Some Americans like to brag America has always been a classless society without kings and dukes. The virus is showing there is indeed class in America and that the working class is taking the brunt of this mess, both in the level of infection and death and in losing jobs.
Many try to define the working class according to income or education. But there are working class people who make middle class income. And there are people with college degrees who earn a pittance (adjunct professors come to mind – I was one for a while).
Stoehr defines working class by whether you have power on the job – the power to control where, when, how, and how long you work and the power to work without constant supervision.
Put another way: If you have the power to demand—and command—respect from a boss, you’re not working class.If you have that power you can make more money. With that more money comes more power. If you don’t have that power it is a “vicious cycle that for many spirals downward, grinding them to dust.”
The conventional wisdom is that suffering is a natural part of life. Some people are going to be left out of an advanced capitalist society. That’s either acceptable (the Republican view) or a problem for liberal policy makers to address (the Democratic view).
But if nothing else, the pandemic has shown how wrong the conventional wisdom is. It’s not that some people might suffer. It’s not that some people might face injustice as a result of broader prosperity.
It’s that some people must suffer, because without their suffering our advance capitalist society would cease functioning.
I’m pleased to see this: Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos reports Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuch Schumer wrote a letter requesting that when America passes 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 (which could happen by Memorial Day on Monday) flags on federal buildings should fly at half staff to honor so many dead. This would be a national expression of grief. It’s something the people desperately need.
Alas, the person they had to send that letter to is the nasty guy. He’s the one who controls what happens in federal buildings (except the Capitol and Supreme Court Bldg). And it is this nasty guy who is either in denial of all those deaths or is actively contributing to them. Eleveld wrote that many GOP senators are well aware that they were nasty guy enablers and played a role in this death count. Will they do what is right?
A.R. Moxon tweeted a thread noting the nasty guy says the exact same things that white nationalists say. He has been pursuing policies to create a white ethnostate, the same policies white supremacists want. Why are people still confused about what the nasty guy is doing?
Not knowing that Donald Trump is a white nationalist requires a willful effort, revealing a deeper desire to not know.Commenter Molly NYC replied about the comment of still being confused:
...
Q. What's the difference between someone who says what a white supremacist says, and a white supremacist?
I'll answer with a question.
A. What's the difference between someone who supports a supremacist for their supremacy, and somebody who does so for some other reason?
…or so deeply internalizing a WN viewpoint that you don’t notice it in others.
Racists don’t realize they’re racists. IMHO, it’s the most interesting thing about them.
The nasty guy visited Michigan yesterday. In preparation Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel sent him a letter saying he had a legal and moral responsibility to wear a mask. He did, for maybe a minute. Aferward he attacked her. She replied, “He is a petulant child who refuses to follow the rules.” Mary Louise Kelly of NPR’s *All Things Considered* talked to Nessel about the letter and the nasty guy’s actions. During the talk Kelly asked Nessel twice:
Do you risk fanning partisan flames at a moment when this country could really stand to come together?I very much wanted Nessel to say you’re asking me if I’m fanning the flames? Oh, please! Nessel said it a lot more diplomatically that I would have:
OK. Look; this is an individual who has encouraged people to break the law in a manner that jeopardizes the health of all our state residents. And then when we have armed gunmen storming the Capitol holding swastikas and Confederate flags, he calls them very good people who our governor ought to negotiate with. I'm sorry, but if anyone has started this battle, it is certainly President Trump.
Bill in Portland, Maine writes a weekday Cheers and Jeers article for Kos. On Fridays he’s been starting with some good lines from late night TV hosts. Here are a couple from this week:
President Trump says he's taking an unproven anti-malarial drug [hydroxychloroquine] as an 'additional level of safety.' … Side effects can potentially include agitation, insomnia, confusion, mania, hallucinations, paranoia, as well as lasting psychiatric and neurological symptoms. So either Trump’s lying about taking it, or he’s been taking it for 73 years.
—Seth Meyers
Today for me is day 70 of stay-at-home. I've now been in this house—this is true—longer than it took Columbus to get to the new world. We are in Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria territory now. … This year for Memorial Day we've got a plan. We're packin' up the kids and taking them to the laundry room.
—Jimmy Kimmel
Bill in Portland, Maine reminds us that Harvey Milk, gay rights pioneer, was born 90 years ago today. Alas, he was assassinated at age 48. A couple quotes from the wise man:
It takes no compromising to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no survey to remove repressions.
...
It’s about the us’s out there. Not only gays, but the Blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us’s. Without hope, the us’s give up. I know you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. So you, and you, and you…you gotta give em’ hope.
Watch a heavy machine operator make the day for two little kids. And he does it with such precision!
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