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Recipe to deconstruct the Middle Class - A modest strategy - a humble proposal
This entry was posted on 3/8/2011 1:30 AM and is filed under New Normal, Classical Conditioning, Assignment of Meaning, Unemployment Hell, Great recession, Banality as evil, Economic Hell, Wrecking American life for no good reason.
The American Middle Class needs to be put to rest now. The social and economic class that funded and facilitated the 45 year Cold War with its taxes, labor, and military age males has worn out its welcome...and its usefulness.
The Left sees the Middle Class as a huge segment of American society that sucks up natural resources, pollutes everything it encounters, and devours public funds out of the greater collective. And this observation by the Left is accurate. The Right sees the Middle Class as a population that needs to be reigned in, manipulated, and coerced to work in the "new norm" of benefitless, part-time, low paid jobs. They need to have their wasted potentials harvested and they should be punitively discouraged from their propensity to drift toward excessive leisure and hedonism. And the Right has their point. Both political sides see the Middle Class as needing to be handed their comeuppances, re-engineered, cut down to size, and to be put in their proper place in the current era.
The deconstruction of the Middle Class is well underway as we speak - it has been for some time. The process is a slow one, methodical, and the purveyors of the task must be diligent.
Some of the elements of continued dismantling of said social and economic class are as follows:
Their once lucrative jobs need to be taken away from them. Sending those jobs to China and elsewhere overseas has been a good remedy for the last few years. Those once living-wage jobs should not be replaced in America, but if replaced, options should include part-time, benefitless, meritless labor.
The undermining of their once massive benefit and entitlement culture is essential. For example, the ending of their sick time, vacation time, health insurance, and retirement. This can easily be facilitated by demoting the entire class to "new norm" part-time, and underemployed worker status.
Make their higher education useless. Once what was thought of as the good jobs are diminished, the replacement "new norm" job culture should have less need for educated workers. Further burden the former Middle Class hopefuls by miring them in overwhelming college tuition debt that will hinder them for the rest of their lives. This will be debt that was used to purchase an education that is now virtually useless.
Also, make it harder for them to declare bankruptcy.
Restrict their travel by raising transportation fuel prices beyond comfortable management with said lower income careers.
Remove their ability to own homes and land. Locking them in underemployed jobs for any foreseeable future is probably one of the best ways to keep the downward class out of property ownership.
Ensconce their children in a culture of no-tolerance laws that burden them with rules violations that embroil them in punitive measures such as drivers license revocation and student loan rejection. This makes it harder for them to start out in adult life. Make this cadre of Middle Class children compete for "new norm" jobs with the downsized older worker generation, keeping said youth preoccupied with the toils of daily living and at odds with their parents and guardians.
The news media at large needs to be enlisted to confuse the masses with contradictory cynical news. For example, it was recently proclaimed "The Great Recession" ended in June of 2009. At the same time, the many states and news outlets maintain the American system is financially broke. This type of contradictory information is relatively easy to place in a viral fashion.
Also make public, constant threats of plans to take away their social security and old age benefits. And segueing off this strategy, it should be repeated over and over by multiple sources, that any unpreparedness for old age is the individual's own fault.
Send them, their children, brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers to fight in multiple mysterious, endless and perceived unwinnable, perennial wars abroad. Let it be readily known the enormous cost of said wars in human and financial terms. While, at the same time, sounding the domestic mantra of financially bankrupt local, state, and national governments.
One of the signature hallmarks of the Middle Class is their perceived state of dignity. The removal in the greater society of long-range optimism for upper mobility via dismantling of good jobs, creating an economy of high prices for daily living, ensuring high transportation costs, and nurturing expensive health maintenance is simple and relatively adequate strategy to break their spirit.
Critical in the necessity to dismantle hope of any future return of their once powerful and influential social class is the essential tactic to burry their citizen obligations in national debt. So firmly mortgage the nation in debt to questionable regimes such as China and others, that there is little hope of ever recovering as a national group in any of their life times.
The two prevailing political camps must be diligent in this deconstruction pursuit. Both political parties creating an impression of hopeless policy embroilment is essential in creating a sense of hopeless political deadlock in the collective minds of the once Middle Class. This is critical should elements of society entertain escaping from the aforementioned tactics and strategies set up to keep them in a constant downward economic trend.
At the very least their social mobility will be kept stagnant; and, they will whither on the economic vine.
Wisconsin Military Service Person Special Mention of the Week
(each week Cooldadiomedia mentions a Wisconsin service person killed in Iraq or Afghanistan)
Army Private First Class Keith Everette Lloyd, 26 of Milwaukee, Wisconsin died on Saturday, January 12, 2008 in Tal Afar, Iraq. He was killed when his vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Troup, 1st Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, out of Fort Hood, Texas. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted Lloyd as a Milwaukee South Sider. When he was younger, Everette was a fan of professional wrestlers, loved Nintendo games, and enjoyed playing outdoors. Keith's younger brother had also served in the Army in Iraq. Keith was born on May 6, 1981, in Milwaukee. He attended Lincoln Avenue Elementary School. The Journal Sentinel continued that later his family moved to Oak Creek and then South Milwaukee. Lloyd had an interest in volleyball and played for South Milwaukee High School. He graduated from South Milwaukee in 2000. He had worked at Farm & Fleet and also Pick 'n Save stores. He took courses at Milwaukee Area Technical College in Oak Creek and ITT Technical Institute in Milwaukee. The Journal Sentinel went on to mention the Lloyd was deployed to Iraq in November of 2007. Lloyd had mentioned to his family he had met some former WWF wresters, now World Wrestling Entertainment, who were visiting troops in Iraq. Keith had also hoped to get married.
The Web site madison.com via an article by the Associated Press mentioned Keith Lloyd joined the military as a food service specialist in March of 2007. The Web site legacy.com via an obituary from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted that at the time of his death Private First Class Keith Lloyd was survived by his mom Cynthia Allam; dad and step mother Gary Lloyd and Joanne Lloyd; fiancée Amanda Apollo; sister Christine Piper; sister Cora Lloyd; brothers Thomas, Kraig, Gary, and Joshua; and, grandparents Keith and Gertrude Lloyd.
Private First Class Keith Lloyd was the 87th Wisconsin military service person to be killed in Iraq since the spring of 2003.
As of this blog entry's posting date:
99,901 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
9,830 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
4,442 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1491 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
318 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
861 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
32,049 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
10,468 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
103 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
28 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
146 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
21 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
Wisconsin military service person special mention of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; washingtonpost.com; thehighground.org; Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; iraqbodycount.org; www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf; and, icasualties.org.
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