Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Yankee values also include an insistence upon fair pay for such honest work as one performs. Values consistent with the GOP leadership are either the fatalism on economics of the Mountain South or the plantation-style inequality of the Deep South. The elites want motivated, efficient workers on the cheap who produce solely under the motivation of fear.

That invariably fails.

I have a friend who runs a dog shelter. She recently told a story of a man who came looking for a specific sort of dog. He didn’t want a yapper. No hair shedding all over the place. Didn’t want to spend a lot of time training it or walking it. Didn’t want to clean up poop or worry about feeding it too much.

She nodded, walked into the other room, and returned with a dog from the freezer who had been awaiting autopsy. “Here you go! Here’s Stiffy!”

Somehow, your description of the Ideal Working Man reminded me of that story.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Bill Gates is secure enough about himself that he needs not buy status symbols.

Quite true. One of the reasons I say that "income" and "lifestyle" do not make social class. The only objective measure that can be used to determine someone's class is their relations to the means of production. In Bill Gates' case he is an "owner" or a bourgeois. In my case, I'm a "worker" or a proletarian. These are the only two classes that are important. While there are those out there who both work means of production and own said means of production, they are not really relevant to industrial capitalism as it has existed since the late 19th century.

A pimp driving a Mercedes-Benz is still a low-life. A bookmaker who owns a mansion is still a low-life. A drug trafficker who owns a fine stable of horses is still a low-life. Someone who buys a yacht with the proceeds of swindles is a low life. Those people are all scum, and they are not the sort with which to build any workable economic order, capitalist or 'socialist'.

An aristocrat of central Europe during WWII who aided the Nazis in the Holocaust showed character, all right -- BAD character.

Sure, character does not bring wealth; one can be of good character and do so proletarian a job as milking cows on a farm that one does not own. Such a person may be better than I am. More power to him!

I would agree on most points here.

...If you want a good definition of social class, try the book Class by the late Paul Fussell. He takes jabs at all occupational groups (much of what defines class), and does not praise the two upper classes that he sees as intellectually vapid. One jab that he has at the hereditary elite is that "Chess is upper-middle or lower; the upper classes just aren't smart enough to understand it".

I'll add that to my reading list. It may be useful even if only to critique it. I've not written an ideological article in some time and the comrades are getting restless for me to write one.

From top to bottom:

1. Top Out-of-sight. This is a secretive and rare class of rich people who generally avoid the limelight. These would be nobility in other countries. Rockefeller, Mellon, Vanderbilt, etc.
2. Upper. They live on the proceeds of inherited wealth from before they were born. Members of the Walton family who remember Sam Walton are not yet upper class. Those who never really got to know him are upper class.
3. Upper middle. This is the class on the make -- they include many of the rich who have made it largely on their own and most people in the highly-regarded professions (law, medicine, architecture). This is as high as anyone can get socially except through marriage.
4. Middle. Generally a white-collar job with a middle income. Accountants, dentists, research scientists, engineers, traveling salesmen, computer programmers, and teachers are here.

-- THERE IS NO LOWER MIDDLE CLASS --

What used to be considered lower-middle class for having a high-school diploma when such was a real distinction and when clerical work paid better than labor. People can no longer make a living on a job as a retail sales clerk or office clerk. Such jobs are typically interchangeable with labor. They typically have college degrees.

There are three classes of the "working class":

5. High prole -- skilled laborers, cops, nurses, technicians, fire fighters, prison guards, letter carriers, supervisors of blue-collar workers. These may be paid better than members of the middle class, but their jobs are not interchangeable. Accountants don't become heavy-equipment operators and plumbers do not become traveling salesmen.

6. Mid-prole: semi-skilled workers -- machine operators and assemblers, truck drivers and cabbies. This is probably the class of the checker-cashiers; they operate cash registers, which takes some modest skill. Their work is usually monotonous... and they typically hate their jobs and show it off the job.

7. Low-prole: unskilled workers like agricultural laborers and janitors. Even if their jobs are seasonal, they are still working-class.

Below this:

8. Destitute: People with disreputable earnings -- welfare, aid from relatives, or crime. If crooks they are somehow able to avoid incarceration.

9. Bottom out-of-sight: Hermits; people institutionalized or incarcerated.

Many people don't fit one of these categories neatly. People who think the class game is a fraud -- often creative people -- might fit a category "X". Creative people are often here.

Actually, I would argue here that this is a great description of the general stratification of society, but not of class. Strata can exist within and separate from class. Case in point "creatives" whom you assign "category X" would be in the strata M-Ls call "Intelligentsia". I have not read this particular book, so if that is your source for this, I'll have to get back to you on my points of criticism and/or agreement after reading it. If this is something you wrote off the cuff, then I would say you have described strata within classes and not the classes themselves, which are as follows: Bourgeoisie (owns means of production but does not work those means), Petty-bourgeoisie (owns means of production and works those means themselves, sometimes with the aid of proletarians; family farmers and small business people are usually this class), Proletarians (own no means of production, live by selling their capacity for labor) and Lumpins (the destitute strata and "Bottom out-of-sight" strata).

It should be noted that the Lumpins themselves have two distinct sub-classes: The Lumpin Aristocracy (Mafia bosses, Cartel ring leaders and the like) and the lumpinproletariat (Mafia soldiers, Cartel mules and enforcers, gangbangers etc.)

Would you prefer that I were a Nazi?

Sometimes, yes, but mostly no. Nazi's are usually incredibly stupid and their arguments are even easier to defeat, also I'd probably get "Citizen of the year"
for gutting one and hanging him by his intrails from the nearest lamp post. That said, I can have sympathy for a white boomer liberal whereas I can't with a Nazi. It is a difference in my view between evil (Nazis) and just wrong (WBLs)

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

We are going through a transition, one from a world of scarcity of the basic decencies of life to one in which scarcity is no longer necessary or even suitable for getting adequate productivity. The world without a need for scarcity sounds like Marx' Communism.

Is it possible to go from capitalism to Communism without going through Marxist socialism? We may have no reasonable alternative. The plutocratic elites have often shown that they would return to the brutality and poverty of early capitalism as Marx knew it; such is unconscionable.

If it is at all possible, I think this book would point a possible way to it. It was written in the 1990s so computing power has only advanced since then.


http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/

Originally Posted by B Butler

Ah... Remember the days when we were supposed to offend Marxists?

Yes but I'm being busy rebutting Brower mostly at the moment. Thus, I'm not a threat, well yet anyway.

ETA: It should be noted that I often agree with Brower more than I disagree. Usually when we argue he is coming from a perspective of white privilege or of anti-communism.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

From top to bottom:

1. Top Out-of-sight. This is a secretive and rare class of rich people who generally avoid the limelight. These would be nobility in other countries. Rockefeller, Mellon, Vanderbilt, etc.
2. Upper. They live on the proceeds of inherited wealth from before they were born. Members of the Walton family who remember Sam Walton are not yet upper class. Those who never really got to know him are upper class.
3. Upper middle. This is the class on the make -- they include many of the rich who have made it largely on their own and most people in the highly-regarded professions (law, medicine, architecture). This is as high as anyone can get socially except through marriage.
4. Middle. Generally a white-collar job with a middle income. Accountants, dentists, research scientists, engineers, traveling salesmen, computer programmers, and teachers are here.

-- THERE IS NO LOWER MIDDLE CLASS --

What used to be considered lower-middle class for having a high-school diploma when such was a real distinction and when clerical work paid better than labor. People can no longer make a living on a job as a retail sales clerk or office clerk. Such jobs are typically interchangeable with labor. They typically have college degrees.

There are three classes of the "working class":

5. High prole -- skilled laborers, cops, nurses, technicians, fire fighters, prison guards, letter carriers, supervisors of blue-collar workers. These may be paid better than members of the middle class, but their jobs are not interchangeable. Accountants don't become heavy-equipment operators and plumbers do not become traveling salesmen.

6. Mid-prole: semi-skilled workers -- machine operators and assemblers, truck drivers and cabbies. This is probably the class of the checker-cashiers; they operate cash registers, which takes some modest skill. Their work is usually monotonous... and they typically hate their jobs and show it off the job.

7. Low-prole: unskilled workers like agricultural laborers and janitors. Even if their jobs are seasonal, they are still working-class.

Below this:

8. Destitute: People with disreputable earnings -- welfare, aid from relatives, or crime. If crooks they are somehow able to avoid incarceration.

9. Bottom out-of-sight: Hermits; people institutionalized or incarcerated.

In the 1930s, '40s and '50s, only the top four of these classes voted Republican.

Since then, the next three below them have been increasingly voting Republican.

And since offering my thoughts as to why this has happened would make me sound like a broken record (if my Millennial friends on here - and I assume that I actually have some! - will please excuse the expression) ...

Originally Posted by Alioth68

Okay, assuming your (CXr) assumption is correct: if everyone was sufficiently "self-disciplined", as you put it, who would still be around to serve your hamburgers at McDonald's, clean your hotel room, cashier the Target or WalMart you shop at, pick the California strawberries you buy in the wintertime, or do whatever menial low-paying services you might make use of? Or will their increased self-discipline make these jobs that somebody has to do, suddenly pay more?

Such people are overworked and underpaid. If you are overworked and underpaid you are economically exploited. If you don't like your work (and despite the smiles of people who do such work that requires public contact the smiles come out of fear of the boss more than out of contentment), then economic exploitation comes with personal debasement.

Such people are paid better only under political pressure or in an overheated economy. Given a choice between an overheated economy that creates inflation or a government amenable to the interests of the poor -- I prefer the political pressure from people with conscience.

Our economic elites are often crude brutes in three-piece suits, people who kiss up to elites but kick others below.

There are people who work their asses off who are still in the "underclass". I know people like that too. People who work two or three low-paying jobs sometimes. They may not have as valuable skills as others, or have lost the competition for better jobs (or their once-better jobs became obsolete or moved overseas), but they are still disciplined, and still work at jobs that, again, somebody needs to do. Why prejudge and condemn them for merely happening to be that "somebody" that's doing those jobs? That seems rather presumptuous and arrogant.

CXr shows his contempt for working people while recognizing the need for them -- ideally for him as cheap labor so that profits can be at their highest. He has aligned himself with big landowners, tycoons, executive elites, and shysters. He stands with people who make Karl Marx relevant -- the exploiters who make life for everyone else miserable and even hopeless.

Labor makes capital worth something. Big business cannot thrive without people able to make things work or to buy the stuff. Capitalism may have averted a proletarian revolution by turning the proletariat into a market. But if capitalism reverts to being an order that allows elite indulgence while offering nothing but hunger and other forms of deprivation to the proletariat, it dooms itself.

Are there some in the underclass that don't have much discipline in life? Sure. Are there some in the upper class that don't have much discipline in life? Sure. I've seen both.

The undisciplined in the upper class invariably spend away their inheritance. The undisciplined among the underclass often fit one of two patterns -- either getting killed in crime or eating themselves to gross debility and then to an early heart attack. It may be paradoxical, but as people need to work less to meet their needs they need to show more self-discipline just to make something satisfying out of leisure.

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

Mr. Lopez gave his lengthy opinion of the Tea Party and who the Tea Party are and what he believes to be the primary motive that's driving them. It is very clear neither of them know and merely speculating and presenting their assumptions. The proof is your post. I assume you can read and comprehend written communications. There has never been a disagreement between Mr. Butler and I on that point or you for that matter. The disagreement if any is over which values survive the crisis. I believe the Yankee values are going to survive. You're so stupid that you don't even associate Yankee values with the Republicans.

Stupid? Yankee values? Hmmmm. The term "yankees" (the word you are using here) most-especially applies to the northeastern USA, the most liberal part of the country, and the least-likely region to embrace Tea Party values.

No, we can extend our disagreement beyond that, to concern just "which" are the "yankee values" that will survive, and which will not.

I don't claim to say that my values WILL triumph over what yours seem to be. I am predicting that my values will triumph, at least to the extent of a 4T victory over yours, but that does not mean it is a certainty; just my prophecy and my estimate, based partly on my cosmic sources.

What YOU define as Yankee values could include resistance to the government giving away "free stuff" to those of "poor character" who have not been raised well (in dog whistle terms, that largely means those "non-yankee" IOW non-white minorities and immigrants). It means "freedom" defined as free enterprise and gun rights. The Republican Party is associated with these "yankee values."

What I define as "yankee values" includes real democracy rather than plutocracy, and it means the other possible democratic reforms that I have repeatedly suggested. It means social as well as individual responsibility, including government responsibility, to see our nation as the people together, including all races and groups, so that poverty and injustice anywhere is the concern of all. It does not mean socialism and totalitarianism, but it also does not mean free enterprise and gun rights when they are disguised as a phony freedom, when those "rights" and that "freedom" are used to destroy, kill and oppress others. The Democratic Party represents these yankee values, at least to an extent and potentially. "The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice" - Martin Luther King Jr.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

In the 1930s, '40s and '50s, only the top four of these classes voted Republican.

Since then, the next three below them have been increasingly voting Republican.

Add the destitute (if white). Just look at KY-05, one of the poorest Congressional districts in the US -- and very white. This is where much of the welfare money goes into buying 24-pack Pepsi cubes then bartered for every imaginable low-brow use.

... Classes 4, 5, and 6 hold the votes. What matters more is the ethnic and rural-urban divide. In case you wonder about Suburbia -- the older that Suburbia gets in age, the less rural and more urban it gets. Much of Suburbia is legitimately urban, and it so votes. Such is more so near Chicago (old suburbs with aging infrastructure) than near Dallas (newer suburbs that still have some rural feel).

In the 65 or so of the most densely-populated counties, independent cities, and DC, Barack Obama won as a whole so decisively that even if he lost the rest of America barely (really, he did!) he could win decisively nationwide in 2008. To be sure, those included such behemoths of population as Washington DC, the boroughs of New York City; such independent cities as Baltimore, Arlington, Richmond, St. Louis, and San Francisco; and counties containing Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Denver, San Jose, Charlotte, Miami, Tampa, and St. Petersburg -- but also some largely-suburban counties such as Marin and Westchester and some small independent cities in Virginia such as Charlottesville, Fredericksburg, and Harrisonburg.

The Republicans used to rely heavily upon the educated vote, but the Southern Strategy that relies heavily upon anti-intellectual demagoguery has alienated even such modestly-educated people as schoolteachers. If Republicans keep denying global warming and keep promoting young-earth creationism they are going to find that the only educated voters that they get will be those who vote only on 'gun rights' or 'tax cuts'.

The difference between the voting patterns in Illinois and Texas is that the suburbs of Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio are much newer than those around Chicago. If you live in Richardson, Texas (a hick town until about 1965) the infrastructure is still fairly new, and the suburb of Dallas still has a rural feel. Inner suburbs of Chicago? The infrastructure is new, and people are accustomed to taxes rising to meet the needs of replacing or renovating it.

And since offering my thoughts as to why this has happened would make me sound like a broken record (if my Millennial friends on here - and I assume that I actually have some! - will please excuse the expression) ...

What the hell! So are my explanations a broken record.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

The difference between the voting patterns in Illinois and Texas is that the suburbs of Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio are much newer than those around Chicago. If you live in Richardson, Texas (a hick town until about 1965) the infrastructure is still fairly new, and the suburb of Dallas still has a rural feel. Inner suburbs of Chicago? The infrastructure is new, and people are accustomed to taxes rising to meet the needs of replacing or renovating it.

What the hell! So are my explanations a broken record.

Yeah and they're also just plain wrong. For example:
"Oak Park was first settled in 1835 when it was part of Cicero; the village was incorporated in 1901. Typical of towns of this vintage, old infrastructure, such as sewers, starts to deteriorate over time and leads to problems for modern-day homeowners. Several times in the last few years, torrential rains have overwhelmed municipal sewer lines and caused numerous Oak Park homeowners to suffer flooded basements."
http://www.seepage.com/learning-cent...ms-in-oak-park

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Such people are overworked and underpaid.

Agreed.

If you are overworked and underpaid you are economically exploited. If you don't like your work (and despite the smiles of people who do such work that requires public contact the smiles come out of fear of the boss more than out of contentment), then economic exploitation comes with personal debasement.

I would argue that anyone who works for someone else's profit is exploited. Profit does not materialize for the capitalist out of thin air, rather it is the result of labor power applied to raw materials (be that data, hair, food or steel). I will agree that if one does not like their work, despite the required smile--and that is more cultural than anything else, Americans love those who must debase themselves for sustinance to smile while they do it, does indeed debase the worker. One of the reasons why "good help" is so hard to find in my line of work.

Such people are paid better only under political pressure or in an overheated economy. Given a choice between an overheated economy that creates inflation or a government amenable to the interests of the poor -- I prefer the political pressure from people with conscience.

The political pressure for this will not be forthcoming. The Democrat politicians and the Republican politicians are all bought off. Only, if and when, the labor movement starts growing again will there be political pressure outside of run of the mill bourgeois politics.

Our economic elites are often crude brutes in three-piece suits, people who kiss up to elites but kick others below.

I would argue that the economic elites do not need to kiss up to anyone, they just buy them. The ass kissing to uppers, and kicking the lowers is usually the province of middle management.

CXr shows his contempt for working people while recognizing the need for them -- ideally for him as cheap labor so that profits can be at their highest. He has aligned himself with big landowners, tycoons, executive elites, and shysters. He stands with people who make Karl Marx relevant -- the exploiters who make life for everyone else miserable and even hopeless.

In short, CXr is a capitalist in the philosophical sense.

Labor makes capital worth something. Big business cannot thrive without people able to make things work or to buy the stuff. Capitalism may have averted a proletarian revolution by turning the proletariat into a market. But if capitalism reverts to being an order that allows elite indulgence while offering nothing but hunger and other forms of deprivation to the proletariat, it dooms itself.

Capitalism is doomed anyway. No economic system that is dependent on scarcity lasts forever, even less so one that is dependent on scarcity and fear to keep the slaves in line. Eventually a slave rebellion or peasant's revolt happens. America is not immune to this--American Exceptional-ism is a fucking myth.

The undisciplined in the upper class invariably spend away their inheritance. The undisciplined among the underclass often fit one of two patterns -- either getting killed in crime or eating themselves to gross debility and then to an early heart attack. It may be paradoxical, but as people need to work less to meet their needs they need to show more self-discipline just to make something satisfying out of leisure.

Actually the symptoms described for the "underclass" as you call it, and I'm going to take that to mean the lumpenproletariat, and the lower strata of the proletariat, are the result of the needs of production shifting. Performing work, IE producing value, is a human need. Lacking that one seeks to end their pain through lack of value production through pathological means--IE drug addiction, over indulgence in subsidized junk food, etc. I would, therefore, argue, that as the need for labor to produce for needs diminishes over time (due to automation, better processes, increases in productivity, etc) that the surplus labor power be put into cultural production.

There may even be need to garuntee a basic lifestyle threshold below which one cannot go. This could be done a myrad of ways from negative income taxes to a welfare state. The point is that given the opportunity to produce, humans will. Unshackling production from survival may result in a much greater cultural output. Likewise, unshackling cultural output from the need to profit will result in more culture being produced. This is already happening in music where it is not uncommon for bands, MCs and so on to put their material on the internet for free simply for the recognition.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Stupid? Yankee values? Hmmmm. The term "yankees" (the word you are using here) most-especially applies to the northeastern USA, the most liberal part of the country, and the least-likely region to embrace Tea Party values.

No, we can extend our disagreement beyond that, to concern just "which" are the "yankee values" that will survive, and which will not.

I don't claim to say that my values WILL triumph over what yours seem to be. I am predicting that my values will triumph, at least to the extent of a 4T victory over yours, but that does not mean it is a certainty; just my prophecy and my estimate, based partly on my cosmic sources.

What YOU define as Yankee values could include resistance to the government giving away "free stuff" to those of "poor character" who have not been raised well (in dog whistle terms, that largely means those "non-yankee" IOW non-white minorities and immigrants). It means "freedom" defined as free enterprise and gun rights. The Republican Party is associated with these "yankee values."

What I define as "yankee values" includes real democracy rather than plutocracy, and it means the other possible democratic reforms that I have repeatedly suggested. It means social as well as individual responsibility, including government responsibility, to see our nation as the people together, including all races and groups, so that poverty and injustice anywhere is the concern of all. It does not mean socialism and totalitarianism, but it also does not mean free enterprise and gun rights when they are disguised as a phony freedom, when those "rights" and that "freedom" are used to destroy, kill and oppress others. The Democratic Party represents these yankee values, at least to an extent and potentially. "The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice" - Martin Luther King Jr.

Politically, the cities are the most liberal part of the region which makes the region appear to be blue politically. As far as the entire land mass of the region, the vast majority of it is hard core Yankee. Minnesota is a blue state politically. However, if you'd politically paint the state, you'd see picture of a red state with sprinkles of blue.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Income is the most generally-used standard.

Income is generally related to the other things as well.

Originally Posted by Kinser79

Quite true. One of the reasons I say that "income" and "lifestyle" do not make social class. The only objective measure that can be used to determine someone's class is their relations to the means of production. In Bill Gates' case he is an "owner" or a bourgeois. In my case, I'm a "worker" or a proletarian. These are the only two classes that are important. While there are those out there who both work means of production and own said means of production, they are not really relevant to industrial capitalism as it has existed since the late 19th century.

I'm wondering where you would classify those who work for governments or nonprofits?

I am finding this season of Survivor: Worlds Apart interesting. The 18 castaways were placed into three tribes: white collar, blue collar, and no collar (artists, yoga teachers, and the like). Each week, someone else is voted off; now, nearing the end of the season, there are only six castaways on the island -- 1 white collar, 1 no collar, and 5(!) blue collars. Seems like the proletarians are ruling.

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

Politically, the cities are the most liberal part of the region which makes the region appear to be blue politically. As far as the entire land mass of the region, the vast majority of it is hard core Yankee. Minnesota is a blue state politically. However, if you'd politically paint the state, you'd see picture of a red state with sprinkles of blue.

New England is more liberal throughout. Elsewhere it's true that there's a strong urban-rural divide between blue and red, as we now use those colors. But regardless, you are using the term "yankee" to mean your values. Yankee originally referred to the rebel colonists against England (whose rebellion arose in New England), and then to the North in the Civil War, which means anti-slavery and liberal; originally Republican, but now entirely Democratic. Yankee also refers to American generally, especially when we are invading or fighting other countries. Whether that's liberal or conservative may depend on the war involved.

You could be using it to mean white America, or non-immigrant; which again proves my point that conservatives today depend on racism and race-provocation or baiting. In any case, Americans were never all or even mostly white Europeans, and all Americans are immigrants, whether they moved (or were forcibly brought) here last year or 10,000 years ago.

I don't see any basis for equating the term "yankee" with rural Americans, even though today rural Americans largely (though not exclusively) tend to embrace your values and urban Americans tend to embrace mine. In my opinion, that's just because urban Americans are more-often hip, informed and up-to-date as well as diverse, while rural Americans are more-often parochial, backward, narrow-minded, more-often white, and prejudiced in various ways (whether racist, fundamentalist, militarist, etc.).

Originally Posted by Alioth68

"It's a phase...". Yeah, that's nice. Stuff I did as a teen, some of it illegal but at any rate immature, unwise, and sometimes destructive, was similarly regarded as "just a phase" too--I mean, I got disciplined for it when I got caught (as I'm sure you did), but it was forgiven by my elders and society in the long-term. And the fact that they understood these things as "just a phase", and as you put it "treated/punished [me] as if I were going through a phase", did in a subtle way help me to see it as such over time too, that I can change and do better and move on and it would be forgotten, and so I did as I got older. These things didn't become obstacles to opportunities down the line, I wasn't stigmatized for life, or seen as hopeless.

I think what Mikebert was describing earlier here, is that black teens who may also be "going through a phase" just like we did, don't always get that same kind of understanding and forgiveness by authority/society. Indeed some white teens--ones who, say, grew up on "the wrong side of the tracks" in small towns--don't either. In both these cases, their behavior "confirms" a prejudice toward that underclassed group (blacks, or "white trash") by authority or societal figures who may have those biases. There is supposedly no hope for them, this is not a phase/anomaly/whatever, but inevitably "who they are". This can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, if no one expects they'll get better as they get older, and are thus not treated with the perspective that they will. I will emphasize that this does not excuse anyone from not improving as they get older, as I'm sure you agree--but it does make that process needlessly more difficult than it has to be, and thus less likely to actually happen.

In other words, any teen doing "teen things" should be regarded optimistically as just "going through a phase"--disciplined, yes, made accountable, yes--just as we were for the most part; but condemned as hopeless, no. If you or I were, would it have been as likely we'd "grow out of" our phase, or eventually say "fuck it, that must be the way I am, everyone says so"? The former would be harder, the latter a far more tempting "default" pattern to fall into, at any rate--and that can snowball in terms of a huge rap sheet fairly quickly in the process Mikebert described.

Most of Freddy Gray's rap sheet in Baltimore, it appears, had to do with possession of weed--probably starting as a teen. Stuff that in this case is not only classic "teen stuff", but considered fine for adults in Colorado, Washington, Oregon, etc. now too!

How many slaps on the wrist, cracks across your ass, bikes being taken away or groundings did it take for you to learn something you did was wrong? We are very close in age and we probably grew up pretty close to each other if you lived in Minnesota and we went through school during the same time frame. In your opinion, what should be the wage of someone who flips burgers for a living?

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

Politically, the cities are the most liberal part of the region which makes the region appear to be blue politically. As far as the entire land mass of the region, the vast majority of it is hard core Yankee. Minnesota is a blue state politically. However, if you'd politically paint the state, you'd see picture of a red state with sprinkles of blue.

Your perspective on 'Yankee' is quite different from mine. One of my perspective forming books is "The Cousins' Wars". It links the English Civil War, American Revolution and American Civil war as continuations of the same world view clash. During the English Civil War, the faction losing at any given time tended to emigrate to the New World. The difference is that the Puritan Parliamentary Roundheads tended to go to New England while the Cavalier Royalists went to Virginia. (Every once in a while, the UMass Minutemen play the Virginia Cavaliers.) In all three conflicts, the urban progressive democratic faction defeated the rural autocratic conservative faction. The boring part of the book is where they review the immigration records. After a loss in a European war, who went where? (Between the Roundheads going north and the Cavaliers going south, a lot of Germans settled in the Pennsylvania area.)

While a lot of southerners are proud of their Scotts-Irish and Confederate heritage, and not without reason, I'm a New Englander, a Yankee, and proud of my region's urban, industrial, revolutionary and abolitionist past. Human Rights. Equality. Freedom. Democracy. Government that works to the benefit of the people, at least in theory.

Now, the Tea Party touches on some elements of that. I too dislike big government gone all privileged and controlled by the elites. I am not totally against what the Tea Party dreams of. However, the Tea Party seems closer to the Cavalier / Royalist / Confederate values... rural folk supporting the established elites for some ungodly convoluted reason. There is simply less reason out in the country for change. Rural folk will ride with existing values and perspectives longer than the urban progressives who have to deal more with Future Shock. They end up supporting the King, slaveholders and Republican leadership.

Now, neither of us own the copyright on the word "Yankee". I can't really go all huffy puff and forbid you from using the word. I just think you are really stretching it, however. Traditionally, the Roundheads, Patriots and (Civil War) Yankees were considered the progressives.

Robert, Classic X is from the upper Midwest. Not sure if that's Yankee, but it sure ain't the south.

How I see it is that in the US, "Yankees" refers to northerners. Outside the US, "Yankees" refers to US citizens.

Yeaaap ... all of the backwards assed, un-hip rural folk ...

Growing your food, cutting your trees, mining your minerals, running your ski lifts, and even in many cases, making stuff that says "Made in the USA" ... lots of factories are "survivors" out in the sticks.

Heck, some of those backward folks are even my Melungeon cuz.

What is the category for them? How can we pigeonhole such odd outs?

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

Robert, Classic X is from the upper Midwest. Not sure if that's Yankee, but it sure ain't the south.

How I see it is that in the US, "Yankees" refers to northerners. Outside the US, "Yankees" refers to US citizens.

In Boston, Yankees are rural folk from Maine... or vile hated baseball players from New York. It's an amazingly flexible word. I wouldn't be shocked if it had a different meaning in rural Maine.

There is a story of a Confederate soldier, bayonet fixed, running up to a New York Irish Brigade private and saying something to the effect of, "Hand over that flag, Yankee, or I'll run you through!"

"As you're the first person to ever call me that, you can have the flag."

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

Yeaaap ... all of the backwards assed, un-hip rural folk ...

Growing your food, cutting your trees, mining your minerals, running your ski lifts, and even in many cases, making stuff that says "Made in the USA" ... lots of factories are "survivors" out in the sticks.

Heck, some of those backward folks are even my Melungeon cuz.

What is the category for them? How can we pigeonhole such odd outs?

Well, I just reprised my basic "Arrow of Progress," from the English Civil War through today. The progressives tend to be urban, industrial, secular, and progressive and have favored human rights and democracy. The conservatives tend to be rural, agricultural, religious, conservative and have attempted to maintain existing social structures. I can respect the notion of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Things move slower in rural areas. There is less need for change. Values and world views are stubborn. If the old ways are working there will be a very large resistance to change. In many ways, living in a more stable area of the country is a blessing and a gift, but both progressives and conservatives have to deal with a strong central government that is very tempted to force "one size fits all" policies on everyone everywhere.

Why would someone want to be taxed to solve a problem they don't have? It's not that one part of the country has a perfectly logical and correct world view while the other part consists of ignorant lunatics. Both broad world views evolved for perfectly understandable and reasonable reasons. They just don't address the other side's environment very well. Alas, both sides seem more determined to enforce their culture one the other and disparage the other rather than to seek reasonable compromises while allowing the other to do things their own way.

Now, naturally as a Progressive I'd have a concept of an Arrow of Progress. As technology changes, the culture must follow, and the devil take the hindmost. That wouldn't necessarily be a Conservative thing. Conservatives might be more likely to have a Bible and a Constitution, which aren't entirely bad things to have.

I occasionally daydream about both sides finding what is common. Respect the entire Bill of Rights rather than selected portions. Be willing and ready to love and help one's neighbor. Have the smallest government one needs to do what is necessary but don't hesitate to do the necessary. There ought to be a set of common values that we could meet on.

But you are right. Too often we focus more on pigeonholing and straw manning. It is easier to bristle and growl than to find elements of truth and common ground.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

Yeaaap ... all of the backwards assed, un-hip rural folk ...

Growing your food, cutting your trees, mining your minerals, running your ski lifts, and even in many cases, making stuff that says "Made in the USA" ... lots of factories are "survivors" out in the sticks.

Heck, some of those backward folks are even my Melungeon cuz.

What is the category for them? How can we pigeonhole such odd outs?

Lots of folks don't fit categories, so I guess I'd put you in the category of the uncategorizable

Some of that stuff is pretty-much old-fashioned now; we need to cut fewer trees and mine fewer minerals. Recycling is the way to go! But ski-lifts; now that's an essential service (not that I use it myself...)

Originally Posted by Kinser79

I would argue that anyone who works for someone else's profit is exploited. Profit does not materialize for the capitalist out of thin air, rather it is the result of labor power applied to raw materials (be that data, hair, food or steel). I will agree that if one does not like their work, despite the required smile--and that is more cultural than anything else, Americans love those who must debase themselves for sustenance to smile while they do it, does indeed debase the worker. One of the reasons why "good help" is so hard to find in my line of work.

The demand that the peon show loyalty to the Boss is a demand for dishonesty. Does anyone believe that the counter people at a fast food place are happier than schoolteachers because counter people smile more? As a substitute teacher... I learned quickly that it is wisest to make someone earn my smile. Mine, when it happens, is genuine.

The political pressure for this will not be forthcoming. The Democrat politicians and the Republican politicians are all bought off. Only, if and when, the labor movement starts growing again will there be political pressure outside of run of the mill bourgeois politics.

Strong unions are the solution. Unions are the only entities that can stand up for the working man against heartless tycoons and narcissistic executives who think of workers as machines of meat and little else.

By the way -- an executive who owns none of the means of production but gets huge compensation for treating people badly is far more of an exploiter than the family that owns a mom-and-pop business. For the latter, the profit is one's pay.

I would argue that the economic elites do not need to kiss up to anyone, they just buy them. The ass kissing to uppers, and kicking the lowers is usually the province of middle management.

Executives. Think of Richard Cheney.

In short, CXr is a capitalist in the philosophical sense.

He aligns with the worst of American elites. What is in it for him?

Capitalism is doomed anyway. No economic system that is dependent on scarcity lasts forever, even less so one that is dependent on scarcity and fear to keep the slaves in line. Eventually a slave rebellion or peasant's revolt happens. America is not immune to this--American Exceptional-ism is a fucking myth.

There will still be people devoid of imagination and people who like routine, repetitive work that intelligent people generally chafe at. For the rest of us?

Actually the symptoms described for the "underclass" as you call it, and I'm going to take that to mean the lumpenproletariat, and the lower strata of the proletariat, are the result of the needs of production shifting. Performing work, IE producing value, is a human need. Lacking that one seeks to end their pain through lack of value production through pathological means--IE drug addiction, over indulgence in subsidized junk food, etc. I would, therefore, argue, that as the need for labor to produce for needs diminishes over time (due to automation, better processes, increases in productivity, etc) that the surplus labor power be put into cultural production.

80-hour workweek... 70-hour workweek... 60-hour workweek... 50-hour workweek... 40-hour workweek; such is progress. But it could be that the 40-hour workweek is obsolete.

There may even be need to garuntee a basic lifestyle threshold below which one cannot go. This could be done a myrad of ways from negative income taxes to a welfare state. The point is that given the opportunity to produce, humans will. Unshackling production from survival may result in a much greater cultural output. Likewise, unshackling cultural output from the need to profit will result in more culture being produced. This is already happening in music where it is not uncommon for bands, MCs and so on to put their material on the internet for free simply for the recognition.

We have big adjustments to make. The post-scarcity economy (OK, gold, furs, diamonds, emeralds, teak, mahogany, abalone, lobster, and prime ocean-view property will always be scarce) will require huge changes in the way in which people live, let alone do things. Status symbols that allegedly distinguish the rich from the non-rich (really the middle class from the working class) will become irrelevant as people become more secure about what they are.

I have my idea about what many people might do with the technology of video. Let us suppose that you live here:



and your wall can look like this:



With video imaging getting incredibly cheap, why not?

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

New England is more liberal throughout. Elsewhere it's true that there's a strong urban-rural divide between blue and red, as we now use those colors. But regardless, you are using the term "yankee" to mean your values. Yankee originally referred to the rebel colonists against England (whose rebellion arose in New England), and then to the North in the Civil War, which means anti-slavery and liberal; originally Republican, but now entirely Democratic. Yankee also refers to American generally, especially when we are invading or fighting other countries. Whether that's liberal or conservative may depend on the war involved.

You could be using it to mean white America, or non-immigrant; which again proves my point that conservatives today depend on racism and race-provocation or baiting. In any case, Americans were never all or even mostly white Europeans, and all Americans are immigrants, whether they moved (or were forcibly brought) here last year or 10,000 years ago.

I don't see any basis for equating the term "yankee" with rural Americans, even though today rural Americans largely (though not exclusively) tend to embrace your values and urban Americans tend to embrace mine. In my opinion, that's just because urban Americans are more-often hip, informed and up-to-date as well as diverse, while rural Americans are more-often parochial, backward, narrow-minded, more-often white, and prejudiced in various ways (whether racist, fundamentalist, militarist, etc.).

Urban America is more expensive and is more into glamor & glitz and draws in and contains a lot more minorities and is more dependent upon social services and state and federal funding than rural America. Like most anyone, you tell a redneck what he can and cannot have and do and say and believe and who he has to like and accept in the redneck's world, the redneck isn't going to like you very much and isn't going to support you politically. Btw, the ones that I know and have met don't vote or pay any attention to politics.

Originally Posted by B Butler

Well, I just reprised my basic "Arrow of Progress," from the English Civil War through today. The progressives tend to be urban, industrial, secular, and progressive and have favored human rights and democracy. The conservatives tend to be rural, agricultural, religious, conservative and have attempted to maintain existing social structures. I can respect the notion of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Things move slower in rural areas. There is less need for change. Values and world views are stubborn. If the old ways are working there will be a very large resistance to change. In many ways, living in a more stable area of the country is a blessing and a gift, but both progressives and conservatives have to deal with a strong central government that is very tempted to force "one size fits all" policies on everyone everywhere.

Why would someone want to be taxed to solve a problem they don't have? It's not that one part of the country has a perfectly logical and correct world view while the other part consists of ignorant lunatics. Both broad world views evolved for perfectly understandable and reasonable reasons. They just don't address the other side's environment very well. Alas, both sides seem more determined to enforce their culture one the other and disparage the other rather than to seek reasonable compromises while allowing the other to do things their own way.

Now, naturally as a Progressive I'd have a concept of an Arrow of Progress. As technology changes, the culture must follow, and the devil take the hindmost. That wouldn't necessarily be a Conservative thing. Conservatives might be more likely to have a Bible and a Constitution, which aren't entirely bad things to have.

I occasionally daydream about both sides finding what is common. Respect the entire Bill of Rights rather than selected portions. Be willing and ready to love and help one's neighbor. Have the smallest government one needs to do what is necessary but don't hesitate to do the necessary. There ought to be a set of common values that we could meet on.

But you are right. Too often we focus more on pigeonholing and straw manning. It is easier to bristle and growl than to find elements of truth and common ground.

The cities are much less industrial today. You can pretty much scratch industrial off the urban list, so to speak.

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

Urban America is more expensive and is more into glamor & glitz and draws in and contains a lot more minorities and is more dependent upon social services and state and federal funding than rural America.

If we need it, we're not afraid to use it. We paid for it; we know it benefits any of us when we need it. We know we can't depend on it too much, because it ain't much. But it's better than nothin' in a crunch.

And of course it's well known that actually red states get more of the benefits and pay less of the taxes for federal programs, while the blue states pay the most and get the least.

Glamor and glitz? Well maybe you got me there. I'm not into it at all; I despise it. I want quality culture; that's my "culture war!" And as everybody here knows, I don't refrain from expressing my opinion about what is good quality; I don't feel that having views on what's quality is offensive to post-modern anything-goes toleration. So, do rural folks think like me? I hardly think so, Classic Xer. They would not know quality if it bit them in the ass. Hee HAAA! (funny you mention redneck in the next sentence!)

Like most anyone, you tell a redneck what he can and cannot have and do and say and believe and who he has to like and accept in the redneck's world, the redneck isn't going to like you very much and isn't going to support you politically. Btw, the ones that I know and have met don't vote or pay any attention to politics.

Trouble is, redneck resentment about being told what to like and believe, which amounts really to nothing more than some urban journalist or schoolboy trying to pass along some information, becomes the basis for his or her vote. IF they vote, as you point out (but actually I think rural folks vote more often than urban folks, especially younger urban folks during midterm elections; not showing much "urban sophistication" there compared to the rednecks, is it????). But voting on the basis of resentment about being shown up for how little (s)he knows, ends up costing the rednecks a helluva lot.

Because the people they vote for don't hesitate to screw them over-- sending them more droughts and floods with their pro-pollution pro-carbon agenda, or cutting the programs that could help them get clean water or to stop the coal mines from polluting it and ruining their lungs, or keeping wages so low that they can't afford to do anything but work for some creep from Connecticut who owns all the companies and stores in their town; if they can get a job at all anymore, with their factories being sent to China, and so forth.

And whose taxes get cut by these GOP politicians whom they vote for who promised to cut their taxes? Probably not even theirs. Instead, these patriotic rednecks proudly send their sons overseas to fight in expensive, unnecessary, debt-ballooning GOP wars and watch them get sent home in big boxes. But, they'd rather do THAT than have their patriotic beliefs be questioned by some "elitist" professor from the city.