Category Archives: Random Blogging

Uncomfortable Questions, Depressing Answers

In a recent INforefront post, James Madison asked some uncomfortable questions about the role class distinctions play in (theoretically classless) America.

Does the Land of the Free have class distinctions? Are such distinctions inevitable? Defensible?

American notions of class aren’t grounded in lineage and tradition—at least, not to the extent they are elsewhere. Class in America gets confused with concepts of meritocracy and echoes of Calvinism, the belief that earthly success was a sign of God’s favor and one’s  “chosen-ness.”

The conviction that material wealth was evidence of moral merit was accompanied by the conclusion that poverty must signal moral defect. Over the years, these doctrinal roots of our belief in the comparative worth of rich and poor was lost, subsumed into a secular, class-based proposition: poor folks are lazy “takers” who lack “middle-class values.”

In a culture that celebrates (fast-disappearing) meritocracy and social mobility, it’s easy to conclude that poverty is a result of class-based attitudes and characteristics. And of course, if you’re privileged, it’s satisfying to attribute your good fortune to individual merit rather than the fact you were born (with the “right” race, religion, gender and sexual orientation) into a family with the wherewithal to feed, clothe, educate and endow you.

These attitudes foster policies that favor the fortunate, diminish the middle class, and make social mobility virtually impossible for the working poor.

There will always be winners and losers. There will always be some people who work harder than others, who are smarter or more entrepreneurial and deserve to do better. But a society that confuses individual worth with money and social status is a class-based society.

Right now, unfortunately, that describes America.

Comments

Words Fail….Again

NOTE: HAVING INTERNET PROBLEMS. HERE’S TOMORROW’S BLOG. IF YOU DON’T HEAR FROM ME FOR A DAY OR SO, I’M WORKING ON MY ACCESS….

This post from DailyKos mirrors two others I’ve seen, reporting the response of several Texans (!) to the use of a term derived from Arabic to describe a dust storm.

  • Hateful hubbub arises over haboob. The word, from the Arabic for “strong wind,” and, in particular, a dust storm in North Africa or the Arabian peninsula, has been used by meteorologists to describe such storms in the United States since the 1950s. But after KCBD News Channel 11 in Lubbock, Texas, posted a photo on its Facebook page with the caption “Haboob headed toward Lubbock,” some Texans went crazy:

“Since when do we need to apply a Muslim vocabulary to a good ole AMERICAN dirt storm?? …I take great offense to such terminology! GO BACK TO CALLING THEM DIRT STORMS!!”

“It’s called a dust storm..Texas is not a rag head country.”

“Never had a haboob until we got that Muslim boob for POTUS.” […]

America is doomed.

If this were an isolated instance, or even limited to Texas, it would be embarrassing, but this sort of assholery is everywhere. Including Congress.

It’s bad enough that people are this ignorant and bigoted; that they feel compelled to publicly express that ignorance and bigotry is really more than I can take.

Comments

I Yield My Space

Paul Krugman’s column on The Dog Whistle deserves to be read by anyone and everyone who professes bafflement over today’s incoherent politics.

The only thing he omits is a discussion of the degree to which anti-Obama fervor is motivated by the color of this President’s skin. But then, that phenomenon is hard to miss for anyone who isn’t willfully ignoring it.

I can’t add anything to Krugman’s dead-on analysis. Go read it.

Comments

An Exercise in Restraint….

The other night, at a dinner party, I practiced biting my tongue. Hard.

One of the couples present was visiting from Texas, and they looked—and drawled—the  part. Forgive me the stereotype, but if you’ve ever wondered who in the world votes for people like Rick Perry or Louis Gohmert, I think I know…

Parties aren’t the place for unpleasant behaviors, so I actually participated in two conversations: one verbalized, one in my head.

After some general chatter from those present about the unusually brutal winter, the wife smirked, “I guess that shows those liberals who are always talking about global warming!”

I was quiet.

I didn’t say, you twit. It’s climate change, and the escalation of unusual weather patterns is precisely what “those liberals” have been warning about.

A few minutes later, someone mentioned news coverage, and the wife once again spoke up. “I never watch NBC or CBS or—of course—MSNBC. I watch Fox, because Fox gives both sides.”

I choked. “Really?” I said mildly, wondering what my blood pressure might be.

I didn’t say, I guess you aren’t aware of all those studies showing that Fox audiences know less than people who don’t watch any news at all. (My husband, sitting across the table, later shared that he’d barely suppressed the impulse to tell her he prefers Al Jazeera. I would have given a lot to see her reaction….)

I remained pleasantly noncommittal when she speculated that Pakistani Muslims had probably hijacked the missing plane.

At that point, everyone at the table became aware of the husband, who had stopped explaining to a couple from London why “the King’s English” isn’t really proper English, in order to pontificate about America’s descent into socialism. After sneering about “those people” who were “going through” the assets of the entrepreneurs and “makers” who had earned them, he let out a knowing sigh. “They’ll never learn.”

I asked him—sweetly—what he’d done prior to his retirement. He’d worked for government.

You know—the institution that pays its employees with tax money that has been extorted from the makers.

I murmured something about a migraine…so sorry…and left.

My jaw should unclench in a day or so.

 

Comments

Walking and Talking

In a speech last week in Washington, D.C., New Jersey Governor Chris Christie sang from the Republican playbook in criticizing President Obama’s recent economic interventions.

“We don’t have an income inequality problem,” Christie blustered. “We have an opportunity problem in this country because government’s trying to control the free market. We need to talk about the fact that we’re for a free-market society that allows your effort and your ingenuity to determine your success, not the cold, hard hand of government determining winners and losers.”

Aside from the somewhat bizarre assertion that we don’t have an inequality problem, most Americans (this one included) would agree with that basic assertion. Assuming a level regulatory playing field—a set of rules ensuring that everyone “plays fair”—the market should be the arbiter of business success and failure. We regularly quibble over the need for some of those rules, but it’s a rare politician or citizen (Republican or Democrat) who advocates government control over the economy.

Of course, there’s talking the talk and there’s walking the walk.

After his speech, Christie returned to New Jersey and signed off on a government regulation that blocks Tesla from selling its cars in the state. According to Slate Magazine,

The rule change prohibits automakers from selling directly to consumers, as Tesla does. Instead, it requires them to go through franchised, third-party dealerships, as the big, traditional car companies do. In other words, it requires that the middle-men get their cut. The Christie Administration made the move unilaterally, via the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission. It was urged on by lobbyists for the state’s existing car dealerships, which fear the competition. The upshot is that Tesla will be forced to stop selling cars at its two existing dealerships in the state, and drop its plans to build more. It’s unclear what will happen to the employees of those dealerships.

There’s socialism, and then there’s corporatism and crony capitalism.

There’s rhetoric, and then there’s reality.

Comments