Class War Spurs Violent Clashes in Europe -- Why Are Americans Just Letting the Super Rich Win?

reply to post by Wally Hope

This can be broken down even further into upper and lower middle class, for example. Most Americans who call themselves 'middle class' are really working class. The distinction isn't poor, middle class, rich lol.

Good points. In sociology the classes in the US are actually broken down to:

Lower poor--on public assistance or homeless.
Middle poor--manage to eke by on whatever they can find. Work in fields, etc. Physical labor.
Upper poor--work in factories, but in a low level position, such as janitor. Physical labor.

Lower middle class-- the working poor. Work in factories, etc. This is the "working class", which just means doing jobs which require physical labor.
Middle middle class--Most of us. Newspaper reporters, small business owners, psychologists, accountants, pharmacists, etc.
Upper middle class--Doctors, big business owners

Lower upper class--
middle upper class
upper upper class--typically old family money. Always had it, always will. These are the names we recognize.
The Rockerfellers, etc. These people live massively different than the rest of us. Most of us have never, and will never even meet someone in the upper upper class. People mistake the "upper middle" class folks for the upper upper......

So yes, in modern sociology, these are how the classes are broken down in the U.S, and they are derived from the old terms such as proletariat which were used in other countries.

reply to post by Daughter2

It also isn't true the elites don't take government hand-outs - they sure do. They just don't call it welfare - they use terms like bailouts and tax cuts.

How true.

And dollar-wise, the elites make off with WAY more government cash than the welfare class will ever see.

Capitalism in America , is destructive capitalism. The kind that requires a victim.

The victim in this case is the lower middle class, and middle class.

Capitalism, if it is to work, must be controlled. That could lead to a humanitarian capitalism that can be a nutrient for a society. But in America the major capitalist have bought all the politicians, particularly those in the Republican party, in order so they can do what they want to do without restriction.

That’s why unlimited outsourcing is now ruining the American economy.
The stupid tax policies of Ronald Reagan, where he cut taxes massively for the rich [ then Bush repeated that in his presidency] and trade policies of Bill Clinton, have done nothing but to make the rich richer, and all the rest of us poorer

The capitalists are treated by the politicians as if they are kings, queens, dukes, and all we are is serfs, that exist just to make them as comfortable as possible.

reply to post by inforeal


Excellent post inforeal! It's nice to know there are a few of us with insight as to what is really going on.

But, most people stubbornly refuse to face facts until it is their job that is outsourced and they have one major financial issue that causes them to lose their house and "goodies".

For the most part, Americans are stubborn and have a very short attention span.

Originally posted by ladyinwaiting
reply to post by Wally Hope

 

This can be broken down even further into upper and lower middle class, for example. Most Americans who call themselves 'middle class' are really working class. The distinction isn't poor, middle class, rich lol.

Good points. In sociology the classes in the US are actually broken down to:

Lower poor--on public assistance or homeless.
Middle poor--manage to eke by on whatever they can find. Work in fields, etc. Physical labor.
Upper poor--work in factories, but in a low level position, such as janitor. Physical labor.

Lower middle class-- the working poor. Work in factories, etc. This is the "working class", which just means doing jobs which require physical labor.
Middle middle class--Most of us. Newspaper reporters, small business owners, psychologists, accountants, pharmacists, etc.
Upper middle class--Doctors, big business owners

Lower upper class--
middle upper class
upper upper class--typically old family money. Always had it, always will. These are the names we recognize.
The Rockerfellers, etc. These people live massively different than the rest of us. Most of us have never, and will never even meet someone in the upper upper class. People mistake the "upper middle" class folks for the upper upper......

So yes, in modern sociology, these are how the classes are broken down in the U.S, and they are derived from the old terms such as proletariat which were used in other countries.

They really teach you in the US that the lower middle class is the working poor?

What happened to the 'working class'?

Why is it America changes everything from the rest of the world, and history?

Is it because they don't want you to learn of the history of the working class and it's struggle under capitalism?
The middle class had been traditionally supporters of capitalism. Has the term 'working class' become derogatory in the US? People in Europe are proud to be working class.

I thought this was interesting and my thoughts exactly, too many claim to be 'middle class', when in reality they are 'working class'.

Everyone wants to believe they are middle class...But this eagerness...has led the definition to be stretched like a bungee cord — used to defend/attack/describe everything...The Drum Major Institute...places the range for middle class at individuals making between $25,000 and $100,000 a year. Ah yes, there's a group of people bound to run into each other while house-hunting.—Dante Chinni[4]

This is more realistic...

Working class (30%) - Service, low-rung clerical and some blue collar workers. High economic insecurity and risk of poverty. Some high school education. Dennis Gilbert, 2002.
Working class (32%) - Clerical, pink and blue collar workers with often low job security; common household incomes range from $16,000 to $30,000. High school education. William Thompson & Joseph Hickey, 2005.
Working class (ca. 40% - 45%) - Blue collar workers and those whose jobs are highly routinized with low economic security; a man making $40,000 and a woman making $26,000 may be typical. High school education. Leonard Beeghley, 2004.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by inforeal

And what is so wrong about studying and idolizing the rich? The rich should not be punished, but studied and asked, how did they do it. How did all of these rich people, and especially today, make their money, and then try to copy and become rich. From what I have read, those who have money contribute the most to charities, and endow grants, help build hospitals, and other things that assist those who are less fortunate. Would you have them give hand outs or hand ups? Don’t know about you, but I would rather have the rich keep right on making money and try to follow in their footsteps. I may fall, but I am willing to get right up, dust myself off, and keep right on going. And perhaps it is time that we keep doing for ourselves, and not expecting the government to do for us, as many would think and we elect people on the content of their character, rather than the adds we see. And every time that the democrats get into office things don’t get any better, rather they ride off of the successes of the prior administration taking credit for something they did not even do or deserve. The republican party is interested in keeping the country and businesses going, knowing that with most publicly traded businesses, there has to be someone willing to put their money up, and take a risk, so they make it easier to take those risks and it benefits us all. The democrats are slaves to the special interest groups and only the minorities, rather than speaking for us all.
Not really, he like the rest of the country, sees that 2 + 2 does not add up to 4 and are ultimately is bad fiscal policy, and these laws must be stopped, before they can go into effect.
Ultimately, those who are in politics and those who give donations to the political arena are only serving one interest, their own. Canadidates only are there to get into a chair, to try to do the correct action, but are often corrupted in the long run. And those who give the most money to a canadidate, well often ends up working for the official once he is elected. Well that is how it appears since the Democrats came into power 2 years ago.

reply to post by Wally Hope


Apparently I have pushed some button within you, which was not my intention. There is no shame in being a part of the working class. In sociology the definition translates as those who do physical labor, which bears no shame, however does bear lower paying jobs. They struggle to get by. I have always viewed the term proletariat as derogatory, and believe this is why it is not used here. I honestly didn't realize it was used anywhere, still. I thought it was archaic, like "serf", or "patrician". lol. It may not be, in your neck of the globe.

I do think people are confused about the ways the so-called "classes" are divided, but at the same time I don't see it as a big deal. They are broken down in this manner for scholastic purposes, and otherwise, it's just something to refer to without any real effects on anyone's life. Most people wouldn't know what class they are a part of, unless they stopped to figure it out. ......

........and probably don't care.

Originally posted by HUMBLEONE
Think the recent elections in the U.S. are about to change anything, think again! It is time to put to rest the delusion that someday your going to be a millionaire. Because the game is rigged and has been rigged from the very begining, you can't win. The rich will just get richer and we will all just get poorer. And as Honore de Balzac has said, " behind every great fortune, lies a great crime". The crime is being perpetrated by the top 1% of society who control nearly all of the wealth. This is worldwide. Multinational corporations have merged with government behind the scenes and are stealing the wealth from the middle class (which will soon be no more) and the poor. It time we realized that this is a class war, beyond boundries, beyond the imaginary lines of Nationality. We are all one. Regardless of where we live, we are one. The people must be ONE. The average American or European needs to realize that he has more in common with a peasant in Afghanistan than he does with a member of congress, house of lords, or a corporate executive. We all want to be free to live our lives without someone always sucking the very marrow out of our bones.


"The fiction that America is a nation without class, a lie since its inception a half-century ago, gets more and more untenable as actual class struggle daily intensifies. It’s time to accept the simple yet profound fact that America is in the midst of class war – and the super-rich, the American sector of the global oligarchy, is winning."

www.alternet.org...

How would you go about changing these things you see? What exactly is the problem, what creates this problem, and what is the fix for it?

Originally posted by strafgod
Reply to post by HUMBLEONE

 

what exactly do you want us americans to do? do you want us rioting in the streets trashing the roads, burn the buildings? that kind of protest hurts the people more than the goverments.

On second thought, one must be thoughtful where one invest's one's energies!

 

Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

 

reply to post by Gnarly


Thank you for your response Gnarly. I think that there is NO fix for this problem. The pyramidal power structure which dominates our world is itself held together by the Peter Principle, where the higher eschelons rise to the level of their own supreme incompetence. The system is totally corrupt through and through. Your votes (if they are actually counted) select from eventually two persons. Two totally incompetent douche bags, who have since birth, most probably have had a silver spoon stuck in their mouths and have never worked a day in their lives. So consequently those in leadership roles are completely out of touch with the rest of the world. They move in circle's that you and I do not associate with...you know the country club set, the folks with the $10,000 umblella stands. The Stud's Terckles of the media are no more. No one in the media is of the people like the old days. They are all rich, elite, ivy league graduates like Anderson Cooper. Did you know that Anderson is a Vanderbuilt? (Now that's an old school Robber Baron pedigree! ) So there's no one holding anyone accountable. We have a two tiered system of justice where the rich can buy their way out of murder and mayhem, while the rest of us bear the full weight, to be thrown in jail for miniscule violations.

The good news is that the system is unsustainable and will quite soon crumble of it's own accord. We need to, all of us start thinking of what kind of world we want. Let's keep these egocentric bastards in thier place this time.

reply to post by Stewie


Stewie my freind, I think the system is crumbling. This Ponzi scheme economy has to fall, it is a fiction. Money is backed by nothing of value. The political class doesn't have a clue. They are delusional. I prescribe Haldol 5 mg & Ativan 2 mg with a Benadryl 50 mg chaser, IM of course, (That's a Harvard cocktail). After such a regime of treatment, the politico's should come out of their psychosis quite nicely.

reply to post by ladyinwaiting


I think this convo between two famous 'working class' musicians is both funny and true...

Both men lived to regret their involvement. 'Nothing really changes, does it?' says Noel. 'Same #, different day.' Nor is either of them particularly impressed by New Labour notions of self-improvement.

'They think that working-class people want to be middle class, but they don't,' says Weller. 'Wanting some bucks and a nice house isn't wanting to be middle class.'

'Yeah,' scoffs Noel. 'What was it: "We're all middle class now." I find that really insulting. Being middle class is just one step closer to topping yourself, if you ask me. It's just the most boring thing I could ever imagine.'

myweb.tiscali.co.uk...

My thoughts exactly lol...

reply to post by HUMBLEONE

Yes, the system is crumbling, I agree completely.
(You didn't think I was going to write a big long paragraph or three about why, how, when, who....)

reply to post by HUMBLEONE



You're illogical. You want to change who goes in the "leadership roles", then start with yourself! You gotta actually know what you're talking about before you talk about it, and it seems you're just preaching something you heard about, or just thought of.

The people who handle money, those people who own the nice things on Wall St., those are the people who truly live the life of luxury. Not all of those in leadership roles. It's also not just two people we choose from, we have an entire system. One person certainly can't rule it, and there are more than two parties. There are ways of changing things.

Originally posted by Blaine91555
Let me guess, your all young and poor and you got pissed when the world did not hand everything to you without you having to do anything for it? Be honest now?

I guess young or poor people are lazy,and stupid and want things handed to them. What if we want a economic system that give people a CHANCE to live comfortably if they work hard. Not almost impossible if your not lucky ass-eater to a VIP or had enough money to go to law school on our parent's dime.

We want a CHANCE. This is OUR country not thiers.

reply to post by Gnarly


The game is rigged. If one has eyes they can see that. To know that, that is logical. To know that the system is corrupt, that is logical. To not know these things means you choose to keep your eyes closed and that is illogical. It is a moot point at this juncture. There is no fixing this.