They're storming the castles in Connecticut. I heard a teaser for this on local TV last night, but this is the first article I've found about it. Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, a non-profit advocacy organization led a march on the CEO side of the tracks in Stamford. Some people are getting just a little pissed off about the CEO class living more than comfortably while so many are losing their homes. Now we're talking!
Fiscal conservatives love to scream, "Class warfare! Envy!" if you so much as approach the subject of increasing economic inequality, the shredded safety net or any form of economic injustice with them. Well, it looks they're finally right. It took long enough. Americans are amazingly not resentful of the wealth of others. At least until very recently. Estates and mansions were fun and interesting to drive past and look at. Likewise yachts and exotic cars. We'd read about their extravagant lifestyles and be entertained. Americans don't mind of some people have more than they do, as long as we're basically doing OK themselves or at least think it's within our power to do better. When you put more and more pressure on the middle class to the point when staying or becoming middle class becomes too much of a reach for a critical mass of people....well, then you've got Trouble with a capital "T".
Maybe our problem is not class warfare, but that we've had way too little class warfare in the last few decades. This kind of economic climate should have some castle dweller laying in supplies in case the masses decide on a seige. After all, if you have no job and no prospects you have plenty of time.
As for me, I just want some of the 'salary limited to $500K' bailout pie! :-)
ReplyDeleteWell, yes. That would be nice. Actually, just one year of that kind of limitations would fix us up pretty well.
ReplyDeleteThe class war has been lost. It's nothing to see poor people as the butt of jokes. I mean just look at how the news maligned ACORN, a nonprofit dedicated to lifting the lives of the poor.
ReplyDeleteIf I have any hope, it comes in monitoring the cultural trends in China. Apparently, a generation of misanthropes have reproduced philanthropists.
Jury's out for America.
Oh, and Katrina.
ReplyDeleteWell, it was lost, no question, but I'm pinning my hopes on the possibility that wretched excess of the kleptocracy has finally gone too far for people to tolerate. To the barricades!!!!
ReplyDeleteyour tone reminds me of this...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.freewebs.com/mrfornale/6neLiberty.jpg
So THANK YOU! ;-)