53% of Americans can’t come up with $400 in a pinch. But 65% of Americans think they’re doing well financially. Who exactly are these 12% who don’t think being poor is, you know, being poor?
The Dumbest 12%
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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That 12% is known as the GOP base.
The Democratic base thinks we can fight wars anywhere (or everywhere) in the world, and still have social programs for poor people. The Democratic base thinks there is much more of that around than there really is.
Hence, the “two-sides-of-the-same-coin” paradigm, heads you’re batshit crazy, tails your dumbshit stupid. The batshit crazies ‘gotta have war cause we MUST be number one with a gun … the dumshit stupids ‘gotta have war cause there’s no second-string to being global cop. Both sides have fixed the system so’s that neither thinks they’ll suffer economic suicide along with the rest of the idiots who let them take office (most have golden-parachute retirement property in Paraguay, or South America, etc.).
After the last economic catastrophe finally occurs, the bansksters move in with their global collection agency and enslave anybody left with an endenturable pulse.
DanD
Have you not been paying attention? The Dems are the sissy cowards who want to hold hands and sing Kumbaya. They want to *cut* military spending.
It’s those on the right who want to fight unfunded wars. (See: Bush administration and the GOP congress)
It’s also those on the right who keep preaching that wealth is not a zero sum game, and we can support infinite growth with finite resources.
hhhmmm, “Matt Love” sounds lot like “Jack Heart” to me.
That’s cute. I have to admit he makes a lot of sense though. Where are all these Democrat voters and politicians who aren’t pro-war-everywhere, CH? I mean THEIR guy is for it now, so it’s cool! And their gal is too!
In this connexion, the so-called «Democratic base» like its «Republican» counterpart, is easily swayed, not least because most of the wars of foreign aggression carried out by the USA after WW II, have not had an great – immediately obvious – influence on their own lives (the connexion between these military policies and the enormous transfer of economic and political resources from ordinary people to the super rich resulting from them is not apparent to all). But even if were the domestic consequences evident, swaying these «bases» would hardly have been difficult : Hermann Göring’s observation is still valid :
Natürlich, das einfache Volk will keinen Krieg […] Aber schließlich sind es die Führer eines Landes, die die Politik bestimmen, und es ist immer leicht, das Volk zum Mitmachen zu bringen, ob es sich nun um eine Demokratie, eine faschistische Diktatur, um ein Parlament oder eine kommunistische Diktatur handelt. […] Das ist ganz einfach. Man braucht nichts zu tun, als dem Volk zu sagen, es würde angegriffen, und den Pazifisten ihren Mangel an Patriotismus vorzuwerfen und zu behaupten, sie brächten das Land in Gefahr. Diese Methode funktioniert in jedem Land.” Interview with Gustave Gilbert in his prison cell, 18 April 1946….
Henri
@Jack “he makes a lot of sense though. ”
I think we can agree that he makes exactly as much sense as you do…
>;->
Okay. Here’s the follow-up question. I agree that 53% of Americans can’t come up with $400 in a pinch. But 65% of Americans think they’re doing well f
What’s the correct answer? I don’t mean that sarcastically.
In a pinch, I could probably raise about $10,000. But that’s an I-owe-my-bookie pinch and the legmen have given me until Thursday to come up with the 10K. I don’t think I’d consider myself doing “well” unless I could pony up $100K in the same circumstance.
In an “liquidate everything just for the hell of it” scenario, I suppose I could raise about $15,000, and I would not consider myself “well” unless it was about a half-million.
The dumbest 12%? Forget that, because when the overwhelming majority doesn’t even have a clue that they no longer live in a “representative democracy”, then what they might think about “how well they are doing” is a moot point. We’re missing the boat here when we get sidetracked by “what people think” instead of “what really is”. That’s why our government can get away with pretty much anything it wants to most of the time. As an example – Do you really think that the NSA shut off the lights, sent people home, and stopped doing what it has been doing? I don’t. Does anyone think that our government will stop funneling billions into bullying the rest of the world and use it to help repair our national infrastructure and pathetic social services? No way.
Indeed, the NSA will continue skirting the law secretly as it likely always has.
I’d not say those 12 % (65 % – 53 %) who in an emergency couldn’t come up with that 400USD without borrowing or selling something and still consider that they’re doing OK or living well financially are necessarily «dumb», Ted ; perhaps they merely accept the fact that they live dans le meilleur des mondes possibles, at least as defined by the present economic system in the US. Who is to say that they are wrong ?…
Henri