Polarized America
 

I heard part of the interview of the author of the new book Polarized America this past week. Unfortunately, I can't remember where. Still, it presents a fascinating point of view.

In other words, in times in US history when there have been large gaps in income, there have been bitter examples of partisanship.

Here is a link to what might be the working paper that the author presented.

It is true that america is REALLY polarized. You either support something or you are completely against it. You can't just be tolerant of something, you have to be accepting or denouncing.

Economic inequality in the 2000s is much, much different from economic inequality in previous generations. The social factors at work now are completely different from those at work 100 years ago.

But the result is the same. The question is whether the political schism is a natural result or due to manipulation.

Why would middle class and working class Americans vote for a party which seems to be working against their interests? When was the last time Fox News dealt with a story on the fall of the middle class and the income gap?

The push towards social conservatism has been funded by those who want to move the debate from shared economic prosperity to Gay Marriage, Flag Burning, anything to distract the public from it's loss of broad based wealth.

The result is TOTALLY different today.

As little as five generations ago, unemployment was 25%, half of the population was at or near poverty level, taxes took 10-20% of ordinary income and the inequality meant that people literally starved.

Today starvation is unheard of, unemployment is 4.8%, about fifth of the people are at or near poverty level, taxes take 40-45% of ordinary income and the inequality means that the poor can only afford basic cable.

Yesterday an increase in gas price put people in the poor house. Today they get mad and skip their morning latte. Wise up, it is a new world and shit has changed. The social programs you are whining about are in place and have been in place for many decades. If there is still inequality it is not politically solvable. In fact the Democrats are working to reform and remove the programs.

The reason the Ds are not in power is because things have changed and economic issues are irrelevant to most people. Gay marriage is an issue now because so many other issues have been solved. The politics you are pursuing are a long-term loser.

The New Deal is over. And by the way, the USSR was an economic failure. The Chinese are Capitalists. Get used to the new situation or continue to lose.

Poloroid
 

Every time I hear John Lennon's Imagine, I have to laugh. Imagine is about all you could ever do with this world. Power and wealth is in the hands of the most aggressive (or their heirs). When you combine wealth, technology, and intellectual capital with aggressiveness, you pretty much control the world. Altruism is for losers. Those who don't have the wealth and intellectual capital tend toward fanaticism or are satisfied with the bread and circuses our tacky American culture provides. And it's like a disease. Last time I was in Brasil, for example, I stopped to look at the scene before me: to my left was a McDonalds, to my right was a Pizza Hut, across the street was a Blockbuster, and down the street in the distance was a WalMart. We're doomed by our greed.

If Brazil didn't want a WalMart, they wouldn't have one. They wouldn't have a WalMart if WalMart didn't think it would be profitable for them to open a store in a foreign country.

That's the special kind of doom that means progress.

What Brasil Wants
 

Brasil is a country, and as such it is only an idea with abstract boundaries shown on a map, as is any country. People have "wants," not countries. Sao Paulo alone has about 30 million people, and many of them desire cheap and plentiful products, enough for WalMart to open stores there. Many others deeply resent the Americanization of "their" Brasil, and boycott Coke, McDonalds, and WalMart. They put anti-McDonalds bumper stickers on their fuscas (VW Bugs) and drink ONLY Guarana.

But some Brasilians display a very paradoxical love/hate pattern of behavior when it comes to American culture, deriding McDonalds while listening to the latest American songs on their car radios. Most universally loathe W., but want to supersize their universally small cars up to an American SUV. That's why I used the "disease" analogy. American style consumerism is taking over the world despite its critics. "Doom" indeed.

The Japanese do US-style consumerism much better than the Americans, and the Americans are buying Japanese products now. I say we call it Japanese-style consumerism from now on.

And another thing. Let's be honest. It's really anti-Americanism, isn't it? The VW drivers don't mind that a German company comes in, has them build the cars there, and converts everything to Euros at the end of the day. But they do mind if the Chinese make goods for dead cheap and ship directly to Brazil and sell it under a US brand and convert to dollars at the end of the day.

They don't mind if the soda is corporately made and corporately marketed, they just want the brand name to be the nationalistic style they want.

So help me, I can't tell the difference between this attitude and plain old vanilla xenophobia.

It involves brown people and therefore it's America's Fault. And racist.

O RLY?

Sure that doesn't have something to do with how the measurement of unemployment has changed over the years? (Among other things, if you remain unemployed for an extended period, you're no longer counted. As of just several years ago, flipping burgers at McDonald's was changed to 'manufacturing'. Etc.)

Good to see you're concerned mostly with the people who had the money to blow on daily lattes to begin with. People who are living paycheck to paycheck see rising fuel prices a bit differently. Really, are you limiting your examples of "how shit has changed" to what you know of the world by watching the middle class from the window of a Starbuck's?

Oh, right, right. I guess I was mistaken. Here, I thought it was just a rediculous, emotional hot button that only comes up in election years and appeals to a culture that is constantly looking for the next boogeyman to blame all these "solved issues" on.

It is naive to think that being rich changes people, that wealth is the issue.
There are plenty of wealthy people who are much more of a solution than a problem... I think more than the opposite.
Those that are the problem, cause the majority of the problems... but there is not conspiracy and those who think so are just spinning their wheels.
The real polarization are those who can think for themselves and do what they think is right regardless of popular opinion and those who tout a party line, be it left or right.

Fine, amended, Kit: in the US there is hunger, but not one single sign of starvation. Not one.

In NPR's worst efforts they found poor people who "made tough choices" but not one starvation amongst the lot of them.

They found 38 million people who are "food insecure" because as you said, they live paycheck to paycheck and one paycheck may not get the food on the table. And here's a picture of one of them, from "A Rural Struggle to Keep the Family Fed":

http://cellar.org/2006/wreatha200.jpg

Or from "Hunger Hidden but Real in America's Suburbs":

http://cellar.org/2006/cairo200.jpg

I've seen pictures of real hunger and it sure doesn't look like this.

Something ironic is that the poor in the US eat fat almost exclusively and the rich starve themselves. It freaks me out.