"I guess I missed the part of the book of Genesis where Moses says 'Let my people make $250,000 a year or more,'" jokes Chris Lehmann, author of the new book Rich People Things (from OR Books, also publisher of At The Tea Party). And Harper's columnist Thomas Frank notes, "It's expensive to be a populist these days!"
Thomas and Chris join us in studio for a chat about Rich People Things--why it is that the same political rhetoric that used to be used in service of the people, the poor and working classes, is now being used to defend the rights of millionaires not to pay taxes. When the social contract's been shredded, right-wingers talk of "forces of darkness" with straight faces, and Republicans are vowing not to vote on anything until they get to cut taxes for the rich, what can we do?
HA HA good theory. The Founders were Plutos themselves. They left plenty of ambiguity in that Constitution about rights of property owners and unearned income earners and mere wage slaves!
As long as there was plenty of space here and hard work to do, they had a use for a middle class. Especially when they needed their WWII fought to get the money back they loaned Britain, France, AND Germany! Just like WWI before then.
They went along with pensions, and unions, and GI Bills and things to sell cars and stuff in little houses dotting the suburbs. They needed alphabet/numerate workers for their factories and offices, but now they’re done! The American Revolution was those guys throwing off a Brit aristocracy of their peers. It was a half-revolution! The French Revolution, the Russian Revolution were real revolutions. The Chinese Revolution may have been a real revolution. Vietnam, etc. They threw off an aristocracy from within.
Only the Germans had a half-revolution and they got stuck with Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm who set them up for WWI leaving all the unresolved social economic problems in place to set them up again for WWII. Now, we’re being set up for whatever we’re being setup for with war debts, currency war, over extended corporate fascism, captured media, courts and congress, all wrapped around Islamophobia, xenophobia against Latinos and Chinese, homophobia, what else? It is the perfect setup…
Only thing we can look forward to is the day these guys provoke the revolution against themselves, like Romanov and Hohenzollern brought upon themselves (maybe with some help from Rockefeller for Baku) and then our new constitution will be unequivocally egalitarian protecting all rights equally and neutering the Aristos from their “free speech” and “money as speech” divide-and-rule tricks. Without any of the caveats this SCOTUS protects well hidden so their benefactors can exploit. Like the European post-war constitutions finally did after their nasty gruesome lessons! They’re won’t be any more of this wanton forgetfulness and mythologizing anymore in US families’ memory…
By Planckbrandt on December 3rd, 2010 at 3:04 pm
My only complaint — these guys were a bit to laughy about a topic
which is very serious — considering all the unemployed who don’t
have much chance of getting back to middle class status.
By elkojohn on December 3rd, 2010 at 10:23 pm
[...] columnist Thomas Frank notes, "It's expensive to be a populist these days!" Watch the interview at GRITtv.org. HomeOur BooksAt the Tea Party: The Wing Nuts, Whack Jobs and Whitey-Whiteness of the New [...]
By OR Books — Chris Lehmann and Tom Frank discuss RICH PEOPLE THINGS on GRITtv with Laura Flanders on December 8th, 2010 at 3:32 pm