> But I ask you, has a qualitatively new stage of
> degeneration been breached?
Yes, it has.
Late last year, we grad workers at the UI went on a two-day strike, which we won, thanks to great turnout and solid community outreach. But I noticed something interesting when I was marching with my fellow grads on the picket lines: a toughness in our faces, a kind of beaten-downness, if you will. Because of the years of working 80-hour weeks for pitiful pay. Because of the knowledge that the jobs just aren't there anymore.
The rot and ruination have reached the point that even elite scholars at top-tier, billion-dollar research universities are hanging on by our long-since-proletarianized fingernails.
US, meet USSR.
-- DRR