[Peace-discuss] Hey... and they didn't even ask Joe Sixpack!!
E. Wayne Johnson
ewj at pigs.ag
Mon Oct 20 16:53:33 CDT 2008
Carl,
I think that it is useful for you to point out how things are from this
point of view because
it really does help in understanding the challenges ahead and what we
are up against.
It doesnt matter whether or not we like what you say. But your clear
phrasing and accurate
use of terminology (sometimes unfamiliar) does enhance understanding.
For me the question is, given the lay of the land and the position of
the opposing forces --
What are reasonable goals? (reasonable in the sense of the ability to
make progress, not
reasonable in the sense of passive resignation to circumstances).
What should be done to achieve those goals?
C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> It's contempt for "the regular folks" (literally, those subject to a
> rule) that prompted the post.
>
> And the leading misleaders are particularly good at corrupting
> "everyday words" (like "anti-war").
>
> So I've used the (readily understandable) sociological term "tertiary
> bourgeoisie" in place of the purposely misleading "middle class." --CGE
>
>
> Jenifer Cartwright wrote:
>> Waaaaay too many things to set you straight on in this posting, Carl,
>> for me to provide a written response. Next time we're staffing a
>> table, we can get into it. Meanwhile, get out from behind yr books
>> and talk to the regular folks. Use eveyday words, and don't call them
>> members of the secondary bourgeoisie. --Jenifer
>>
>> --- On *Mon, 10/20/08, C. G. Estabrook /<galliher at uiuc.edu>/* wrote:
>>
>> From: C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu>
>> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Hey... and they didn't even ask Joe
>> Sixpack!!
>> To: jencart13 at yahoo.com
>> Cc: "Peace- Discuss" <peace-discuss at anti-war..net>
>> Date: Monday, October 20, 2008, 1:09 PM
>>
>> The contempt of the tertiary bourgeoisie in America (about 20% of
>> the
>> population) for the other 80% is sometimes hard to believe.
>> ("Tertiary
>> bourgeoisie" = those who have passed through the "third level"
>> of formal
>> education = roughly the graduates of traditional four-year
>> colleges.)
>>
>> Of course that contempt is manufactured -- strongly encouraged by
>> that fraction
>> of 1% who make up the American owning (and ruling) class, whom
>> the 20%
>> apparently desperately want to be like (or belong to, a revealing
>> phrase). And
>> the 20% are told if they want to belong to the club, they need to
>> despise the
>> only real threat to the club, the other 80% (who have increasing
>> reason to
>> resent their rulers in recent years, as inequality and the
>> concentration of
>> wealth increase and in fact accelerate).
>>
>> The American ruling class has hated and feared Average Citizens
>> (and democracy)
>> from the beginning. I recently posted some examples from our
>> "founding
>> fathers"
>> (and mothers). It wasn't just Hamilton who held that "Your people
>> sir, are a
>> great beast!" It's remarkable that the 1% can seduce the 20% to
>> their
>> way of
>> thinking, but it's not new. About 1890 the American financier
>> Jay Gould
>> said,
>> "I can always hire one half of the American working class to kill
>> the
>> other
>> half." And the overwhelming majority of Americans were "working
>> class" -- i.e.,
>> people who had to sell their work of head and hands to the owners
>> of factories
>> and fields in order to eat regularly. (How many of us today have
>> to rent
>> ourselves to the owners of capital to live?)
>>
>> The control of ideological institutions (universities, media) and
>> governmental
>> mechanisms by the ruling class means that they can seduce away
>> that 20% from
>> their real interests by teaching them to despise those who are
>> below them on
>> the
>> socio-economic ladder -- a long-term version of Gould's hiring
>> half the
>> working
>> class to kill the other half, and an effective way to prevent a
>> united front
>> against themselves. That's why so much of media propaganda is
>> directed
>> toward
>> the 20%, the "middle class.'
>>
>> Many in the 80% don't vote because they know, correctly, that the
>> election
>> isn't
>> about them. Whoever wins, the conditions of their life will
>> remain much the
>> same. On the eve of the 2000 election, polls from Harvard's
>> Vanishing
>> Voter
>> Project showed that 75% of the electorate regarded it as a game
>> played by rich
>> contributors, party managers, and the PR industry and the media.
>> Very likely,
>> that is why the population paid little attention to the “stolen
>> election”
>> that
>> greatly exercised educated sectors. And that opinion is at least
>> as strong
>> eight
>> years later. It's only the 20% who buy the assurances that
>> Bush/Gore,
>> Kerry/Bush, & Obama/McCain are important decisions.
>>
>> If however you separate the candidates' names and party
>> affiliations -- so
>> important to the 20% -- from general questions of how the society
>> should be
>> run,
>> you find remarkably enough that a majority of Americans hold
>> generally
>> social-democratic (roughly"New Deal") views -- all the more
>> remarkable because
>> they've almost never heard these views in the media or championed
>> by a
>> major
>> party candidate. As a result the official parties are generally
>> to the right
>> of
>> the populace, while the propagandists try to convince the
>> populace that one (or
>> the other) party represents their interests. The burden of
>> Obama's book,
>> Mendacity of Hope, was that he could do that job better than
>> most, and to some
>> extent it seems that he can. But it's still a lie.
>>
>> Regarding people in the 80% not knowing, e.g., who the UKPM is, I'm
>> reminded of
>> Sherlock Holmes' answer when his friend Watson found out that Holmes
>> didn't know
>> that the earth went around the sun:
>>
>> "You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at my
>> expression
>> of
>> surprise. "Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it."
>> "To forget it!"
>> "You see," he explained, "I consider that a man's brain
>> originally is like a
>> little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture
>> as you choose.
>> A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes
>> across, so that the
>> knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at
>> best is jumbled
>> up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in
>> laying his hands
>> upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to
>> what he takes
>> into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which
>> may help him in
>> doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all
>> in the most
>> perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has
>> elastic walls
>> and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time
>> when for every
>> addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before.
>> It is of the
>> highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing
>> out the
>> useful
>> ones."
>> "But the Solar System!" I protested.
>> "What the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impatiently;
>> "you say that we
>> go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a
>> pennyworth of
>> difference to me or to my work"....
>>
>> Similarly, in spite of what the 20% believe about the importance
>> of the
>> election, an American from the majority might with reason say
>> that the outcome
>> "would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work"....
>>
>> Just after the 2000 election, Noam Chomsky wrote as follows:
>>
>> ...over 80 percent of the population feels that the
>> government is “run
>> for
>> the benefit of the few and the special interests, not the
>> people,” up from
>> about
>> half in earlier years ... similar numbers feel that the economic
>> system is
>> “inherently unfair” and working people have too little say, and that
>> “there is
>> too much power concentrated in the hands of large companies for
>> the good of the
>> nation.” Under such circumstances, people may tend to vote (if at
>> all) on
>> grounds that are irrelevant to policy choices over which they
>> feel they have
>> little influence. Such tendencies are strengthened by intense
>> media/advertising
>> concentration on style, personality, and other irrelevancies (in the
>> presidential debates, will Bush remember where Canada is?; will
>> Gore remind
>> people of some unpleasant know-it-all in 4th grade?).
>>
>> Public opinion studies lend further credibility to the
>> simplest model.
>> Harvard’s Vanishing Voter Project has been monitoring attitudes
>> through the
>> presidential campaign. Its director, Thomas Patterson, reports that
>> “Americans’
>> feeling of powerlessness has reached an alarming high,” with 53
>> percent
>> responding “only a little” or “none” to the question: “How much
>> influence do you
>> think people like you have on what government does?” The previous
>> peak, 30
>> years
>> ago, was 41 percent. During the campaign, over 60 percent of
>> regular voters
>> regarded politics in America as “generally pretty disgusting” ...
>> the
>> country is
>> being driven even more than before towards the condition
>> described by former
>> President Alfonso Lopez Michaelsen of Colombia, referring to his
>> own country: a
>> political system of power sharing by parties that are “two horses
>> with the
>> same
>> owner.” Furthermore, that seems to be general popular understanding.
>> <http://www.chomsky.info/articles/200101--.htm> --CGE
>>
>>
>> Jenifer Cartwright wrote:
>> >
>>
>> http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20081015/sc_livescience/americansflunksimple3questionpoliticalsurvey
>>
>> > > > Yo, check this out, those of you who think that
>> Average Citizens (aka Joe
>> > Sixpack et al) don't vote because there're no candidates that
>> support their
>> > views!! Folks more-or-less paying attention to a variety of
>> news sources
>> were
>> > surveyed, but not those paying no attention what-so-ever... and
>> still,
>> look
>> > at the numbers!!
>> > > No surprise to some of us... --Jenifer
>>
>>
>>
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