At what point would America’s Middle Class Revolt against Corp America

[FreakinDJ]

Lets pretend Walker is successful

And the New TeaParty Candidates get their Budget Proposals that by the best estimates of Goldman Sachs would reduce America’s GDP to 0.8%
http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/02/23/goldman-sachs-analysis-gop-continuing-resolution-would-reduce-gdp-by-1-5-2/

Repeal of Healthcare Reform increases the National Debt by $1 Trillion as projected
http://docs.house.gov/energycommerce/health_2011/NJ7.Lance.pdf

Bills allowing Banks to foreclose on Homes without the original documents are successful
http://4closurefraud.org/2011/02/24/bill-in-wa-legislature-to-eliminate-produce-the-note-foreclosure-protection/

The combination of a 0.8% GDP, and HUGE reductions in consumption brought on by reductions in wages and hign unemployment would surely cause a sufficient retraction in the economy to be classified as a Depression

The Banks armed with newly enacted legislation would move quickly to force the surrender of homes in record amounts. The only remaining market for these homes would be Overseas speculators

What then …

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[nadinbrzezinski]

2. We ARE getting close

[LiberalLoner]

3. I think so too. n/t

[Jackpine Radical]

5. I think we're 10 days past the Gladwellian Tipping Point.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. And if not there yet, so close I can taste it

I need to take camera and make sure it's got full charge. Tomorrow, rain or shine I will be there, with hubby

[leftstreet]

4. Not til the last person standing realizes social mobility is a myth

Maybe not even then

:shrug:

The myth of the middle class American dream is a powerful drug and brilliant propaganda

[OHdem10]

6. It will come as the Republicans pepare to do a repeat performance

and drag us into a second recession--depression.

AS the pain moves up the Socio=economic Ladder, they
will wipe the fog from their eyes.

[FreakinDJ]

42. I fear that is what they are doing Now

[SoCalDem]

7. When the bosses stop sponsoring company-assisted health care premiums n/t

[RKP5637]

11. Yeah, I've been wondering about that one. Maybe there is a reason not too, but if

I were a company I would look at cutting all health care.

[trayfoot]

28. That's already happening here in Virginia.

[SoCalDem]

30. When all/most of them no longer "offer" it, and every employee

has to figure it all out on their own & figure out how to pay for it as an individual, there will be mass demonstrations like we have never seen before.. It will probably outdo the Viet Nam protests because paying 100% of what insurers are charging, will bankrupt most people.

Insurance companies only have a little time left anyway, since the Boomers will be moving onto medicare soon, and the lower paid workers don;t buy insurance anyway.

Their customer base is drying up, and they know it.

Downward pressure on wages will not solve THEIR problem.

They may actually pull their own plug before business does it to them.. Remember how all the home policy issuers bailed after 5 hurricanes in one year in Florida?

[Vinee]

8. when their 401ks are wiped out?

[FreakinDJ]

10. Welcome to DU

[Vinee]

14. thank you

[RKP5637]

9. When the tranquilizers in the water run out ... Every day is a WTF moment to me wondering

just how much are Americans going to take. The media keeps the down and out invisible. Many have been living in a Depression era for some time now.

The effective rate of unemployment now is what, maybe 18%. There are something like 54,000 people living in poverty, 25% of children are going hungry, many things that should have woken up Americans, but yet they vote in teabaggers. Never underestimate American voters to vote in their worst interest.

One doesn't hear these statistics toted by the media much. If one listens to HGTV, each American lives in a $500K house. This is such a dumbed down nation, it's frightening.

[BobbyBoring]

13. I'm already there

I quit paying my credit cards after the first round of TARP. I've sent them numerous letters telling them to go fuck themselves and so far, so good.

I've also stopped buying anything from big box stores and I avoid any products and services that advertise on faux or hate radio. The only one that really hurts is Ruths Chris, I love their steaks but they pay that fuck head Hannity to pimp them so no mas.

I'm also trying to organize monthly demonstrations at the DOJ, Goldman Sachs, House of Reps. Barrys house, etc.

Not much interest in that around here though.

I do agree with the premise of your post. The newly elected tea party douche bags have no idea how things work. For fuck sakes, if tax cuts created jobs and increased revenue, wouldn't we have a boat load of jobs and a shit load of revenue after 10 fucking years? Net job creation under Bush was 1 Million in 8 years! This ain't brain science or rocket surgery.

The old trickle down thing USED TO work to a degree, but that was before Nafta Crafta Haveta and all the other trade programs that have not worked well.

If there is any good news It's this new crop will fuck things up worse than they are and MAYBE people will see the folly of their ways after they experience personal pain.

[Davis_X_Machina]

15. U3 at 20%, or more, and U6 at 40%, or more....

...same as 1933.

We're not even halfway there.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. The net has changed some of that dynamic

Why I expect to see ahem, net failures soon

[FreakinDJ]

20. You'll need to enlighten me - What is U3 and U6 ?

I honestly don't know

[Davis_X_Machina]

21. The two most widely used measures of unemployment...

...U3 is the 'unemployment figures' you hear on the news. U6 includes those who are part-time, and don't want to be, among others.

Definitions here.

[FreakinDJ]

23. and if the GDP goes to 0.8% with the existing 9% unemployment

care to speculate a projection

edit to correct unemployment number

[Davis_X_Machina]

25. The revolution threshold is very high...

...and requires economic distress far worse than anything this country's seen yet, or repression on a scale this country's never seen except during the Civil War, or both.

Find a country that's had one without one, or both of those conditions, and you're down to a handful, either bourgeois revolutions (ours) or regime-change-without-revolutions (DeGaulle and the collapse of the 4th Republic.)

Even in the 1930's, the UK, France, Canada and the US left the decade with the fundamental governmental and economic system they had going in.

The revolution threshold is very high. You can define 'revolt' down to meet it, with things like the New Deal, but that wasn't a revolution.

[FreakinDJ]

27. that is an interesting perspective - I don't think Armed Revolt is possible

nor would I ever advocate it

But given Corporate propensity to rely on the services of "Security Contractors" .... that very well be the "bar" I am discussing and not knowing it

For conversation's sake - lets toss in the effects of Peak Oil too

[nadinbrzezinski]

31. Actually the modern discussion on revolution

speaks of peaceful and violent revolutions.

The New Deal AND the Reagan years are seen as forms of PEACEFUL revolutions, when the social contract is upturned.

Now the threshold for VIOLENT revolution is very high... that we agree.

[Davis_X_Machina]

32. If you have the same governmental structures...

...going in, and coming out, and/or the same economic structures going in, and going out, that's reform.

Nothing wrong with it -- I luuuurrrrve reform, as a Democratic (non-revolutionary) Socialist -- but it's not a revolution.

Look at the course of events in a place like Ukraine, for example. Change of face at the top, change back, change, change back. Orange, maybe. Revolution, no.

Georgia's not remarkably better off under Saakashvili than they were under Shevardnadze.

Since Serbia, until very recently, the whole revolution thing's been a very mixed bag, and the most recent wave may not break right, at least in Egypt.

We over-sell these things. Everyone dreams of barricades, and of the other guy getting gloriously shot.

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. Why the discussion has become far more nuanced

oh and by the way our revolution was a war for independence, and was not just bourgeoisie led. People like the Sons of Liberty were very much working class... and they scared the living daylights out of the aristocracy. Of course I am using a term that does not work in a pre-industrial society, but that is another matter.

It helps NOT to read elite histories of the period.

[Davis_X_Machina]

34. It helps to read...

...folks like Charles Beard. If he's an elite historian, then I'm an Adelié penguin.

[nadinbrzezinski]

36. So is Fonner

Eric I mean not his son... though his son is also pretty good.

Beard is a core read for anybody. But not the only one any more. Now at the same generation as Beard Carlton was necessary... but that is another story...

Since I am working on the history of labor, indeed I am doing a tad of reading that goes beyond just Beard. Oh and let me tell you, now it will become sexy again.

[FreakinDJ]

38. Thanks for the interesting perspective guys

[nadinbrzezinski]

39. And you got a bibliography

:-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_A._Beard for Beard

Philip S Foner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_S._Foner

Eric, his son

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

Frank Tracy Carlton's History of Organized Labor

http://books.google.com/books?id=I0cpAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=frank+Tracy+Carlton&source=bl&ots=gQJasAPlfA&sig=SMGvvsOUxwZHJdc3tDWu9lU-0mk&hl=en&ei=1FtoTY_dC4G4sQOH9r3XDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false

And I would recommend Rayback in the subject too

There are a few recent books now.

[RagAss]

16. When we see ourselves as Already Dead !

[cali]

17. when the middle class is virtually gone, that's when

[leftstreet]

18. There are people in shelters who consider themselves middle class

So when would that be?

[Lint Head]

22. It has begun I am marching tomorrow in Tennessee!

[BlueJac]

24. never

[Dulcinea]

26. When gas goes over $5 a gallon. eom

[cbdo2007]

29. I'm not going to revolt. I'm doing just fine.

[reformist2]

35. When it's too late? ;)

[socialist_n_TN]

37. I think that we're pretty close...........

Class consciousness is rising with every day that workers are out in the street. It might even be at the point where all it would take is a spark.

However, I think that for a national uprising against the capitalists, it would take something like a third of the country being idle and/or mostly, or desperately, broke. At that point the spark WOULD happen because the elites would HAVE to crack down in order to keep their money from the ragtag groups of poor that would be trying to take it away.

I figure if all those RW wet dreams are enacted, we'd be there shortly.

[datasuspect]

40. when truck drivers park their trucks for one week

yep.

[NeoConsSuck]

41. Maybe

in between episodes of American Idol and NCIS.

That's my take on the middle class.