Merry Christmas, Marley

I've bitched about our fetishizing the middle class to the very detriment of the middle class, all while ignoring those most in actual need:

 I'm tired of crying for the middle class when it's the poor that are REALLY getting shit on. Plus, I have a suspicion that the very middle class we're supposed to cry about are the ones that handed the GOP unchecked power for the last coupla years - they've been the ones with JUST enough to lose that they can be swayed by "values" talk all while dreaming that they too can all of a sudden hit the billionaire jackpot. Unlike the poor, they have the luxury of sitting in their recliners watching Fox News and dreaming that "hey, surely if I completely sell myself out and vote for these guys based on boys kissing I'll end up a gazzillionaire like Bush/Cheney; they're regular guys just like me, my people!" So fuck them.

And now THIS GUY at the New Republic says the same thing:

Whether politicians ignore the poor and pander to the middle class or scare the middle class into thinking they are as bad off as the poor, the result is likely to be the same. Most of our policies will continue to be mis-targeted, as analyses by the Pew Economic Mobility Project and CFED have demonstrated. In turn, they will explode the deficit, leaving less money to promote upward mobility among the poor. And those policies that take the form of tax breaks for investing in savings or education will further price the poor out of markets for mobility-promoting assets—whether higher education or homes—by subsidizing investment the non-poor would have made even without tax incentives. Think “mortgage interest deduction”.

He also bangs on our demanding to believe that all rich people came into their wealth via sheer grit and determination only, that luck and circumstance had nothing to do with it:

At the same time, much of the right is reluctant to acknowledge the role of luck in determining one’s economic fate. Many conservatives are too ready to accept inequalities in adulthood that reflect decisions kids’ parents made and the decisions of kids themselves during the notorious period of irrationality that we call “adolescence.” We need more conservatives willing to experiment—using federal dollars—to figure out how to get more poor kids the greater skills that are prerequisites to economic independence and comfort in today’s economy.

Which is of course one of my own pet projects:

But most of all, I think the need to feel like an oppressed underdog who has succeeded against all odds is as American as apple pie.  Nobody likes to admit out loud "part of my success is due to economic and social conditions cemented long before I was even born"; we must be made to believe that Successful Person X was left to die in a dumpster, then pulled himself up by his own bootstraps and became a real rags to riches story.  Nobody's happy simply to have been given the keys to the kingdom, they also hafta portray themselves as "victims."

And it's not just corporations or politicians, it's everyone.  Nobody can admit they had a somewhat pleasant experience in high school, everybody has to now claim to have been the nerds picked on by the bullying football team.  Being a loser in high school is now a cool thing to have been, but not REALLY.  Shitty bands that should be happy someone's inexplicably buying their crappy records by the ton, they also have to bray about all the record companies that rejected their demos.  Gilbert Arenas is an assclown who has gotten tens of millons of dollars to play about 6 more NBA games than me, and yet he can't go longer than three minutes without whining about being picked so late in the draft, and having to overcome being born with a freakish genetic gift that makes rich men bid for the right to have him come play a child's game for them in order to eke out a living.  And on, and on, and on.  Nobody inherited money or their company, everybody started out the same as everyone else, with nary an advantage, be it the color of their skin or the crotch they were torn out of.

On a final note, I will say there was one man and one man only in recent history who took on the dreaded "P word", poverty:

To be honest, I don’t have incredibly high hopes for Edwards winning the nomination. Ironically, I can’t help but feel that if Edwards does lose, poverty may be better off for it - like Gore, he can say eff Washington and dedicate himself to his real passion. And UNlike Gore, I hope he sticks to his guns during the campaign and hammers away at the issue, even if it means costing him votes cause nobody wants to hear about poor people.

Sigh.  Goddamit; even I can't ALWAYS fucking be right.