Elizabeth Warren: ‘The Game Is Rigged’ Against Working People

And it's getting more rigged every year.

pretty cool

she rocked! so proud.

I thought she was down to earth, concise and VERY CLEAR! So relatable to the middle class that at the end of the day, on election day, Elizabeth Warren WILL BE the next Senator from Massachusetts!

And I bet, that the percentage of her win will be a landslide.

talk about a genuine human being. She wins, which I know she will, Massachusetts will have a SUPER NOVA.

... by the continual references to 'growing the middle class outward' and total/complete NONMENTION of working poor, homeless, hungry and unemployed (and no longer eligible for benefits) people in this country.

It's like 1/3 of the population - the third that most desperately needs help and hope - doesn't even exist anymore, for either party.

Shameful.

And conservatives are making it harder for them to do so.

You can't demand that people vote in elections where they and their issues aren't mentioned BEFORE they get to vote in elections where they ARE.

It's not like people owe the politicians unrewarded voted before they can get rewarded with attention.

The poor don't vote, mainly, because nobody's talked about them in mainstream politics since Jesse Jackson was driven out of presidential politics for doing so(and, at the time Jesse ran, nobody had mentioned the poor since Bobby Kennedy was shot in that hotel pantry).

You increase the voting population by increasing the reasons TO vote. Sometimes, our party and this president get that, sometimes they don't.

You can't get more mainstream politics than Teddy when you are speaking of Massachusetts. Are you saying nothing he got passed helped the poor? John Kerry, also a Massachusetts Senator has spoken of programs for the poor - and has been the Senate advocate for Youthbuild and worked with Kennedy on SCHIP, which got insurance for poor kids.

You seriously should look at the record of many of the more senior liberal Senators. The fact is that they have a longer history on these issues than some of the people you post in favor of.

What may be needed is even more help to get people registered and help them either vote absentee or to insure that they are given any assistance possible to make it easier for them to vote.

Discussion of poverty, expressions of outright empathy of compassion for the poor, and any challenge to the right-wing notion that poverty is caused by personal immorality and laziness have seemed to be officially off-limits for Dem presidential candidates for at least 30 years not

Kerry didn't talk about poverty in 2004...then again, he didn't talk about much of anything and acted as if defending liberalism was the same thing as admitting to looking at child pornography.

Teddy did talk about it some in his 1980 presidential...I'll give you that.

Clinton didn't mention it, except to scold the poor for their alleged personal shortcomings...and he was the first presidential candidate we've had that was actually RAISED in poverty(something that should have made him feel obligated to defend his own class with real passion).

And the thing is...all of this silence doesn't gain us any votes. Nobody who hates and looks down on the dispossessed is going to agree with this party on anything else...or at least anything other than a couple of trivial side issues.

This convention sounds as if everybody's been forbidden to use the "p word".
I do agree with your third paragraph.

The fact is that Mario Cuomo spoke eloquently of the poor. As to Kerry, he did speak of the poor and many other things - the media did its best to not cover much of his stump speech. Actually it was at an event that honored the Youthbuild project that Kerry supported for more than a decade where Kerry was reunited with the guy he saved in Vietnam.

The fact is there are things Kerry spoke of in EVERY stump speech - like the environment and healthcare that people said he never spoke of. The problem was not Kerry, but the media.

n/t

It's been a great two nites of speeches, & that is my only negative thought about it all--that it's all "middle class" in the conversation. Would like to see more inclusion.

I have had people on Welfare in my office, who call themselves "Middle Class", I have seen multimillionaires call themselves "Middle Class". Today, the term "Middle Class" means everyone and no one and thus like the term "American" means NOTHING when used in a speech.

That is the problem, no one defines "Middle Class" and thus it includes "working poor, homeless, hungry and unemployed (and no longer eligible for benefits) people in this country" AND everyone one else, i.e. millionaires, billionaires, everyone.

Yes, when the term was first invented in the Late Middle Ages, it meant people who were NOT peasants/working class, but also not Nobility/Royalty but today both peasants/working class people and the old Nobility/Royalty are called Middle Class. At that time period (and up to WWII) it meant the 10% of the population below the 3% of the population that are the super-rich.

In 2005, the top 3.87% of the population earns more then $200,000 a year, 13.6% earns between $100,000 and $200,000 a year.

Thus in 2005, the Middle Class, under traditional definition, would be someone earning more then $100,000 a year, but less then $200,000 a year. I know this is 13.6% of the population instead of the traditional 10%, but given the 10% number is an approximation, the income of between $100,000 and $200,000 a year is still a good reference point.

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

The definition of the Poor, is the lowest 10% of the population and 12.18% receives less then $15,000 in income. Thus anyone earning more then $15,000 a year, but less then $100,000 a year is neither "Poor" or "Middle Class" under the Traditional definition for "Middle Class".

Some polls use $50,000 as the cut off, but that is the poll's taking cut off NOT what the people themselves think as to being a member of the "Middle Class".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/08/obama-problem-white-working-class-americans

Yet, polls taken in 2011 says 51% of the population call themselves "Middle Class".
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/08/22/the-lost-decade-of-the-middle-class/

Now, when the term Working Class is included in any pole on the subject, the people who call themselves "Middle Class" drops in half, the half opting for "Working Class" instead of "Middle Class". In an ABC Poll this is reflected in 45% of the population calling themselves "Middle Class" and 39% of the Population calling themselves "Working Class".

http://abcnews.go.com/images/PollingUnit/1106a1MiddleClass.pdf

Average incomes for people who call themselves middle class are about $55,000 a year, versus about $35,000 for those who call themselves working class or lower and about $95,000 for those who say they're upper-middle class or better off.
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/abc-world-news-poll-us-middle-class-concerns/story?id=10088470#.UElwj8FmQwM

People who call themselves "Upper Middle Class" is about the same percentage as the traditional definition of "Middle Class" but the people who call themselves "Middle Class" tend to just be high earning (and collage educated) working class people if we use the traditional definitions.

I can't find on line any report about HOW self reporting "Working Class" people, report themselves as "Middle Class" if "Working Class" is NOT an option OR if just asked (i.e. When a pollster ask a working class person, what "Class" he or she is in, the person will say "Middle Class". That person will only report "Working Class" if it is one of the option given to him or her.

The above has been known since at least the 1960s, I first read about it in a Economic Text in the 1970s. I just can NOT find a reference to that fact on the net (And I have NOT run across anything that says it does NOT occur).

My point is that the Candidates KNOW THIS, thus they use the term "Working Class" for its fits everyone self image of themselves. The INTERNAL Polls for the Candidates do make the distinguish between "Working Class" and "Middle Class", but only to see what is working with whom (i.e. is what the Candidate is saying effective on the people the speech was aimed at? AND did it offend anyone who the Candidate was counting on for votes).

Obama's biggest problem, in my opinion, was he has none NOTHING that clearly shows he wants to help the "Working Class". I.e. he did NOT support Card Check (i.e. the ability to form a Union with just a Majority of workers signing off on a card, instead of going through a Vote), Obama did NOT fight for Single Payer, something that had wide appeal for the Working Class, Obama gave in to the demand to extend the Bush Tax Cuts in exchange for a temporary cut in Social Security Taxes, the working class would have preferred him to FIGHT to end the tax cuts AND then Fight for the Social Security Tax cut. IT would have made it clear which side Obama stood on, instead he appeared to stand on the side for the rich for the Bush Tax Cuts. OBama should have fought for the largest Stimulus package possible, even if defeated, show that he was willing to fight for it.

In many ways, Obama's habit of giving in, before he is defeated has NOT shown to the Working Class that he is out to protect them. FDR faced defeat with his New Deal Legislation, and the working class supported FDR even as those laws were struck down by the Supreme Court. The mere act of PASSING THE LAW, was enough to show the Working Class, FDR was for them. Obama has NOT followed that pattern. He is NOT been defeated, he did get his stimulus packages (But Obama gave in to GOP demands that much of it be a tax cut as opposed to spending), Obama was NOT defeated in his plan for Universal Health Care, instead he proposed what the GOP was willing to accept, instead of having a Universal Health Care Law proposed, passed by the then Democratic House and then holed up by the Filibuster in the Senate. Yes, that MAY have lead to a defeat of the Single Payer proposal, but it would have shown he was willing to do all he could for the working class.

This refusal to Fight, when the chances of winning was slight, has lead the working class think Obama does NOT really care for the things, the working class think is important. This is Obama's big problem with the Working Class, but the Working Class is NOT enthralled by Romney either, for similar reasons:
http://www.tnr.com/blog/electionate/106370/obama-isnt-the-only-candidate-whos-got-problems-the-white-working-class#

Thus the non-mention of the "working poor, homeless, hungry and unemployed (and no longer eligible for benefits) people in this country.". Obama has done nothing that the working class can see as benefiting them. The Working Class knows it needs to fight, and thus like a fighter NOT someone who counts before the fight begins and when the numbers are not in his or her favor backs down. Labor will accept defeat, but they want to go down all flags flying and drums beating, not like a rat escaping into a hole. Obama has forced them to run like rats into their hole when it comes to the attacks on the income of the Working Class and the Working Class does NOT like running into its hole when it can fight.

It's getting better but as a Commonwealth we are not "there" yet.

You'd think the Very Blue Bay State would have had a female senator by now...but no. Never. EW would be the first.

We've never had a female governor in 'her own right' either (we have had Jane Swift, who "acted").

I just want to vomit every time I see a "Scott Brown on the road" ad--he's playing them constantly and they say absolutely nothing.

MA hasn't. You can't count Jane Swift because she "fleeted up" from LT GOV when her boss quit -- and then Mitt SHOVED her aside and stole the nomination from her--he basically bullied her out of even running. She was a nitwit, but still, he treated her poorly.

Alaska had that idiot Palin and has that other idiot Murkowski....and Louisiana had Blanco and has Landrieu.

MA elected one of the few black Senators to ever serve...but they do have a sexist bent. It pains me to say this about my Commonwealth, but it's true. I do think if we can just break the glass ceiling once, that'll open the floodgates, but it's getting the first Senator or Governor that isn't coming easy.

Second most offensive is the Ray Flynn ad.

Third is the Kape Kod Konnie ad.

His ads are just horseshit--they say nothing. But they are on CONSTANTLY.

The Bruins jacket is also puke-worthy.

And Ray Flynn is a demented old drunk who is a DINO.

in the middle of the ad because he's gone and melted into an unrecognizable puddle of mean old asshole!

I wouldn't even credit that bastard with the DINO label--he's a Republican who calls himself a Dem because he'd be pissed on, otherwise!

I guess the bright spot of my radio crapping out in my 26 year old car is that I don't have to hear that crap while driving, anyway!

and knows how to connect.
Don't understand either why she is not far far ahead in Massachusetts.

No one is asking Mitt and his band of merry men to "apologize" for their "success."

We are asking him to reflect a moment on HOW he achieved that success, and
stop pretending that he's done something good. His kind of wealth comes from
the backs of others.

We also ask that he and the GOP stop asking the POOR to apologize for being poor, and
stop treating them as if they have done something bad.

And stop treating the middle class like ants treat aphids.

She hit the nail on the head: they have "NO SHAME."


P.S. Please donate to her campaign, she is behind in the latest polls !!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I actually even bought some merchandise from her website!

I was amazed at how the crowd responded to her. After all, she's never held elective office and was kind of a semi-obscure part of the Obama team and yet she gets this kind of response? Man! That says something.

And yet she's 5 points down in the polls? MA -- what's up you guys. You've got to get her in there so she can be our first woman president.

She's wonderful...we were cheering at home.

Do the right thing!

including votes on nominations for supreme court, as well as cabinet appointements. This is as serious vote for Obama's presidency to be successful. Sen Brown is no Sen Kennedy on woman's issues or rights. He's lined up with the banking sector where he gets his contributions. One of his first votes was for banks. He will be there for six years this time, not two, that is a long time to be sorry for your vote. He was a little careful the last two years because he was up for reelection in 2012, but in a six year term he can cause a lot of frustration for Dems agenda. We know that Elizabeth stands for middle class and poor and can be counted on for six years of progressive votes. I don't know what the gender vote spread is in Mass but if women vote their interests, not their hormones they will vote for Elizabeth.

Go, Elizabeth!

Not many who are more down to earth than she is. Shes knows what its like out here in the real world.

We need more Democrats talking about the bread and butter issues, bringing it all back to economic democracy.

I adore Elizabeth Warren.

Their goal.. is to turn American into a third world, low wage prison state.

BTW.. they are doing very well.. we are almost there.