offer them a different positive vision to identify with. Instead of blaming their troubles on black people, they should instead blame the people who are really responsible, which is the economic elite who run the country.
So we ought to offer class consciousness as a competing vision to racism and other harmful social identities. Economic class is a wedge to help splinter up the racist, gay-hating, anti-women coalitions.
If the left doesn't organize the workers along class lines with a positive vision of class solidarity, then the right wing will definitely swoop in and organize them along racial and religious lines, and with other hateful and oppressive ideas.
betterdemsonly
(1,967 posts)What right have you to declare wealth inequality a non issue? Let's just face the fact that minority and women's rights aren't the problems the centrist democrats are currently ignoring. It is actually Labor that is being ignored. Let's just face the fact that Warren and those democrats concerned with wealth inequality are also concerned with minority and women's rights. It is the centrist dems that are excluding the interests of the poor and middle class. You say it is because those groups aren't consistent in their support for democrats but neither are women and minorites. There are plenty of right wing women, gays and ethnics.
boston bean
(36,186 posts)betterdemsonly
(1,967 posts)That seems pretty dismissive.
boston bean
(36,186 posts)betterdemsonly
(1,967 posts)but don't insult people who consider it a useful description of wealth inequality.
boston bean
(36,186 posts)don't agree with people who use it, is somehow insulting?
PowerToThePeople
(9,610 posts)boston bean
(36,186 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)You think 99% of Americans would not agree with the principles of life, liberty and justice for all? I think there are some things 99% can agree on.
I don't get where you pulled that one out of.
boston bean
(36,186 posts)AuntPatsy
(9,904 posts)PowerToThePeople
(9,610 posts)are trying desperately to create the appearance of divisions which do not exist.
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)if one is referring to policies that benefit everyone except the filthy rich, who don't need any more help, bless their hearts. You can say the economicinterests / well-being of the 99% can be represented by the (Elizabeth Warren wing of the) Democratic Party, whether or not all of the voters "get" it. "Good for the 99%" ought to be the yardstick we measure policy by.
LostOne4Ever
(9,267 posts)[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal]Those 47% are so set in their hatred of women and racial/sexual/gender minorities that they are willing to cut off their own nose to spite their face.
But to be honest, I think we are better off without those kind of people anyways. I rather ally myself with a member of the 1% who cares about the rights of everyone and puts social justice ahead of their own economic self interest than a republican member of that 47%.[/font]
GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)alarimer
(16,245 posts)And it isn't what they vote for.
So A vote for a true progressive is also a vote for programs that ALSO help the part of the 99% who disagrees with us, whether they see it that way or not.
I'm not about just helping people who agree with me. A rising tide lifts all boats, etc., etc.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)You're confusing political parties with who has the most money. Sure there's a correlation of sorts, but the entire concept of the 99% as put forth by Occupy is that 1% if the population controls all the wealth in this country. and as the Supreme Court (also not to be counted as the 99%) has given the 1% all the political power.
F4lconF16
(3,747 posts)It refers to inequality and class issues. I fight for the laboring class, the 99%. It is a useful meme that highlights the current wealth dynamics: essentially, the fact that 1% of the population controls 40% of the capital. When I say I fight for the 99%, I'm not referring to only those who support my fight--I'm also referring to the right wing laborers. No one is talking about getting 99% to agree on anything.
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)Trillo
(9,154 posts)Food, air, and water. Historically, the natural earth provided that for us.
When civilization occurred, often ascribed to agriculture, the unnatural concept of money evolved. A few, often labeled as 1%, took more than their fair share. They ended up with far too much money relative to the rest. That is what distinguishes the 99%.
While what you say is true, that the 99% is fractured based on conflicting beliefs about many things, the money and relative fairness issue is the major commonality. It has often been observed that divide and conquer is an often used tactic to gain unfair advantage.
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)Some of that 99% are integral to the 1% maintaining that stranglehold. Whether through investments or labor, they assure it remains business as usual.
Marr
(20,317 posts)We were told that it was just too much to ask-- we had to be pragmatic and just be quiet. They've done this repeatedly, across a range of social issues. The issues were only advanced because liberals did not just shut-up.
So it's odd to see centrists now trying to beat liberals over the head with the social issues that liberals got passed, to make them shut-up once again and support yet another corporate shill.
Their faction of the party that doesn't actually give a shit about social issues or economic justice. They care about the careers of specific politicians, and that's about it.
Caretha
(2,737 posts)Right on Marr.....a million +
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)Now that we've established that, lets find someone qualified.
Average 2011 Income: $13,801,055
Oh, hell, every time I do a little research it just gets worse! I think I should turn this into a new OP! What do you think?
The Clintons annual income easily puts them in the top 1% of Americans. But they may have reached the top 1% of the top 1%, according to publicly disclosed income data.
The Clintons wealth has become a central topic of discussion during Hillary Clintons book tour after Mrs. Clinton described her family as dead broke exiting the White House and later seemed to draw a distinction between her family and the truly wealthy. She conceded Wednesday that she had used inartful terms to describe her financial circumstances, and emphasized that she has spent her career pushing for economic policies to help American workers.
More In Hillary Clinton
As we reported recently, according to their 2012 income disclosed in government forms, the Clintons made at least $16.7 million in income that year, largely from Bill Clintons speeches. That total is based on income disclosed in forms that provide income ranges, and the $16.7 million total uses the minimum amount from each stated range.
The nationwide level to make the top 1% of households in 2012 was $567,719, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute. And the level for the top 0.1% was about $2.9 million, a bar the Clintons easily surpassed.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/06/27/clintons-income-may-reach-top-1-of-the-1/
NM_Birder
(1,591 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)it is perfectly valid. And that is what counts.
Jamastiene
(38,187 posts)You are making a good point about getting people to agree to one thing and about the 99% breaking down into all sorts of political leanings, but that is not what the 1%/99% thing is about. It is about the fact that 1% owns so much while 99% owns so little and has so little coupled with the fact that wealth equal power to change things while poverty equals no power at all.
You are correct about people who vote against their own best interests being a part of that 99%, but they are still part of the 99% because even many of them do not own a pot to piss in, much less have the power to change that fact, no matter who they vote for. Never forget that for many of us in the Bible Belt/southeast, the most liberal Democrat many of us can find is the one who doesn't openly agree with the Republicans on trying to enact laws that specifically attack the GLBT community, women, persons of color, and that is only if we are lucky. Usually, later we find out they do hate us just the same as the Republicans, because they vote right along with them on outrageous laws against us.
So, while you are right that 99% of America isn't going to agree with each other politically, it doesn't change the fact that 1% owns so much and has so much power while the other 99% owns so little and has no power to change things. The percentages are about wealth, not political parties. There are 1%ers who are Democrats as well. It still doesn't change how wealth=power and poverty=no power. THAT is what the percentages are about.