Happy to Be Serfs
I was wondering what the vibe would be like at this October’s “VICMEAD 2011 Fuck YEAH!” the annual DEGOP cocktail party/Cotillion/”Doesn’t Pete DuPont look amazing for 105 years old?”
What with all the teabags crashing the party and acting like Avery Scheiber at the Opera. I was picturing Copeland’s monocle falling into his chapagne cocktail. Old broads clutching their pearls and fainting into the koi pond.
Then I read this from Digby, and it occured to me that Teabags and the old hags of the GOP can really coexist in peace and harmony. Not just at “Vicmead 2011 Fuck Yeah!” but for well into the future.
Please someone tell me again about how the Tea Partiers are populists. I’m watching on of their spokesmen on MSNBC go on and on about how the rich pay all the taxes and it’s time for the 50% of American slackers who don’t pay anything to kick in to solve the debt crisis.
“I know a lot of people and I don’t know even one who has a corporate jet. I do know that wealthy people create jobs. I’ve never worked for a poor man or a poor woman. They’ve all provided me with a good living.”
If you’re looking for them to bring in the guillotines, you’re going to be waiting awhile. They are very happy to be serfs.
Is Pete DuPont Delawares version of Ron Raygun? serious question, sorta
Welcome to the new GOP. The Great Unwashed have arrived. Any poor Dems care to join?
“Any poor Dems care to join?”
That’s how we GOT in this situation.
Delbert: Sure. Just as soon as you explain how “conservative” policies can help the middle class. We’ve been following those policies for 30 years now and we have greatly enriched the upper crust while the middle class — what’s left of it — has had stagnant wages. Then you can explain why unfettered business will be better for the “great unwashed” than government protection from unfettered business would be. And so forth.
In other words, only those of us who suffer disabling head injuries will be signing up anytime soon. Get back to me when you identify the real source of our problems. I’ll be at the first rally you hold at a hedge-fund manager’s mansion.
I thought I was hot stuff exactly 30 years ago when I landed a union pipefitting job for $8.60 per hour plus 50 cents “cost of living”. An older worker on the job who was used to making that wage told me: “It’s not how much you make. It’s how much you spend.” He was definitely right on that one. And I guess that’s pretty much our difference. The Dems want to throw money at the working class and welfare class, and the GOP wants them to work and save their way up.
the GOP also wants to make it easier for the rich to take their money, buy the elections, take away worker’s rights, and poison our air food and water.
Delbert, if the GOP platform was simply “work hard and do well” i could support it… but what it does is strip away protections from evil doers and slime balls and makes it impossible for people to be successful without first starting out with lots and lots of money. do you support that idea?
What “protections from evil doers and slime balls” does the Dem platform promote that the GOP doesn’t? And don’t you really mean “make it easier for the rich to KEEP their money?” The rich can’t “buy elections”, or we wouldn’t have Obama in the oval office paying off his debts to the unions.
the Citizens United SCOTUS decision would beg to differ. and for the record, i dont like unions using their money to influence elections any more than i like the Koch bors doing it. I support unions because there has to be balance.
riddle me this. how did the rich GET their money? by other hard working people working FOR them and paying for their product. no one makes a fortune completely on their own and they have a responsibility to not horde all the money so others cant be successful.
The only people in this country who have a fighting chance at success are those born into wealth, or those willing to suck the ass of the wealthy until their bread crumbs add up to a decent living.
Normal people’s income has not increased at the same rate as CEO pay, management pay, cost of living, or inflation. The Dem platform looks to fix that.. to level the playing feild. The GOP is happy letting the richest among us run away with all the money, or spend it on cheap slave labor in china making poison toys.
I have no problem with fiscal responsibility, but as soon as free open markets leads to a system in which no matter how hard YOU work, you dont advance until some suit decides he’s made enough millions this year, it is broken.
How does it feel to have you fate controlled by an unelected person who’s name you may never know. is THAT democracy? is THAT freedom?
Maybe the 46% who don’t pay any taxes can break away from the Jerry Springer show and stop by. Maybe the hack food critic and loser radio host can stop by.
You mercedes marxists are so crazy, angry and jealous at everyone.
delaware is such a crappy place and the D’s are in charge of it all.
“Maybe the 46% who don’t pay any taxes ”
You mean General Electric?
Pay no attention to this Protack sockpuppet.
Actually – Digby did the math for all you liberals who have to hear this bullshit “50% pay no income taxes crap”
50% of the people who pay no taxes are in two earner families but still mak less than $26,400 so standard deductions reduce their taxable income to zero.
22% of the people who pay no federal income tax are on Social Security which isn’t taxable income. and,
15% of the people who pay no income taxes use earned income tax credit, the child credit, and the childcare credit account to bring their income down to the zero effective tax rate.
Talk about being angry and jealous. That Protack sock puppet is jealous of people making $26k
those people should volunteer to have more shitty lives to he can have another tax (welfare for conservatives) cut. how dare someone suggest he give back to the nation that has given him so much.
Hey Welfare Ben: The rich got their money and position to make money as a reward for hard work and calculated risks that worked out well. There are millions of would-have-beens out there whose risks didn’t work out, or who REFUSED TO TAKE THE RISK. I had a grandfather who was one. Ever seen those freeze-proof outside water faucets that have the actual valve buried in the ground beneath the freeze line? He invented it with a work mate, but refused to take the financial risk of production. Signed off on it with a handshake. The work mate patented, produced, and marketed them and made the small fortune. He took the risk and was rewarded. No hard feelings between the families.
The greatest thing about this country is that anybody with any level of education can do it. You walk into the Delaware Division of Revenue office with photo ID and $75, and you will walk out with a business license good for the calender year no matter who you are. Don’t even have to be a US citizen. It’s trough-feeders like you who think the world owes them a job with pay that suits that are the dreamers. Labor is a commodity, mister. And money is a wealth storage vehicle for the rich and poor alike.
Nice fairy story, but the notion that there is economic mobility in this county is a bigger lie with each passing day.
As Republican policies have been implemented over the past 30 years, opportunities for “anybody” to work, save and risk their way to the American dream have been shut down. I could link to all the data, but you’d never look at it.
If you looked at it, you’d think it was the work of atheists.
hehehe it callled me “mister”
while we are comparing dick sizes for hard worksman ship, i work 65 hours a week. 1 full time job with awesome benefits….. maybe better than “the job i deserve” and 2 part time jobs. Im working very hard to save so I can buy a house on my own. you know, bootstraps and whatnot….. although thanks to Free Market legislation, i can live with the knowledge that my mortgage can be spilt up and the bank can take my house even if im up to date on the payments because as you say “any american can .. whatever:”
This is why the country is doomed. I make a statement like “we should use the government to level the playing field to stop rich people from taking advantage of poor people” and you lash out with some right wing foamy mouthed tirade about freezer valves and how i think you should be paying for hooker-abortions.
Every single thing you accuse or allege the progressive want to use the government to do is ALREADY BEING DONE by private companies that YOU have no control over.
Im not saying i deserve anything else. Im not saying any of this for me. Im saying it for the people who arent lucky pricks than managed to get all the work I have. But ya know what? if ALL my taxes i pay each week went away and i got to “keep mah’ hard earned ‘merican money” it would JUST cover 1 months rent. I’d rather a little more money went to make sure i live in an educated nation. That if someone “workin hard for themseves” decided to “take the financial risk” of firing me to increase the money available for them, that there is a safety net so i dont turn to crime.
you people and your selfish bullshit.
The worst part of it is, when YOU need the help, you will demand it…. and dont worry, all us evil progressives will be there ready to help you back up.
Mister!
Labor blowhards and crybabies were saying the same thing you are saying 30 years ago when unions were at their peak. It’s all just as doable now as it was then. There’s even room for selective manufacturing since Clinton pushed through NAFTA. The only problem I see is laziness. I’ve seen so many who make “enough” when times are good, and feel licensed to slack off instead of working harder and stuffing the bank account. Now they’re all broke, and crying like you are in the hard times, Jason.
Was your grandpa afraid to leave his job and persue his invention because he didn’t want to lose the health benefits he had for him, your grandma, and your parent?
Sounds like a pretty decent argument for goverment healthcare. You could have been the next Paris Hilton!
Also it’s kind of shitty to insinuate that poor people don’t work hard. Please see the book Nickled and Dimed to learn about how many people below the poverty line work 40+ hours a week and why (despite their hard work and smarts) it’s diffcult to get out of a cycle of paycheck to paycheck.
It does not take long to get to the core wingnut fallacy does it. The “just-world” fallacy is the wingnut’s security blanket. It protects them from thinking.
There is a safety net if you get fired, Ben. It’s called unemployment insurance. And it’s been paying better lately than it ever has. And you already have an “educated nation”. Every kid gets K-12 school free in this nation, even if they are not socially fit to be in a barnyard. You get it all here. The only thing they can not teach is DESIRE. And the only “selfish bullshit” I’m writing is that I don’t think alms and other people’s wealth should be GIVEN to you or me or anyone else.
it isnt free dude. you pay for it with TAXES!!!! YYYAAAYYY unemployment insurance isnt a HANDOUT it is something you pay in to and use it when you need it. And this is a very poorly educated nation. on of the worst in the industrialized world, and while i know conservatives dont value education and are worried about snakes offering apples….. we are getting left behind because we are pushing this idea that only people who earn it should get higher education. and by “deserve” i OF COURSE mean “can afford” we should be offering everyone as much schooling as they want so they can provide for our society at their full potential.
get’s school for free.. that really gets me. do you know more teachers have been fired because selfish bastards dont want to pay an extra 10 dollars a year in taxes cause “my kid aint in school there” it isnt all about YOU YOU YOU. it is about the community and the nation as a whole. If you dont like participating, i dare you to REALLY remove yourself from all the things that are done as a society. i dare you. i dont think you have the skills, smarts, or stones (sorry pandora… i needed the sexist remark to complete my literation) to do it.
“There is a safety net if you get fired, Ben. It’s called unemployment insurance. ”
UI doesn’t work if your job was one of the many that were dubiously converted to contractor status. Or if your employer lies about firing you for cause. Or if you didn’t work enough weeks before getting fired. And probably other silly reasons which I am fortunate not to know about.
V: On the freeze-proof valve thing, my grandfather would have had to mortgage out everything and put up what he had saved. I think it was back in the 1930’s when a lot of farms didn’t even have electric and pressurized water yet. He had a job as a plumber at the Experimental Station for Dupont that he would not have had to give up. Just borrow to pay for patent, production, etc. I don’t think it would have put us quite to the Hilton level (wealth). I do know that a lot of big companies tried to break that patent. Couldn’t be done.
I AM “participating”, Ben. As a landowner/taxpayer with no kids I shell out for property taxes every Sept.30th and don’t complain. It’s just that ketchup IS a vegetable as far as these free lunches go. And why would I “remove” myself from society just because I disagree with some tax or spending policy? I like participating, even in times like now when I’m not making much and the trough-feeders are still ringing the register with a check every Friday or monthly. I just hang in there and try to figure how/when I can make it better. Maybe that’s what you should do instead of crying for gov.handouts for everyone that doesn’t want to sacrifice and work for it.
wow, you are getting feisty aren’t you.
your argument is still based on “all those other jerks dont deserve shit BUT ILL TAKE CARE OF MINE!!!” What a sick, sad philosophy. you have no idea what other people’s situation is and it is not your place to pass judgment.
The saddest part is, the party you are supporting, supports a system that give the very hand outs you HATE to rich corporations. NOT people. The companies get propped up no matter hoe badly the screw up and the people running them are absolved of PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for the stupid mistakes they made…. THEN the people who actually are effected by decisions they did not make are called “trough feeders” by holier-than-though compassionless bastards like you.
Oh, delbert…I think I’m in love…
FINALLY, a voice of reason in a den of apologists with no concept of the fact that people have what they have because of the decisions they’ve made in their lives – good or bad, and that it’s no one’s responsibility to fix others’ problems and no one’s right to take from others to make life a little easier for those who took the easy way out.
Really, Dominique, how do children born with debilitating diseases and/or special needs make “decisions” that result in their conditions? Exactly, how does that work?
Dominique is a talented writer, but what she writes is mostly fiction and comedy. Once you understand that about her, she is easy to love.
All this rugged individualism runs aground when you apply it to one real world problem. Take teen pregnancies. There is clearly choice, but societies that acknowledge that the state has a legitimate roll in providing information have lower teen birth rates and fewer downstream social costs associated with unwanted pregnancies.
sins of the father, DG. if their parents hadnt been fornicating liberals, the kids would be healthy. it is their fault for not being aborted.
SB, that might be it. Those children “decided” not to spontaneously abort themselves. It’s their fault.