[lbo-talk] Middle Class

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

Turbulo:
>  Maybe it's been so long sinch such an event has taken place that we
>tend to forget they ever happened. But progress will never happen 
>unless large numbers of people disabuse themselves of backward 
>ideas. And the notion that they are middle class is one of the most 
>backward and paralysing ideas American workers are beset with. It is 
>embedded in many other reactionary notions--that money and social 
>status are an indications of personal worth, and that the social 
>hierarchy is therefore legitimate, for instance. But it is also 
>deeply implicated in notions of race. White poor people think 
>they're midddle class because they're not part of the underclass, 
>which happens to be guess what.There is nothing to be gained by 
>capitulating to backwa! rd consciousness.

That reminds me of an old joke from the Solidarnosc era that Poland is a
nation of 36 million traitors and one true patriot, General Jaruzelski.  

I feel your pain over people fooling themselves with delusions and falling
prey to elite machinations.  That is terrible, but hey, such is life.  That
has always been the case since the beginning of recorded history, and it is
unlikely to change any time soon.  Many tried, but noone succeeded.  Perhaps
it is a part of the human nature.  At the same time, the much more modest
social democratic goals of creating prosperity through social safety nets
did succeed - so I will stick with social democracy.  You can keep your
revolution.

Wojtek