Silver Spooned

Seen on my last coupla trike rides—two different cars with the bumper sticker Proud to be an America. What the fuck does that even mean? To my mind, this has always sounded like blind jingoistic, unthinking flagwaving. Nothing more than feckless, football fan-esque boosterism.

It’d be one thing, to be Proud to be an American if, through mega adversity and your own personal heroic efforts you managed to immigrate here in order to fulfill a long held dream. I get that this would surely be an achievement to be proud of. But just being born here is nothing to be proud or ashamed of. It is what it is—nothing more than a giant cosmic accident.

What’s the pride bit all about? Is there an implicit accusation in there? Does the bumper stickered car owner feel that, because I’m not  wearing a flag pin, flying the red, white and blue from my porch and *shriek horror* I vote for the dirty hippy takers on the left, that I’m ashamed to be an American?

I’m not ashamed but I AM embarrassed to say that the hate filled, hypocritical, deceit driven, slavering-after-the-one-percenter-dollars, prevarication kings and queens of the “right” wing are, in fact, my fellow Americans.

For those of us born without the silver spoon in our hunger maws—you know, those of us not born in a money patch, any of us who rock coloring other than alabaster, women, gays, anyone else who’s slightly out of the main stream—life is much more of a struggle AND thanks to Reagan/Bush/Bush/Koch Bros and Company shit’s gotten exponentially harder.

Jeff Nesbitt, in US News and World Report, quotes a study by Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page of Princeton and Northwestern Universities.

...the wealthiest, most powerful elites in American society control more than just the levers of finance – they control the terms of public debates, what people care about and, ultimately, what gets acted on at the national level in Congress and the White House.
...snip...
The conclusion? The wealthy move national policy, and average Americans are effectively powerless.

Oligarchy
a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.

We are an oligarchy, not a democracy, now. Depending on your skin color, your gender and/or whether your family rocked the bucks or not, that’s how this country has ALWAYS been. The great, washed yet poor masses have grown and we continue to do so.

Then there’s the article in yesterday’s New York Times:

In 2012, the top 5 percent of earners were responsible for 38 percent of domestic consumption, up from 28 percent in 1995, the researchers found.

The rich are still buying, spending, splurging. Us in the middle? No, not so much.

While spending among the most affluent consumers has managed to propel the economy forward, the sharpening divide is worrying, Mr. Fazzari (researcher at Washington University) said.

“It’s going to be hard to maintain strong economic growth with such a large proportion of the population falling behind,” he said. “We might be able to muddle along — but can we really recover?”

And the places where those of us in the middle shop?

Sears and J. C. Penney, retailers whose wares are aimed squarely at middle-class Americans, are both in dire straits. Last month, Sears said it would shutter its flagship store on State Street in downtown Chicago, and J. C. Penney announced the closings of 33 stores and 2,000 layoffs.
Loehmann’s, where generations of middle-class shoppers hunted for marked-down designer labels in the famed Back Room, is now being liquidated after three trips to bankruptcy court since 1999.

When I shop, it’s at Sears. I don’t want to shop at Walmart or those other employee abusing, all Chinese cheap product buying, big box, screw-the-poor-but-not-until-after-you’ve-taken-their-last-dime emporiums. For that matter, I’d rather shop at a local independently owned store for everything I need but rents, the price of doing biz is so far out of the average person’s ability that non chain clothing, appliance and kitchen goods joints are almost completely a thing of the past.

And on the subject of rents, as long as I'm ranting, they are just insane. Mind, they always felt that way to me but now, they’re astronomical.

In the decidedly unposh Boston neighborhood where The Amazing Bob and I lived for a lot of years, a two bedroom now goes for $ 2-3,000 PER MONTH! Got a family? Need a four bedroom? $3,700 and these aren’t swank doorman buildings either.

In East Cambridge, where TAB and I shared digs with Jen and Oni? A small two bedroom goes for over three grand each and every month. Eleven years ago, TAB and I payed $900 a month for our comfortably sized crib.

Then there’s the low end rents of the elegant Back Bay area where a wee, no bedroom, studio flat starts at around $1,750.

Here in Quincy, a two bed rents for, between, $1300 and $2,000

We’re NOT one of the opulent, pricey suburbs either. Sheesh!

Who can afford this shit? We, TAB, Jen, Oni and I were priced out of Boston/Cambridge. Though we found Valhalla, I surely resent that we were unable to afford to stay in the town that was our home.

Still Proud to be an American? WAKE THE FUCK UP! The obscenely rich have gamed the system so that they become even MORE obscenely rich while the rest of us struggle massively, fight amongst ourselves over their scraps and leavings and become ever less able to survive.

It has always been the scheme of the “right” wing to pit the middle class against the poors. Great plan. Keeps us too busy with internecine horseshit to notice that we’re being robbed blind by our “betters.”

A vote for a republican is a vote against your own needs and, most assuredly. it’s a vote against the needs of the vast majority of the American people.

WAKE UP!