You're still fucking peasants as far as I can see.

[cthulu2016]

[font color=green]You think you're so clever and classless and free
but you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see.
A working class hero is something to be.[/font color] — John Lennon

The only problem with John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" is that he said "still" peasants, instead of newly and increasingly peasants.

Alan Krueger, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers... gave a very informative speech on inequality last week.



On the horizontal axis is the Gini coefficient, a measure of inequality. On the vertical axis is the intergenerational elasticity of income — how much a 1 percent rise in your father’s income affects your expected income; the higher this number, the lower is social mobility.

America is both especially unequal and has especially low mobility. Alan Krueger also argues that because we are even more unequal now than we were a generation ago, we should expect even less social mobility going forward.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/the-great-gatsby-curve/

http://www.americanprogress.org/events/2012/01/krueger.html

[Cerridwen]

1. "...temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
― John Steinbeck

Until those who see themselves and those around them as something other than "temporarily embarrassed millionaires", there will continue be an uphill battle against those who are gatekeepers on behalf of the ruling class and who do so in the hopes that they will one day be part of the ruling class.

[Louisiana1976]

2. Well said! n/t

[Cerridwen]

8. Thank you.

Didn't mean to ignore your reply there.

Could you please tell me who that is or what piece of artwork that is in your avatar? I like the colors and the subject...from what I can see of it. There may be a way to see it in larger form but I don't know it.

[annabanana]

18. A Young Woman Reading, Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard.

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

[Cerridwen]

19. Thank you muchly.

I appreciate that.

[socialist_n_TN]

3. That's changing............

According to that Pew poll I saw the other day.

[Cerridwen]

5. I've noticed.

The Occupy Movement combined with the bad faith actions of the financial sector is starting to wake-up people to the fact that it's not just 'those' people who are harassed by cops, jailed for questionable reasons, punished for 'coloring outside the lines,' and that it happens to 'white' people, too and to 'respectable' people, too and it happens to the 'rules followers', too.

Slowly, but surely, the apocalypse unfolds.

apocalypse
late 14c., "revelation, disclosure," from Church L. apocalypsis "revelation," from Gk. apokalyptein "uncover, disclose, reveal," from apo- "from" (see apo-) + kalyptein "to cover, conceal" (see Calypso). The Christian end-of-the-world story is part of the revelation in John of Patmos' book "Apokalypsis" (a title rendered into English as "Apocalypse" c.1230 and "Revelations" by Wyclif c.1380). Its general sense in M.E. was "insight, vision; hallucination;" meaning "a cataclysmic event" is modern. As agent nouns, apocalypst (1829), apocalypt (1834), and apocalyptist (1835) have been tried.

link to etymology

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

20. Occupy

[cthulu2016]

4. There's also another kind of embarassment in play

We propagandize poverty, or any sort of financial set-back or difficulty, as the result of individual moral failings.

Americans are ashamed to be poor, and thus ashamed to admit they are poor. Another barrier to class conciousness.

(And the third element is racial division — race trumps everything. Another barrier to class conciousness.)

[Cerridwen]

6. Agreed.

If you look at US history you'll see that much of that propaganda about poor people and the 'sin of poverty' comes from the early European settlers here who brought their 'religious' beliefs with them and made it part of the national dialogue.

[cthulu2016]

7. Yes, we are a Calvinist culture

If you haven't made it you weren't supposed to in the first place

[orpupilofnature57]

10. NWO

[Cerridwen]

11. Precisely.

Thanks for 'getting' it.

I always wonder why people don't question the idea that you are what you're born. Our own little caste system.

Good thing we have 'Horatio Alger' myths to catapult the propaganda that 'you, too, can become a millionaire' if only you'll work hard enough. One of the best PR achievements was the 'rich' getting rid of the 'idle rich' concept from the...what was it, 19teens? or 1890s?

[cthulu2016]

14. When Reagan was President somebody actually read a bunch of

Horatio Alger novels to see what a Horatio Alger story really is. Wrote a cool article about how Reagan's biography really WAS a Horatio Alger story.

The typical actual Alger plot-line was a plucky lad works his way up from shoe-shine boy to mail-room assistant... and then wins the lottery. Rceieves a surprise inheritance out of the blue. Marries the bosses daughter.

The title of Alger's most famous book is, after all, "Pluck and Luck."

Yes, pluck AND LUCK.

Show God you are an uncomplaining cog in the machine and he will shower you with lucky riches.

(Your mileage may vary.)

[Cerridwen]

16. That part is rarely emphasized.

It reminds me of the 'boy who cried wolf' type comments. There are multiple morals of the story but people get stuck on the fact that at first there was no wolf. They forget what happened to the village in the end.

It's much the same with the Alger stories. 'He' frequently had luck and a well-connected, rich patron.

[orpupilofnature57]

17. " Anyone that wants to work has a job " Rayguns

[orpupilofnature57]

12. The middle class loking down on themselves,

We can feel their self loathing today ,the way we worship sucsess even when it slits our throats.

[Cerridwen]

13. Good point.

It's quite ugly when viewed and/or experienced up close and personal.

[orpupilofnature57]

15. Thats the credit card problem ,false Affluence.

all for the facade ,in a world where unhappiness and doubt are unacceptable.

[RKP5637]

22. Mention to most Americans that 50% of this country is in poverty or

damn close to it they will give to one a deer in the headlight look or
indignation.

This, is a country wherein most of the citizenry lives in denial of reality, just one or two paychecks short of falling off the edge, but in many peoples minds just temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

Hence, we live in a perpetual rut of impoverishment steadily growing, while accepting lower paying jobs as hey, isn't this great.

And lofty and aloof millionaires in many cases are voted into power, because they will help the 99%. And many citizens castigate OWS.

[Cerridwen]

23. *sigh* No kidding.

It's very sad. Then when they do fall into the abyss that is an unexpected medical crisis or some other financial crisis, they are surprised it can happen to them!

But, hey, at least "the poor here don't have it as bad as the poor in somalia". Comparing the US to a third world country; and they don't get that that is what they are doing.

[provis99]

24. David Brooks calls them the "pre-rich".

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/12/opinion/the-triumph-of-hope-over-self-interest.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

[hobbit709]

28. You too can be part of them

"There's room at the top I'm telling you still
but first you must learn how to smile as you kill
if you want to be like the folks on the hill
Working Class Hero is something to be"

[Prophet 451]

31. Well put

In the USA (and my own UK), the opressed always kick downward.

[orpupilofnature57]

9. We were" clever and classless and free " , thats

What the 1% figured out when they realized ,we were happier than them , at a cost of thousand times less.They sent Shrub to equalize or minimize our affluence with tax breaks and war ,not to mention Fuel which helped to pay for Haleeeburtons 600% profit.

[earcandle]

21. Not willing to be a peasant, but certainly willing to enjoy creative space with my free time...

Keep your mind sharp. Don't stop growing.
Don't stop crowing...
http://www.soundcloud.com/earcandleproductions

[greyl]

25. Good overall point, but I think Lennon was using the 14th definition of "still" here:

14. even then; yet; nevertheless: to be rich and still crave more.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/still

[cthulu2016]

27. I wasn't actually criticizing Lennon

I was saying, wryly, that a changing reality has overtaken the original lyric.

During Lennon's life we were still more class stratified than we admited, but it was unthinkable that class stratification would actually increase in the US or UK.

Today it is increasing, for real -- in absolute terms.

[RainDog]

26. k&r

I wonder what it will take for our political class to care about the chaos they have set in motion with 30 years of regressive economic policy.

[lovemydog]

29. class consciousness

is finally growing in the USA. That's a very good thing! I also take comfort in the fact that about half our population is pretty darn good.

OWS has opened the eyes of many. I'm glad to see it. When I was younger, reading Karl Marx was discouraged - treated as reading something by Satan. I hope that has changed a bit. Studying Marx in college opened my eyes. I think it's a good foundation for learning political economy.

The other night I saw a bit of a panel on C-Span. It had Smiley, Cornell West, Michael Moore, Barbara Ehrenreich, some others. A really cool woman said that her main word of hope for the future is that people who are poor not feel ashamed about it. Be proud and keep fighting for what you believe!

[riderinthestorm]

30. We still have a long way to go before we shake off the vestiges of American Exceptionalism

and it's persistent harmful effects.

Illuminating OP. Thanks for posting. K and R!