I realize that this whole subject makes you really angry. First of all, I'd
like to differentiate between what I think and what the majority of people
around me think. You are correct when you say that you wouldn't like Long
Island much. Well, I think I need to be more specific. Long Island includes
Brooklyn, which is part of New York City, and Nassau and Suffolk Counties.
When I talk about Long Island, I'm referring to Nassau and Suffolk Counties.
There are some extremely wealthy people who live in both counties. And then
there are people who are quite affluent with incomes above $250,000
annually. There are also some poor people living here. By poor, I mean
people who may need to go to food pantries for food, who use food stamps,
who own homes, but have difficulty paying the mortgage and maintaining their
homes, who can't afford adequate medical ccare. Even though it's almost
impossible to function without a car on Long Island, there are people who
don't own cars or whose cars are in such bad repair that they can't keep
appointments or get to work on a regular basis. There are people who've been
unemployed for several years. But then there are the people who aren't
poor, but they're also not affluent. They budget their money. They get
medical care, but within the limits of their particular medical insurance
plans. They go on vacations. They have computers and smart phones. They eat
out in restaurants. The quality of the restaurants at which they eat, the
kind of vacations they take, the quality of medical care, all of this
varies, depending on their income and their individual tastes and
inclinations. But they're not pooor and they're not rich. That's why the
term, middle class, seems to be an accurate descrittion. As far as attitudes
toward the poor are concerned, for as long as I've been reading about this
stuff and been aware of it, for perhaps 55 years, Americans who do not
consider themselves to be poor have looked down on those who are. The
concept that they were taught in books and in films and on TV was that if
you are poor and work hard, you can become rich in America, because America
is a land of opportunity. My guess is that for a lot of folks, the discovery
that this is a fable and that even though they worked hard all their lives,
they haven't become rich, is why they're so angry. But they feel that they
have been cheated and they still believe the fable. So, for them, if you're
poor, it must be because you haven't worked hard enough. Also, most people
in this area think about people of color when they think about poor people.
In other words, they associate the term, "poor people", with only people of
color, even though the statistics don't support this notion.
You asked if I think that I am middle class. Actually, that isn't specific
enough. I'm not poor and while I was working, I had enough money to have
what I wanted, within limits. But financially, I am certainly not
comfortable. I have to be cautious about expenditures and I worry about the
future because my income is slowly diminishing as costs rise and at some
point, I'll need care and I won't be able to afford quality care. The health
care aides are so underpaid and are treated so badly by the agencies that
employ them, that I imagine it will be difficult for me to depend on
consistent good care. But I did work in a professional capacity, have a
graduate degree, and have developed a lifesty; that is related to my
education. I learned to love really good food, classical music, attending
the theater, traveling to see what life is like in different places. I can't
do any of it now, but I did it. Some people would describe that as a middle
class life style. I don't particularly care what label you give it, but
whatever you call it, it was easier to afford those things twenty and more
years ago than it is now. When I was young, the Broadway theater was
affordable. It really isn't now. Traveling 35 miles into Manhattan, eating
in a restaurant, and attending the theater costs hundreds of dollars for one
night, these days. So if I was "middle class" in the 1970's or even the
1990's, I'm not at the ssame point now because society has changed so much.
The other thing that I think is important, is that most people grow up as
part of an ethnic identity, a religious identity, among people whose lives
are like their's. They live in a neighborhood so as children, they play with
other children in that neighborhood and go to school with them. But because
I was visually impaired from birth, I was never really part of that kind of
self identified group. I was an outsider. I attended schools out of my
neighborhood. I attended a recreation program for blind children on
Saturdays in Manhattan where I mingled with children from many different
backgrounds. The only thing we had in common was our disability. So, I've
never really fit neatly into any pigeonhole.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2015 9:50 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Go Ahead, Back Hillary Clinton and Forget All
About Her Record
You only illustrate how meaningless the phrase is. Okay, she is working
class. She doesn't want to say so though. She also exhibits the attitudes
that come with that phrase that make it so repugnant to me.
That only backs up what I have been saying. Most everyone can call
themselves middle class if they want to. It doesn't matter how poor or rich
you are. It may be that historically it has most often been used for people
who have attended higher education and work for a salary rather than wages,
but poor people use it to describe themselves too if they want to appear to
be something apart from what their class backgrounds would have led them
into and likely has led them into and it allows them to think of themselves
as superior. Most of the people I have ever known do not call themselves
middle class and do not make a point of calling themselves by any class
designation unless it is relevant to a conversation specifically about
class. The ones who do call themselves middle class make a point of calling
themselves that whether the conversation is directly related to what class
they might be in or not. Furthermore, they call themselves that to
differentiate themselves from their inferiors. That is exactly what happened
in the conversation you related. She obviously could not credibly call
herself rich and she realizes that the rich have unfair advantages over her
and she resents that. However, she wants to feel superior to someone else
and so she disparages the poor. She disparages them as too stupid to take
their medications. She disparages them as undeserving of medical care at
all. And she makes a point of separating herself from them by claiming to be
middle class. I have noticed that all of my life and you told me that it
must be peculiar to my region. But then you describe exactly the same thing
from a Long Islander. If it is regional it appears to be characteristic to
your region too except that you do not recognize it. I recall the time you
said that most people do not know any poor people as if poor people were not
people. Then when I pointed it out you said that you meant that most middle
class people do not know poor people. Have you ever thought that some of
those middle class people might actually be poor and do not want to admit
it? Do you think of yourself as middle class too and so somehow above and
superior to poor people? Whatever it is you described exactly the kind of
conversation that really grates on my nerves, the kind of conversation in
which a person just has to make a point of being so-called middle class and
at the same time slipping in a derogatory remark about poor people, usually
a stereotype of poor people that has nothing to do with reality. Again, I do
not deny that middle class has some kind of meaning. Literally it is a class
in the middle. That doesn't tell you much, though, because it does not
describe an economic role for members of that class and I can't see that
there is any clear dividing line between middle class and other classes, but
it would, at least, be something in the middle. Every single time I hear
someone describe themselves as middle class, though, they are doing so in
exactly the way this person did. You called her an average Long Islander. I
never spent any time on Long Island myself, but if that is really the
average Long Islander I doubt that I would want to. It is difficult for me
to believe, however, that Long Island is full of nothing but snobs. I
suspect that it would be more accurate to describe her as the average person
who thinks she is middle class whether middle class is actually what she is
or not.
On 10/10/2015 9:07 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Well, I thought a lot about how you and Carl might react to thatpeople to dialysis appointments, and she works in a part-time clerical job
particular phrase. So here I go, one more time, in the twenty first
century, aside from people who are conversant with Marxist theory and
who use its concepts as a way of describing society and our financial
arrangements, most people use the term, "middle class" as a default
description. They are not being specific or thinking about it. They
mean that they're not rich and they are not poor. In the case of this
particular woman, her husband worked in construction before he
retired. I don't know her well enough to know if he was a laborer or
owned a construction business. She did office work and then , I think,
worked in a paralegal job for New York City. So these people were
working people, living in the city, and eventually saved enough money
to purchase a house in a modest suburban neighborhood in Nassau
County. They are active, do volunteer work for their church, driving
People who live on Long Island and who own their own homes, defineof what they have worked so hard to have.
themselves as middle class, regardless of how they make a living or of
the amount of their income. And everything that they see on TV or read
in the papers or hear on the radio, supports that definition. All of
the articles say that strong unions allowed people to move into the
middle class. In my opinion, the problem is not the label that she
uses. It is in her attitude that people who are poor do not work as
hard as she and her husband have worked, that they are irresponsible,
and that society provides for them while people like her are being
left out. I have heard this attitude expressed often, that the rich
and the poor are cared for, but the people in the middle are being cheated
medication?
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2015 8:09 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Go Ahead, Back Hillary Clinton and
Forget All About Her Record
I don't know about average Long Islander, but I notice that your
conversation partner was self identified as middle class. That is
exactly the attitude that I have noticed from people who consider
themselves so-called middle class. Like I have pointed out, it is
mainly a way to regard oneself as superior when it is not credible to
claim to be rich. I bet she would also not want to even contaminate
herself by contact with poor people.
On 10/10/2015 11:54 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Last night I read an article about who rules the world financially.medicaid.
It described all these complicated interlocking organizations, the G
7, the G 10, the G20, the IMF, the World Bank, the World trade
Organization, the International Monetary Fund, etc. After reading all
of this complex mumbo jumbo for a while, I wondered if Bernie isn't
just selling us a beautiful, but impossible dream.
And if we want to know what the average American thinks? Well,
here's a short version of a real conversation between me and an
average Nassau County resident. We were talking about the costs of
medical care and medical insurance.
Average Long Islander: Yes, the system is bad. All the money goes to
the rich. The rich are taken care of and the poor are cared for by
It's us, the middle class, who get the short end.
Me: Well, not all the poor people are cared for by Medicaide. Perhaps
half are. Many aren't covered.
Average Long Islander: Well, the poor! They don't take their
medication half the time anyway.
Me: What do you think happens to them if they don't take their
buddies.Average Long Islander: Oh, they die.strings.
I am not making this up. And her tone of voice indicated that "the
poor" are really not of any real concern.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl
Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2015 11:12 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Go Ahead, Back Hillary Clinton and
Forget All About Her Record
I'm already bending way over backward in supporting Bernie Sanders as
the Democratic Candidate. At least with Bernie there are cracks in
the Empire's protective walls. Sanders could be pushed by popular
pressure, into becoming a People' President. No other candidate with
even a remote chance of winning, can disentangle from their puppet
But we must not go into this campaign with Rose Colored Glasses.move mountains.
Bernie Sanders will only be as good as the pressure brought to bear.
If the Establishment puts the greatest pressure on him, he will most
surely bend their way, despite his personal progressive leanings.
After all, Sanders is a politician. As such, he will work for
consensus over personal ideals.
But at least we have a glimpse into Sanders basic philosophy. We
have no such glimpse into that of any other candidate. Unless being
a mindless parrot is a personal philosophy. If Sanders has enough
support to be successful, we need to remember that he is only a step
in the right direction. He can never be the solution. He has been
swimming in the political Corporate Pool too long to be clean. But
if he can point us in the right direction, and if we can spread some
understanding among the Working Class, we might see the beginning of
the collapse of the Corporate.Military Establishment.
Along with pressuring Sanders to stand with the American People, will
be the need to begin conversation about what form of government we
want to replace the corrupt corporate capitalism now in control. If
we could all spend just as much time each week in serious discussions
as we do in cheering our favorite football team, we would find that
we can
Which reminds me, what time do the Sea Hawks play on Sunday?judgment.
Carl Jarvis
On 10/10/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Go Ahead, Back Hillary Clinton and Forget All About Her Recordbe damned.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/go_ahead_back_hillary_clinton_an
d
_
forget
_all_about_her_record_20151009/
Posted on Oct 9, 2015
By Robert Scheer
Hillary Clinton speaks during a Step It Up for Gender Equality
event in New York City in March. (JStone / Shutterstock) Go ahead
and support Hillary Clinton, those of you for whom having the first
female president is the top priority. She is by far preferable to
Carly Fiorina, though of course no match for likely Green Party
candidate Jill Stein (I know: You want to win). Sen. Elizabeth
Warren, a principled and electable person, is not available, and
political integrity
Just admit that you will be voting for someone to be president of
the world's most powerful nation who has not only been profoundly
wrong on the two most pressing issues of our time-economic injustice
and the ravages of unbridled militarism-but, what is more
significant, seems hopelessly incapable of learning from her
dangerous errors in
Revolution.Like her husband, she is certainly smart enough to avoid advocatingSyria.
what President Obama has aptly termed "stupid stuff." However, the
good intentions of the Clintons are trumped by opportunism every time.
For confirmation of the Margaret Thatcher hawkish side of Clinton,
simply refer to her book "Hard Choices," which clearly is biased
against choosing the more peaceful course and instead betrays a
bellicose posturing that seems to harken back to the Goldwater Girl
days that reflected her earliest political instincts.
What one finds is a litany of macho bleating in defense of bombing
nations into freedom, leaving them fatally torn-Iraq, Afghanistan,
Libya,
Honestly, wasn't Hillary Clinton's record as secretary of state
horridly devoid of accomplishment compared with that of John Kerry,
who achieved long-overdue normalization of relations with Iran and
with Cuba, to name two stunning accomplishments?
But it is in matters of economic policy-driving this election-where
the failure of the Clintons is the most obvious, and where Hillary
Clinton seems to be even less conflicted than her husband in serving
the super rich at the expense of the middle class.
A continued deep deception in such matters was once again on full
display in her major policy statement printed Thursday on Bloomberg.
In an article headlined "My Plan to Prevent the Next Crash," Hillary
began by blaming it all on nefarious Republicans led by President
George W. Bush.
Of course, the Republicans have been terrible in their zeal to
unleash Wall Street greed ever since the moderate Republicanism of
Dwight Eisenhower came to be replaced by its opposite, the Reagan
But the reality is that Ronald Reagan presided over theprimitive pro-Wall Street ideology.
savings-and-loan scandal and as a result was compelled to tighten
banking regulations rather than obliterate them. It remained for
President Clinton, in his patented zeal to obfuscate meaningful
political debate with triangulation, to enshrine into federal law
that
One key piece of that betrayal was the reversal of the New Deal wallshe is elected.
between commercial and consumer banking, codified in the
Glass-Steagall Act, which Franklin Roosevelt had signed into law.
When Bill Clinton betrayed the legacy of FDR by signing the
so-called Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, he handed
the pen used in the signing to a beaming Sandy Weill, whose
Citigroup had breached that wall and commingled the savings of
ordinary folks with the assets of private hustlers-a swindle made
legal by Clinton's approval of the legislation.
Hillary Clinton, in her statement this week, made clear that in
opposition to positions taken by Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren
and even John McCain she will not revive Roosevelt's sensible
restriction if
Instead, Clinton blamed Republicans for the fact that "In the yearsof dollars.
before the crash, as financial firms piled risk upon risk,
regulators in Washington couldn't or wouldn't keep up." How
convenient to ignore that Citigroup, the result of a merger made
legitimate by her husband, was one of the prime offenders in piling
up those risks before taxpayers provided $300 million in relief.
Brooksley Born, a head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
in Clinton's second term, made a heroic effort to regulate the
nefarious marketing of dubious mortgage debt securities until Bill
Clinton betrayed her by signing off on legislation that explicitly
banned any regulation of those suspect mortgage derivatives,
involving many trillions
It was that president's parting gift to the banks but also to his
wife, whose Senate career would come to be lavishly supported by
Wall Street's mega-rich leaders. They are now quite happy to back a
woman for president, as long as it's not someone like Brooksley Born
or Elizabeth Warren who is serious in her concern for the millions
of women whose lives were impoverished by Hillary Clinton's banking
buddies.judgment.be damned.
http://www.truthdig.com/ http://www.truthdig.com/ Go Ahead, Back
Hillary Clinton and Forget All About Her Record
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/go_ahead_back_hillary_clinton_an
d
_
forget
_all_about_her_record_20151009/
Posted on Oct 9, 2015
By Robert Scheer
Hillary Clinton speaks during a Step It Up for Gender Equality event
in New York City in March. (JStone / Shutterstock) Go ahead and
support Hillary Clinton, those of you for whom having the first
female president is the top priority. She is by far preferable to
Carly Fiorina, though of course no match for likely Green Party
candidate Jill Stein (I know: You want to win). Sen. Elizabeth
Warren, a principled and electable person, is not available, and
political integrity
Just admit that you will be voting for someone to be president of
the world's most powerful nation who has not only been profoundly
wrong on the two most pressing issues of our time-economic injustice
and the ravages of unbridled militarism-but, what is more
significant, seems hopelessly incapable of learning from her
dangerous errors in
Revolution.Like her husband, she is certainly smart enough to avoid advocatingSyria.
what President Obama has aptly termed "stupid stuff." However, the
good intentions of the Clintons are trumped by opportunism every time.
For confirmation of the Margaret Thatcher hawkish side of Clinton,
simply refer to her book "Hard Choices," which clearly is biased
against choosing the more peaceful course and instead betrays a
bellicose posturing that seems to harken back to the Goldwater Girl
days that reflected her earliest political instincts.
What one finds is a litany of macho bleating in defense of bombing
nations into freedom, leaving them fatally torn-Iraq, Afghanistan,
Libya,
Honestly, wasn't Hillary Clinton's record as secretary of state
horridly devoid of accomplishment compared with that of John Kerry,
who achieved long-overdue normalization of relations with Iran and
with Cuba, to name two stunning accomplishments?
But it is in matters of economic policy-driving this election-where
the failure of the Clintons is the most obvious, and where Hillary
Clinton seems to be even less conflicted than her husband in serving
the super rich at the expense of the middle class.
A continued deep deception in such matters was once again on full
display in her major policy statement printed Thursday on Bloomberg.
In an article headlined "My Plan to Prevent the Next Crash," Hillary
began by blaming it all on nefarious Republicans led by President
George W. Bush.
Of course, the Republicans have been terrible in their zeal to
unleash Wall Street greed ever since the moderate Republicanism of
Dwight Eisenhower came to be replaced by its opposite, the Reagan
But the reality is that Ronald Reagan presided over theprimitive pro-Wall Street ideology.
savings-and-loan scandal and as a result was compelled to tighten
banking regulations rather than obliterate them. It remained for
President Clinton, in his patented zeal to obfuscate meaningful
political debate with triangulation, to enshrine into federal law
that
One key piece of that betrayal was the reversal of the New Deal wallshe is elected.
between commercial and consumer banking, codified in the
Glass-Steagall Act, which Franklin Roosevelt had signed into law.
When Bill Clinton betrayed the legacy of FDR by signing the
so-called Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, he handed
the pen used in the signing to a beaming Sandy Weill, whose
Citigroup had breached that wall and commingled the savings of
ordinary folks with the assets of private hustlers-a swindle made
legal by Clinton's approval of the legislation.
Hillary Clinton, in her statement this week, made clear that in
opposition to positions taken by Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren
and even John McCain she will not revive Roosevelt's sensible
restriction if
Instead, Clinton blamed Republicans for the fact that "In the yearsof dollars.
before the crash, as financial firms piled risk upon risk,
regulators in Washington couldn't or wouldn't keep up." How
convenient to ignore that Citigroup, the result of a merger made
legitimate by her husband, was one of the prime offenders in piling
up those risks before taxpayers provided $300 million in relief.
Brooksley Born, a head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
in Clinton's second term, made a heroic effort to regulate the
nefarious marketing of dubious mortgage debt securities until Bill
Clinton betrayed her by signing off on legislation that explicitly
banned any regulation of those suspect mortgage derivatives,
involving many trillions
It was that president's parting gift to the banks but also to his
wife, whose Senate career would come to be lavishly supported by
Wall Street's mega-rich leaders. They are now quite happy to back a
woman for president, as long as it's not someone like Brooksley Born
or Elizabeth Warren who is serious in her concern for the millions
of women whose lives were impoverished by Hillary Clinton's banking
tp://www.linkedin.com/company/truthdighttp://truthdig.tumblr.com/http://www.http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/go_ahead_back_hillary_clinton_an
d
_
forget
_all_about_her_record_20151009/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/go_ahead_back_hillary_clinton_an
d
_
forget
_all_about_her_record_20151009/
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d
_
forget
_all_about_her_record_20151009/
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5
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s
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i
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