Meritocracy in America

[JohnnyRingo]

Once upon a time, every snot nosed kid in America believed he could grow up to financially rise above his neighborhood.

It appears that those in power in this country are closing the "trap door" to deny the hard working class the upward mobility we once held hope for.

Ironically, fed by "American Dream" proponents like Limbaugh, Hannity, etal, working class citizens are demanding policies that widen the gap between them and the elite society that strive to keep them in the "paycheck to paycheck" way of life.

Hardly a month goes by that we don't hear brainwashed blue collar Joe's screaming for an end to the policies designed to help THEM climb the social ladder to financial Independence.

The ending of Pell Grants, affirmative action, estate taxes, social security, and cuts to public education and universal health care come to mind right away as "good republican values" that common laborers have endorsed through their voting habits.

The reasoning handed down by the propagandists is "The government doesn't owe poor people a handout".
The government doesn't owe wealthy people a "handout" either, but handout it does, through tax cuts, outsourcing incentives, war profiteering, and environmental policies designed for the sole purpose of increasing the wealth of the few, all at the behest of voters that would gain the least from such government subsidies.

Remember, the wealthy few in this country decide how much we get paid, and they decide how much we pay. Those two figures have been moving in opposite directions for AT LEAST three decades.

People are starving?..."Let them eat glucose enriched flour with hydrogenated animal fat".

I hope I live to see the "dawn of the new era".

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

1. dead on commentary

[DiverDave]

2. Joe six-pack only cares

if the WWF is on and if his wife brings him another beer.

Knuckle draggers don't WANT to think about these things...it hurts what little brains they have.

[salvorhardin]

3. That's not really a fair characterization

Yeah, the vast majority of people only want to do their '9 to 5' and go home and enjoy their lives, family and friends. There's nothing wrong with that. Not everybody can be or want to be a policy or economic wonk. What's truly unfortunate is that there is that the Fourth Estate is no longer presenting the information needed for the average person to make relevant decisions regarding their lives and those who effect the policies that govern them.

I'm not attacking your statement or you personally. All I'm really saying is that it's a complex issue and simple black and white ideas don't really help in creating solutions.

[salvorhardin]

4. Minimum wage contributes to this

The real value of minimum wage has basically been declining since 1973. The Office For Social Justice of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has a great page illustrating the declining value of wages and income inequality.

http://www.osjspm.org/101_wages.htm

[Dr Ron]

5. The Economist recently looked at this

Quotes and some commens at Light Up The Darkness:

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=188

[JohnnyRingo]

6. Good article from someone who seems to straddle party lines

Yet knows which side his bread is buttered:
<excerpt>
The past couple of decades have seen a huge increase in inequality in America. The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think-tank, argues that between 1979 and 2000 the real income of households in the lowest fifth (the bottom 20% of earners) grew by 6.4%, while that of households in the top fifth grew by 70%. The family income of the top 1% grew by 184%—and that of the top 0.1% or 0.01% grew even faster. Back in 1979 the average income of the top 1% was 133 times that of the bottom 20%; by 2000 the income of the top 1% had risen to 189 times that of the bottom fifth.

<snip>
I would add that there is some truth to the sterotype of Democrats presented by this conservative publication, but all Democrats are not the same. One reason I supported John Kerry was his willingness to cross party lines on issues, and his strong support for the middle class and small business.

[Dr Ron]

7. Different Sources

The top excerpt is from The Economist article. The Economist is a conservative British newsmagazine, but unlike the American conservative media, still practices responsible journalism. They ultimately endorsed Kerry (with some reluctance). (I did often characterize them as being a more reliable source than American conservative media even before this).

The comment quoted at the bottom of the above post is from my blog comments on the article.

[JohnnyRingo]

8. I.C.

[InvisibleBallots]

9. I never heard a blue collar Joe saying end Pell Grants, SS, or schools

Where are these so-called "brainwashed blue collar Joes" that want to slash Social Security, end Pell Grants, or cut public education or health care?

I'm sure there are a few, but they are a tiny minority. The blue collar Joe who does vote Republican doesn't do it so rich people's taxes can be cut or Social Security privatized.

The only people who want these things are the upper class Republicans - AND especially the upper class "Libertopian" "New Democrat" DLC types.

[JohnnyRingo]

13. I have a few friends that are AM radio junkies

I get a lot of feedback from them, like:

"The corporations have a right to make money, you have to look at it from their point of view"

"I'm tired of paying so much of MY tax money into a broken SS system". "Stop taxing me and let me manage my own retirement"

My favorite:
"Giving money to poor people creates more poor people".

I know where they get these over simplistic notions...What bothers me most is that they view themselves as "middle class", and think that Gov handouts only apply to "lower class citizens.

Fools all.

[InvisibleBallots]

14. they are not at all the majority

not even close. Most blue collar people who vote Republican aren't doing it for economic issues.

[Nobody]

10. Meritocracy BS and contempt for the poor

Rant ensues, brought on by a highly insensitive and compassionless letter to the ed that appeared Thursday in my local paper. Friday there was a scathing rebuttal.

Rant begins.....

It doesn't matter how hard you work. Jobs are cut, people get laid off no matter how good they are, no matter how skilled, no matter how dedicated, no matter how hard working.

And the jobs hemorrhage away, leaving part time, temporary, or low paying jobs left. And if you work those jobs, unglamorous hard yet honest work, there is nothing but contempt for you and your struggle to hold onto the means to keep that job.

You need transportation. Even in my metropolitan area, the bus service is spotty at best. Good luck getting to Wal Mart to ring up customers without a car. Yet there is a pervasive attitude of "How DARE those people have a CAR!"

You have to have an address to keep most jobs. One DUer had a poignant nine-part series about the realities of being homeless that made me cry. People lose their jobs when their employers find out they have no address.

And yet the pervasive attitude is: "How DARE those people have a HOUSE!" when the mortgage on my two-bedroom house plus heat/electricity/water/phone is much less than rent on a studio apartment in the same neighborhood. We're talking fixer-upper in the inner city here, not the Taj Mahal. To hear the contemptuous talk, they think we all want to have the public subsidize a forty room mansion in the poshest neighborhoods.

When you've been on your feet all day working an honest day's work, the last thing you want to do is more of the same, I've even seen this attitude: "Those people should get a second job if they want more money! What a bunch of lazy good-for-nothings!" Apparently getting 8 hours of sleep is a luxury not to be allowed the poor.

This attitude pisses me off because increasingly, the people you see trying to live off an honest day's work are the ones who worked their asses off to get where they were before their jobs vanished. People with PhDs are stocking shelves. They've done the no sleep while going to school routine. Students graduate in fields that were booming while they learned, but now there are few jobs and those are for the already experienced.

And the attitude is: Adapt, you lazy good-for-nothing dinosaur! How DARE you relax and consider yourself settled! And just to make sure you don't try to take it too easy, we'll ship all the jobs you're qualified for overseas in order to force you to get on the stick.

Meritocracy? Not bloody likely.

[Avalon Sparks]

11. That was excellent - Nobody.

Well put!

I hope you don't mind if I save it for future postings and to send out to people.

It sums up perfectly the way it is for a lot of people in this country today.

Even for those of us that own homes, with full blown middle class surbuban lifestyles - working only one job with adequate leisure time.... still have frequent anxiety and uneasy feelings that we could lose everything.

I worked hard and have achieved a somewhat comfortable existence; however, it's hard to enjoy it. I worry that the people elected to office are enacting policies that threaten the economic security of the middle class. Bush's* job record has been abysmal, and Republicans party anti-labor stance is well documented by their policies. One of many examples is the Bush* Administrations push for 3 years for changes (i.e. cuts) in overtime pay. I worry all the time that I might get laid off because the company decides to outsource.
So my point is, even if you're 'making it', there are still so many more anxieties and things to worry about economically then when Clinton was President.

I've never felt like the fabled "welfare queen" from the 80's was stealing from my pocket (my hard earned money)- I do think the middle class fundies, the uninformed brainwashed Fox viewers/ AM radio listeners, and the racists are stealing from my pocketbook when they vote for Republicans.

Idiots all of them.

[Nobody]

12. Thanks

If you want to send it around, be my guest.

There are so many people who have it worse than I do, and I would hope that they have an easier time of it. Not bloody likely. Not with the Republicans in power and now while people are perfectly OK with letting Kenny Boy and others like him gut their companies, line their already overflowing wallets with their workers' life savings, cause hundreds of jobs to be lost and yet begrudge a minimum wage worker a living wage that would mean someone not having to apply for food stamps or subsidized housing.

Oh but I forgot: How DARE those people presume to steal money from ME with their unreasonable demand to be paid enough to live on!

Sigh.

[EVDebs]

15. Immigrants on visas (and many not) make up HALF of Labor Force

since 2000. See Northeastern Univ article http://www.nupr.neu.edu/01-04/immigration_jan.html

Those 'productivity' gains are from how much less the corporations, who are outsourcing jobs overseas (and at home by bringing in H1B and L1 visaholders, who will eventually leave the US with job in tow), are paying their US employees who get fired but just are 'retained' just long enough to train their foreign-visa'ed replacement. The tax money the company saves, yes Virginia the US government SUBSIDIZES job destruction in the USofA, goes into overseas accounts and doesn't get taxed; all the CEOs cream the stock prices and the only ones who are screwed is the US taxpayer/wageearner.

Just read "Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else" by David Cay Johnston. And conservative columnist Pat Buchanan's "Suicide by Free Trade" http://www.amconmag.com/2004_04_12/buchanan.html says the same thing.

Unless the Democratic Party wakes up and does something about immigration and wages in this country they are just wasting everyone's time with DU and all the other sites. Democrats should be educating JOE SIX-PACK and showing him how they are going to help this country's economy. Kerry started to but dropped it during the campaign...WHY ?