With all due respect, I continue to consider all of us who are not
members in good standing of the Ruling Class, to be members of the
Working Class. Unless we are homeless or chronically unemployed,
which would put us in the Lower Class.
Middle implies halfway between something and something else. In the
economic structure of the American Empire, there is no "Middle"
anything.
My wife and I earned, back in the early 1990's, a bit over $100,000
per year between us. So $100,000 would put us mid way between
$000,000 and $200,000. But in order to be midway between $000,000,000
and $100,000,000, we would need to come in around $50,000,000.
Middle Class is just another make believe term that soothes the Soul,
but means absolutely nothing.
But hey! All of the rest of you can call it anything you want,
because the fact of the matter is that all of us who are not members
in good standing in the Ruling Class are owned by one or more members
of that Ruling Class.
Remember, when you get set to disagree, a Monkey on a golden chain is
just as much of a prisoner as a Monkey on an Iron chain.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/20/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Clueless and Shameless: Joe Biden, Staggering Frontrunner
By Norman Solomon, Reader Supported News
20 June 19
Joe Biden just put a spotlight on his mindset when he explicitly refused to
apologize for fondly recalling how the Senate "got things done" with
"civility" as he worked alongside some of the leading racist lawmakers of
the 20th century. For Biden, the personal is the political; he knows that
he's virtuous, and that should be more than good enough for African
Americans, for women, for anyone.
"There's not a racist bone in my body," Biden exclaimed Wednesday night,
moments after demanding: "Apologize for what?" His deep paternalism
surfaced
during the angry outburst as he declared: "I've been involved in civil
rights my whole career, period, period, period."
Biden has been "involved" in civil rights his "whole career" all right. But
at some crucial junctures, he was on the wrong side. He teamed up with
segregationist senators to oppose busing for school desegregation in the
1970s. And he played a leading role - while pandering to racism with a
shameful Senate floor speech - for passage of the infamous 1994 crime bill
that fueled mass incarceration.
Such aspects of Biden's record provide context for his comments this week -
praising an era of productive "civility" with the virulent segregationist
Dixiecrat senators Herman Talmadge of Georgia and James Eastland of
Mississippi (known as the "Voice of the White South"), who often called
black people "an inferior race."
Said Biden at a New York fundraiser Tuesday night: "Well guess what? At
least there was some civility. We got things done. We didn't agree on much
of anything. We got things done. We got it finished."
To Biden, any assessment of his past conduct that clashes with his high
self-regard is unfair; after all, he really means well. On the campaign
trail now, his cloying paternalism is as evident as his affinity for
wealthy
donors.
Biden shuttles between the billionaire class and the working class - funded
by the rich while justifying the rich to everyone else. His aspirations are
bound up in notions of himself as comforter-in-chief.
"I get it, I get it," Biden said during his brief and self-adulatory
non-apology video in early April to quiet the uproar over his invasive
touching of women and girls. He was actually saying: I get it that I need
to
seem to get it.
"I want to talk about gestures of support and encouragement that I've made
to women and some men that have made them uncomfortable," Biden said in the
video. "In my career I've always tried to make a human connection - that's
my responsibility, I think. I shake hands, I hug people, I grab men and
women by the shoulders and say, 'You can do this' . It's the way I've
always
been. It's the way I've tried to show I care about them and I'm listening."
Weeks later, appearing on ABC's "The View," he declared: "I have never in
my
life, never, done anything in approaching a woman that has been other than
trying to bring solace." It was not a credible claim; consider Lucy Flores,
or the countless other women and girls he has intrusively touched over the
years.
For several decades, Biden has made his way through the political terrain
as
a reflexive glad-hander. But times have changed a lot more than he has.
"What the American people do not know yet is whether Biden has actually
internalized any of the blowback he's earned over the years for his
treatment of women," journalist Joe Berkowitz wrote last week. "So far,
it's
not looking good."
What's also looking grim is Biden's brazen adoration of wealthy elites who
feed on corporate power. His approach is to split the rhetorical difference
between the wealthy and the workers. And so, days ago, at a fundraiser
filled with almost 180 donors giving his campaign the legal limit of $2,800
each - an event where he tried and failed to get funding from a pro-Trump
billionaire - Biden declared: "You know, you guys are great but Wall Street
didn't build America. You guys are incredibly important but you didn't
build
America. Ordinary, hard-working, middle-class people given half the chance
is what built America."
The formula boils down to throwing the "hard-working middle class" some
rhetorical bones while continuing to service "you guys" on Wall Street.
Given his desire to merely revert the country to pre-Trump days, no wonder
Biden keeps saying that a good future can stem from finding common ground
with Republicans. But for people who understand the present-day GOP and
really want a decent society, Biden's claims are delusional.
Biden sees his public roles of winking patriarch, civility toward racists,
and collaborator with oligarchs as a winning political combination. But if
he becomes the Democratic presidential nominee, Biden will suppress turnout
from the party's base while providing Republicans with plenty of effective
(albeit hypocritical) fodder. Already the conservative press is salivating
over the transparently fraudulent pretenses of Lunch Bucket Joe, as in this
headline Tuesday in the right-wing Washington Examiner: "Biden Rubs Elbows
With Billionaires in $34M Penthouse."
When Bernie Sanders (who I continue to actively support) denounces the
political power of billionaires and repeats his 2020 campaign motto - "Not
Me. Us." - it rings true, consistent with his decades-long record. But
Biden
can't outrun his own record, which is enmeshed in his ongoing mentality.
And
so, the former vice president is in a race between his pleasant image and
unpleasant reality.
As the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, Joe Biden is
the biggest threat to Joe Biden's political future. He continues to be who
he has been, and that's the toxic problem.
Email This Page
Norman Solomon is cofounder and national coordinator of RootsAction.org. He
was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 Democratic
National Convention and is currently a coordinator of the relaunched
independent Bernie Delegates Network. Solomon is the author of a dozen
books
including War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to
Death.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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