Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Food for Thought: Will America Wake Up?


San Jose Mercury News Editorial: Middle Class Squeeze Threatens Americans



What *fun* is celebrating Labor Day around here anymore when Beltway insider elites and corporate welfare whores are working ‘round the clock to cobble legal protections with greedy immigration law firms to kick America’s white collar citizens to the curb?

LWOH looks at an article and an editorial that appeared today in the San Jose Mercury News.

Before we look at today’s San Jose Mercury News editorial below, is anyone else wondering HOW America’s educated white collar computer scientists and software engineers, many with advanced degrees, ended up in the year 2008 to only be worth a whopping $72,000.00 a year? WHO allowed this? Today’s San Jose Mercury News article entitled Tech's battle for overtime pay moves to Sacramento http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_10360947 discusses how the tech lobby, with the help of a few greedy Beltway insiders, insist on turning the industry into a blue collar wage slave one.

Now that Labor Day has come and gone, eight weeks prior to the presidential election, the Department of Disinformation is cranking up the whole “hey plebes, look left now” while they kick the collective sorry ass of the educated white collar worker through the goal post, exit stage right.

In addition to this shining example over the weekend of how one of the nation’s flagship, weekly MSM rags, Newsweek, positions a story entitled IS AMERICA LOSING AT GLOBALIZATION and then proceeds to withhold HOW and WHY this is happening and WHO in our Congress, State Department, DOL etc. are responsible, WHO profits and suffers, we can expect to see a flood of media obfuscation from now until the election until our next dictator gets installed. (And the internet was supposed to be good for whom, again?) So much for those “new media” wannabes, pining to be the next Chris Matthewsshow me a “new media” journo and or outlet that isn’t on the sell out the American white collar professional bandwagon/payroll and I’ll show you a bridge to nowhere…Seriously, I’d love to know.

So for the next eight weeks, plebeians throughout these great fifty states can expect to be treated with an avalanche of corporate damage control articles by MSM and “new media” sycophants in their heavily invested attempts to take the average citizen’s eye off the ball. After reading this entire Newsweek article above, the author makes it clear that this “entity” called America may be losing its global luster (but oh, how its elites have made out like bandits) but the whopping 95% plus of its citenzry, you know, as in the PEOPLE – are being screwed and glued by secret backroom deals that these insulated, well-heeled journos have every vested interest in keeping a big fat secret from the average, loathsome, white collar reader…many of whom refuse to believe this war on the middle class could possibly include them.

Today, the San Jose Mercury News offers this article which declares the direction this nation’s corporate overlords wish to take us: a nation of blue (green) collar wage slaves that abandons the nation’s American educated white collar professional.


This editorial -- a typical, perfunctory grand-poohbah appeasement piece with the teaser title Middle class squeeeze threaten American dream is nothing short of a shameless promotional article for Tesla Motors, touting the wonders of a few green technology, blue collar jobs. Oh, how this nation’s elite wants to turn this country into the next Old Colonial empire with its Neo- Frat Boy Corporate State agenda as it works with beltway insiders (hey Al, Nancy, Joe and Hillary, listening?) to push aside its educated citizens.

Not only is today’s San Jose Mercury News editorial particularly disturbing in its shameless, transparent promotion of Tesla Motors (a luxury automotive manufacturer building vehicles exclusively for the upper 1% of residents who can afford them) but most disturbing is its unabashed, ominous however most confident threat to every middle class, educated American:


The American dream is based on opportunity for all. As the number of middle-income jobs shrinks in proportion to population, so does opportunity. It's something to ponder on this day to honor labor.”


Got that, educated plebes? So WHO are these wizards who declare that the majority of educated white collar Americans can go to hell? Hmm? Of course the SJM is controlled by the Tech Lobby whose charter is to rid the area of educated, American white collar professionals in order to pave the way for their stable caste of H-1b and green card workers who will take their places and work for less. As always, the best part these days in any of these corporate controlled “editorials” are the comments.


Hat tip to commenter ‘Party Crasher’:


“That's OK, I'd rather those hedge fund managers making $1 billion a year have a 15% tax rate, while my combined state and federal rate approaches 40%. I'd rather work the whole month of August so my European colleagues (who never worry about having health care) can take off the whole month of August. The social safety nets in this country are so frayed, that if you fall off the ladder, it is harder and harder and harder to climb back up. I'm sure that my 52 year old cousin diagnosed with breast cancer 13 months after being laid off would much rather spend her life savings paying for medical care and keeping those collection agencies in business. We all live to serve "business" who can without consequence or pangs of conscience kick us to the curb without notice or a dime of severance, and then you are on your own. We're free all right, free to starve. Look around and see what is actually happening in this country. If you don't like "socialism", then perhaps you should refrain from collecting social security when you are old enough. Don't be taking those government handouts you so despise when you are elderly! It'll make you weak and lazy! Work, work till you drop...I do not understand this selfishness. If you are a social conservative, what ever happened to "as you do unto the least of these, so you do unto Me"? Guess Rush Limbaugh does not preach that. If you are a fiscal conservative, don't you understand the value of investment? Investing in education and infrastructure benefit everyone. I guess you spontaneously learned to read, paid for college without a single loan, Pell Grant or family handout, and you get to work by negotiating with every land owner between home and your office.”


Sure, let's build some stuff here again: green, yellow or blue. But let's put our educated white collar Americans BACK into the program. One thing is certain: the Department of Disinformation understands the subtlety behind “divide and conquer” and so far, it’s working out well as so many plebes – surprisingly on the Left --- are swallowing it like a morning breakfast bowl of “What middle class war? I got mine.”


-2Truthy

10 comments:

Citizen Carrie said...

WTF????????

Who wrote this crap?

The article comes right out and says middle class jobs are disappearing for good, and they're still telling janitors, and sons and daughters of janitors, to go to college for......what reasons?

Do they really think that a new class of entrepeneurial janitors are going to arise to become the next tycoons of the electric car and windmill industries?

(By the way, I had better luck reading the article with this link.)

http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_10352982

2Truthy said...

Thanks CC for the heads up on the link. For some reason, it doesn't want to be embedded...

Note that the title of this SJMN editorial "Middle Class Squeeze Threatens Americans" and Stebenow's dictum share an ominous, foreboding warning for what is to come.

Good point about the new class of janitors. But remeber that post you did with the Vince Wade video that illustrated the collusion of academia, the State Dept. and corporate elites on how OUR UNIVERSITY SYSTEM, heralded as the "envy of the world", provides billions in subsidies to foreign students while Americans can no longer afford skyrocketing tuition?

Are they cooking up our university system to be the next ultimate "high end" , profitable service bubble that will shelter corporate, think tank and academic elites from the unwashed majority?

Citizen Carrie said...

We rarely get a lot of details in place on what the University of Michigan is up to, but here's a real doozy from just a few days ago:

http://blog.mlive.com/
ann_arbor_news_extra/
2008/08/mary_sue_coleman_extends_unive.html

Anonymous said...

Are they cooking up our university system to be the next ultimate "high end", profitable service bubble...

Ha - I've already noticed the usual nitwits running around comments sections touting just that. (You know the ones I'm talking about - the ones babbling inanities about "comparative advantage" when you point out disastrous trade deficits and debt.) Our fabulous universities are going to keep us afloat attracting the world's best - both by selling them a (heavily subsidized) education and begging them to then stay and do the work and innovation that we 'merkins are just too freaking stupid and worthless to do. Of course, they're the same people who are under the delusion that God has permanently "comparatively advantaged" the U.S. as high-tech heaven, even as high-end manufacturing and R&D is shipped out, out, and away at an ever increasing pace. Bowl of stupid for breakfast, indeed.

2Truthy said...

-Editor, San Jose Mercury News


I am struck by this brazen omen that you just KNOW Tom Plebe and Harriet are so effing missing -- and THAT, during this election cycle, is the most fucked up part. After reading these SJMN articles and CC's Detroit newspaper piece quoting 'Debbie does Diddly' Stabenow, the writing is on the wall: You can just HEAR these corporate/beltway PR asshats (know who they are?) telling the goons at McClatchy et.al

"After Labor Day, the m.o. is to just start telling these American jerk-offs they are shit out of luck and the have/have not divide is in full swing, and they ain't included!!!!" It's begun, friends!

THE OFFICIAL MEDIA WAR AGAINST THE MIDDLE CLASS IS HERE. READ YOUR GODDAMN CORPORATE MEDIA HEADLINES, SUCKAS. AND GO FUCK YOURSELF, CUZ THERE IS ONLY SO MUCH WE ELITES WANT TO SHARE WITH THE REST OF YOU EDUCATED LOSERS!!!!!!!!!!!

The main cast of characters including Goolge, Siebel HP and IBM -- (of note, Google) who have laid down intimate stakes into our best universities considered to be "The Star of the Sea" when in comes to computer science and technology. American corporate/academic incestuousness is only tantalized by the increasing pheromones of the Indian and Chinese currency. In particular, Stanford, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, U of Ilinois -- leading academics at these top CS/engineering schools have adopted the smarmy corporate sell out speak. And for what/whom? A few Provosts and insufferable published academics? (I'd go into my best friend stories about how I know some of them but would that peg me as racist or elitist or some other anti-pc' slur?)

So how, Red Oak, are they going to continue this sell out? The answer is through daily, drip drip media conditioning, like they have just begun post Labor Day! The plebes are so down with this, can't see it or refuse to -- especially on the LEFT, and IMO more so than the Right. Remember, the Right are basically selfish and too clueless and just really want their tax shelters and rebates -- but when it comes to this war on the middle class, the Left are trouble, as most of them have never owned anything but have an extra few brain cells to be able to dream of being just like the Aggressor, identifying themselves withy fascism and smiling as they believe they are "sharing the wealth" at the expense of their own prosperity.

Look for it, every day. From Newsweek to our local papers, we are being conditioned by these media elites and their blogger kiss ass wannabes to sheep of this new NANNY STATE of SERFS.

By "bringing it on" (forgive me for resorting to this nauseating Dubya taunt) the media propaganda-speak - such as in these articles, like the ones here and others that CC is coming across in our local rags, the most disturbing element is of it all is it's overwhelming support of it by the LEFT. This is the problem: the Left is brainwashed by these Rovian tactics of divide and conquer.

Citizen Carrie said...

"Are they cooking up our university system to be the next ultimate "high end", profitable service bubble that will shelter corporate, think tank and academic elites from the unwashed majority?"

It took me a while to answer this, and Red Oak brought up some good points. Today, while reading propagandized comments to another blog post, I realized how much our universities will thrive on this "let's change our careers every decade" paradigm.

The propaganda artists have it all worked out. If we don't go to college to switch careers, (the costs can be enormous, and we may not fully reap the benefits before the next career change), we are lacking in ambition and do not deserve to live outside of the gutter. Also, if we decide to switch to a humbler vocation and try to eke out at least a dignified lifestyle, the companies will be "forced" to bring in people from overseas or offshore the work (with lower salaries, either way).

So, between fat universities and fat stock options for the captains of industries - what elegant solutions.

2Truthy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
2Truthy said...

It really is the case that this so called 'surge' in local college attendence for the locals (kids and parents alike) to study all kinds of subjects is no accident: It's a goddamn lollipop, meant to placate the plebes and take what's left of their money at the same time with NO commitment to them, not even health care.

Along these lines, WHO is supposed to pay, for example, for all of the unlicensed drivers, the illegal immigrants, and the estimated fifty million plus (conservative) residents of this country without health insurance? Where is all of this social 'infrastructure' spending coming from when local DMV agencies and hospitals are shutting down in record numbers across the nation?

Back to drivers (illegal and legal) licenses.

Where ARE all of these extra DMV centers going to come from when uber wealty beltway insider and vintner Nancy Pelosi declares we should legalize illegal immigrants into the system AFTER the state spent the last few years shutting most of the DMV centers down?

On a good day, for the LEGAL driver, an average trip to our local DMV involves HAVING TO CALL IN A SICK DAY SINCE IT TAKES SO LONG TO GET THROUGH THE GROWING CROWDS. Now will it be TWO or THREE days without pay?

The nearest DMV center to my town now is several miles away, making the average wait, including commuting time, ALL DAY, (without pay.) And guess what?

Our local politicians are on the take to make sure we don't read about any of these sticky details, much less care about any of this. Hello Barack HopeBama???

Ha.

Anonymous said...

"I realized how much our universities will thrive on this "let's change our careers every decade" paradigm."

citizen carrie, with the above model, this "nation of entrepreneurs"
can happily retool all on their own, without any "interference" or help from the corporate community. With intimate corporate and university partnerships, the sky's the limit in this bubble. At this rate, we be a nation of renters within the next few years, leasing everything from our cars to computers to living accommodations, as the U.S. "ownership" society will be reserved for the very few.

too truthy, the illegal drivers license issue has successfully diverted attention away from the real issue of multinational corporations breaking the social contract. Instead of local politicians railing about pro and con arguments for illegal drivers licenses, the whole question ought to be scrapped. Why are they (politicians) not instead railing against the lack of funding for more DMV buildings and adequate staffing? These are the same politicians who are working to ship jobs out of the country while at the same time, pushing for legislation to import more people
here. This illogical paradigm only works for the individuals crafting the legislation, and not the public.Politicians thus far have been successful at manipulating the emotional responses of both sides of this drivers license argument, serving them well.

2Truthy said...

It has already happened to the field of nursing, where wages have been declining due to the insourcing of nurses from other countries, despite the fact that our nursing schools have wait lists from local residents. In many community colleges with nursing programs, a handy manufactured "shortage" of nursing instructors has limited the number of classes available. But this "shortage" of instructors is no accident, as there are very few incentives for nurses to earn MBA's and then teach for even LESS money they would earn working as nurses.

WHERE ARE THE GOV'T. SUBSIDIES FOR AMERICAN NURSING STUDENTS? This has been one HUGE contributing factor to the "shortage" of nurses and has helped to *create* the dubious case for insourcing the nursing profession by hiring foreign nurses at decreased wages.

prez, I brought up the drivers license issue as another example of how the corporate world colludes with politicians to take from the community and not give back, like they once used to. Everyone knows that corporate multinationals are reaping the rewards of immigration, legal or not. The only term "illegal" means anymore when it comes to immigration is the level of the person's desperation to survive and build a better life here. At what cost to our communities? This is only as good as the commitment from our government to invest in our public infrastructures, which they are currently not doing.

I agree with you on the drivers license issue, which is yet another successful political attempt, as you say, at basically getting people/voters to ignore the larger issue which is a failure of Big Money to invest in our social and physical infrastructures. It has nothing to do with granting immigrants the right to earn and test for their drivers licenses, per se, but rather, everything to do with investment of our infrastructures which this country is failing to do and voters should be demanding.

With enough DMVs and the staff to manage them, who cares who earns a license? Great. Isn't it better to know that all people driving around on the roads are tested? THAT is the issue, and not some "oh they are here "illegaly" which is the fault of multinationals starving them to death in their own countries. The U.S. government has proven it does not give a shit about "legal" vs "illegal" immigration status, as all of it exists to drive down wages here. Screw the whole "illegal drivers license" issue and let them take their driving tests. But will our government actually build enough DMVs and other infrastructures to facilitate our expanding population? THAT is the question.