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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (25530)	1/21/2004 2:21:23 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793742

Now you have insulted the working class and stereotyped them as well. I thought I used enough qualifiers and nuance to avoid doing that. I'm sorry if I offended. Social classes have always been characterized by income and by social traits. Look in any beginning sociology textbook. That doesn't mean that everyone in the group conforms, only that those traits generally define the group. You'll find lots of working class people who are putting in time on the job only until they can save enough to start their own businesses. Conversely, you'll find people with formal educations and well-paying jobs who are just punching the clock, joining the union, and living from paycheck to paycheck. I saw a lot of them when I was working for Uncle Sam. Some of the most literate people I have known have had no formal education to speak of or have worked with their hands because it satisfied them. I'm not trying to stigmatize anyone, just to make a point about the risk to the middle class, which I agree must be viable for us to be successful as a country. [For the record, I come from the working class. My dad was a construction laborer, aka a ditchdigger, when he was able to get work, and my mom was a part time salesclerk, later worked in a corrugated board factory. My parents spent their honeymoon on a picket line. The union boss wasn't very sentimental. <g>] We have both upward and downward mobility in this country. The middle class members that are most at risk for downward mobility IMO are the clock punchers, particularly the clock punchers with artificially high wages. IMO, these populist pitches we've been hearing are defeatist. I don't like defeatist--it's not constructive. Constructive is about empowerment. It pains me to see politicians affirm people's notion that they are pawns, even more when they try to make the pawns doubly dependent, both on their employers and then on the politicians. A brief anecdote. There were a couple of carpenters in my home recently from the big firm employed by my condo, immigrants with pretty good English. They were patching a squirrel hole under the eaves. After they finished their work, one of them chatted me up about home prices in my neighborhood. Home prices are high all around here and I was a bit surprised when he presented himself as a serious buyer given his employment, but he was eager and had clearly been doing his homework so I assume he was not just wasting his time and mine. I gave him a few hints on where the value was in my development. Now there was a guy who wouldn't let anyone tell him he's a pawn.