Big Swede, the doomed Sisyphus and Randian who appears eternally tasked to fight Marxism if it ever reappears, gives us all a what-for at 4&20, quoting another source, of course.
Marxist revolutionaries from Frank Marshall Davis to Billy Ayers to Saul Alinsky to David Axelrod have all known that it will never be possible to establish a one-party Socialist/Marxist State in the U.S. as long as there is a strong Middle Class. It is the Middle Class—not the extremely wealthy, or the poor—that represent the big stumbling block to Socialism. It is the Middle Class that keeps Democracy (as we used to know it) alive via the “Civil Society.” It is the Middle Class that participates most actively in all of the horizontal organizations and relationships that form the back-bone of Civil Society: The PTAs, the Lions Clubs, the Shriners, the small and independent Churches, the Charity groups, the Business Organizations, a Free and Open Press, and even Labor Unions when they are small and locally based, and Political Parties when they have a strong local grass-roots organization (as opposed to the large nationally based, top-down Unions and Political Parties we have today). The “Tea Party” is a classic example of a grass-roots, bottom up loose collection of horizontally organized individual citizens. In short, the “Civil Society” is the entire collection of myriad voluntary associations that exist in a Democracy, but are totally absent in Socialist States.-AMERICADEATHWATCH
Why do people get trapped in time warps? When did David Axelrod become a leftist? Obama too, I suppose, has had an epiphany. Why are “Business Organizations” good while labor unions must be small and local? Why the Lions and Shriners but not Sierrans and feminists? And how can socialism promote “one-party” states even as all openly socialist countries have at least three, while crony-capitalist corporate-socialist US has only one oligarchical party masquerading as two?
Your own words only Swede, if you dare enter these shark-infested waters. You are hopelessly lost in the silly dialogue of the Cold War, it appears.
Piece of Mindful 
I was going to post a snarky reply to that comment, but then I took a look at who the author of AMERICADEATHWATCH is. In his own words:
Yep, just another CIA spook. Classy, Swede.
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The gospel according to St. Heritage (Inc. and Co.) provides the perfect daily distraction for millions looking for scapegoats to blame for their own fear of life’s uncertainty.
Impoverished souls need love, but seem to want war. Does not compute.
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War is a force that gives life meaning?
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it’s amazing, really. not even the bastards of finance score any significant role in the fever drama playing out in the minds of those like Swede. nope, they are just dupes of the dastardly Marxists who have been planning the destruction of the middle class for half a century. that’s quite a conspiracy theory.
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Swede’s favorite movie. Hell, if he HAD a brain, these guys would wash it for him! No sense of history nor critical thinking skills required. You really should watch this in its entirety. It will help shed some light on the Swedes of Murca!
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5 against 1. Sounds like a fair fight.
Lets start at the beginning. Quote from Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals book.
“There is only three kinds of people in the world: rich and powerful oppressors, the poor and disenfranchised oppressed, and the middle-class whose apathy perpetuates the status quo.”
Sounds to me like Saul thinks the Middle class is a stumbling block to his master plan to me.
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From Horowitz’s book. 18,19, and 20 footnote are taken from Saul’s book.
“The world as it is” is a rather simple world. From this perspective, the world consists of but three kinds of people: “the Haves, the Have-Nots, and the Have-a-Little, Want Mores.” The Haves, possessing, as they do, all of “the power, money, food, security, and luxury,” resist the “change” necessary to relieve the Have-Nots of the “poverty, rotten housing, disease, ignorance, political impotence, and despair” from which they suffer (18).
The Have-a-Little, Want Mores comprise what we call “the middle class.” While Alinsky believes that this group “is the genesis of creativity,” (19) he also claims that it supplies the world with its “Do-Nothings.” The Do-Nothings are those who “profess a commitment to social change for ideals of justice, equality, and opportunity, and then abstain from and discourage all effective action for change [.]” Alinsky remarks that in spite of their reputable appearances, the Do-Nothings are actually “invidious” (20).
This being so, they are as resistant to change as are the Haves.
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Nice dialogue they are having, those two. What it has to do with the other words you clipped up above, I just don’t know. Marx (Karl) like Rand was utopian in outlook, each waiting for a collapse so that their world view could come to pass. Each has done incalculable damage.
You have, as I view you, a very bad case of Galtism. Rand has poisoned you with this idea that you are a mini-Atlas, others feeding off of you while you carry their weight. There are indeed people who live off of the good graces of others, most in temporary hardship, but a few in permanent despair. Your contribution to the well being of others, however, is minuscule – what – a few thousand a year in taxes, begrudging every cent? Big effing deal. Most of it comes right back to benefit you, you know.
If you go Galt on us, no one notices, someone comes along, fills your slot, like you never existed. That’s true of all of us. We’re all insignificant. Deal with it.
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Predictable. Attack the person(s) ignore the message.
So, a question remains which won’t be answered. Does a strong middle class protect the working and investment classes in our society? Or, does a purposeful depletion of middle income workers increase the chances of major change in our system of government?
Chew on that Mark.
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Should not the worker class be the middle class? Or do you only reserve middle class status for white collar workers? Labor evolved to raise blue collar workers out of poverty and into the middle class.
Actually, I find all this structural class talk rather disgusting…
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Who the hell is attacking the middle class? You’ve constructed a model in your mind, placed good and evil on either side of it, and claimed your side as good. All of this is going on as rapacious Wall Street bankers brought down, right before your very eyes, ten million home owners. Seeing this, you merely claimed they were “useful idiots.”
Where did we ever get a middle class? It’s complicated, but labor unions had a great deal to do with it. That construct allows for wealth to be captured in its early cycle, before the corporate managers and stockholders get hold of it. It means fewer millionaires, more people able to own their homes, support families with one income. It led to inefficiencies, of course, but that’s a small price to pay, and efficiency is the bugaboo of the corporate manager, squeezing what can be squeezed for the labor force and machines. They are right to do this, must do this, but there has to be a counter force, otherwise wealth ends up in just a few hands. It is that friction between organized forced above and below that allows us to squeeze something out for the middle,
Labor unions have been under attack from your people, NAM, since the 1930’s, and with the success of that attack parallels a decline in single income families, home ownership, and private wealth. Couple that with the insanity of mob-mentality on Wall Street, leading to massive bubbles and collapse, and there goes your middle class.
That’s an explanation that has some logic to it. You’ve got nothing, Galt man. You’ve got some wild notion that Marx still matters, that he’s still got followers. His ideas went bankrupt decades ago, as all of his predictions failed to come true. Everyone with a brain sees that. The question is how do we manage an economy in such a manner as to benefit the most people, and unregulated capitalism has proven as bankrupt as Marxism, if you notice.
That’s why you are so mindless – you cannot see failure even as it bites your ass. Instead, you called bankers useful idiots for engaging in the very activities you mistake for free markets. That has to be the strangest statement ever to pass through your keyboard, made more so by the fact that it was your words, not someone else’s. That indicates to me that the engine under your hood is missing a few spark plugs.
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Really Mark, you sometimes trust/read some other sources.
“The American middle class is slowly being wiped out. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2010 there were 46.2 million Americans living below the poverty line – an increase from 43.6 million in 2009 (a poverty rate of 15.1% in 2010, an increase from 14.3% in 2009). Moreover, the Census reported that the current 2010 poverty rate of 15.1% is the highest rate in 52 years.”
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Fight? No, Swede. Just a debate. You don’t have to defend yourself, just your goofy views. So, actually, you’re not outnumbered, just out classed with your arguments that don’t make much sense. But tell me, you’ve watched that movie numerous times, haven’t you?
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p.s. And btw, Swede, I have never attacked you personally in all these years. At least I don’t remember doing so, for I think that you are probably a decent human being. You usually present the rightwing side in a decent manner. And I like that. I don’t have to search for what the righties are saying. You see, I can’t listen to rightwing radio or commentators at all, for they make me instantly nauseous. But I CAN read at my leisure what you have to say. So, no, I won’t attack you personally. And I simply can’t bring myself to dislike you on a personal level like I do those nasty rightwing loudmouths.
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I recognize it’s not a fair fight. Just give it your best. What’s the worst outcome? You make your points, and after the kerfluffle,they stand and fail on their own. If the bear eats you, you live to fight another day. If you eat us, we lick our wounds. What’s to lose? You got chops, you enter the fray. Your words only. That’s courage – grace under pressure. Got it in you?
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Swede has an authoritarian personality and as such always assumes others also suffer from his affliction. So he uses people who he considers to be authorities to make his arguments for him because he believes its more salient coming from a celebrity than from an anonymous handle that is one of at least a few he uses openly.
Swede likes to stay away from having to do his own thinking and analysis, and instead prefers to have others do it for him.
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No, not really. I hate typing and am lousy at it and I respect others who are much smarter than me.
But hey, ignore the gist of my original comment and lets relapse into Alinsky’s rule # 4.
“There can be no conversation between the organizer and his opponents. The latter must be depicted as being evil.”
“Evil” or stupid or Randian or goofy or poisoned or worked with the CIA.
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Why should we pay any attention to Saul Alinsky? I started to read one of his books one time and found it boring and set it aside. He’s hardly a force of reason. Is he your way of reducing the non-Randian world to a few catch phrases?
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Um, Swede, even cursory knowledge of the CIA shows that they have committed serious evil in the world. Do you know your history? Start with Guatemala 1954 and go from there. It only gets worse. The hundreds of thousands of people who have been murdered, tortured, and disappeared after the Kennedy coup is the result of the evil done by the CIA. Kennedy was going to break it into a thousand pieces, remember? Why? Answer that and your on your way to understanding the world a little better.
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It’s a big and complicated world, and we all try to reduce it to manageable size by oversimplification. It read people I tend to agree with and don’t challenge my own reductions often enough. I need people here to give me a what-for. Unfortunately, Swede does not seem to have much argumentative force. He merely throws other people’s words about in a scattershot manner, having little impact.
But that’s his problem. Swede, don’t mean to talk about you front of you, but you don’t bring much to the table.
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Frankly Mark I don’t care how you interpret me.
Ignoring the points I/others make and relying on personal attacks is a win in my book.
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You have not made a cogent point. You’ve got a notion now that we need a middle class, as if someone just discovered the idea, but no clue how it comes about and weird ideas on who attacks the notion. You’re not fathomable.
I have ideas – high taxes on wealth, labor unions, tax-supported health care and education to the highest successful level – socialism. It works elsewhere, probably would here too.
Socialism attempts to give everyone the same starting gate. Your system is best described as kicking the ladder out once you get to a comfortable spot.
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And how were those ideas working in Wisconsin before Gov. Walker cut taxes and the union’s required membership?
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Surprise, surprise. Another non-answer.
I’m leaving with this one.
Those who want to “spread the wealth” almost invariably seek to concentrate the power. It happens too often, and in too many different countries around the world, to be a coincidence. Which is more dangerous, inequalities of wealth or concentrations of power?
— Thomas Sowell
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Oh, fuck off then – Jesus, I’m leaving with this one he says. I know, the heat is intense here, and cowards like to splash the last word in and head for the hills. What a loser!
The problem with the quote is that it’s wrong. Those who like to spread the wealth do not invariably want to concentrate power. There are far more countries with greater freedom and wealth equality than ours. The guy is just wrong. But Sowell is a darling of the right – both black and right wing, so ya gotta love him!
But that’s the problem with a sound-byte mind – you latch on to some snippet here and there and project it all over the universe. It makes the world very simple and understandable for you.
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Typical Sowell. He is the master of obfuscation, and then slight of hand interpretations.
WIth inequality of wealth you get concentrations of wealth at the top (the 1%). And as wealth gets concentrated at the top, so does power concentrate. Wealth and power are two identical twins. One begets the other.
So, as you seem to be so concerned about concentrations of power, are you concerned about the power of the 1%?
Sowell just raises a red herring when he asks for a choice between inequality of wealth or concentration of power. The only time inequality of wealth has led to a concentration of power is when the people revolt, and take back the power wielded by the 1% and their purchased political class.
So, in my best Sowell-esque dialectic:
“Those who want to “concentrate the wealth” almost invariably seek to concentrate the power. It happens too often, and in too many different countries around the world, to be a coincidence. Which is least dangerous, equalities of wealth or concentrations of power?”
— JC
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Don’t know anything about it. But do tell, how has Wisconsin done not by itself, but in terms of the rest of the region – Minnesota Illinois Iowa Michigan. Comparative data is the only thing that matters as the economy as a whole is in bubble recovery.
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