Comments on: QUERYING

By: Sociological Images » Welfare Versus Minimum Wage

Sociological Images » Welfare Versus Minimum Wage — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 15:56:04 +0000

[...] at Gin and Tacos offered up the figure below comparing the minimum wage (adjusted to inflation) and the poverty line [...]

By: comrade x

comrade x — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:07:17 +0000

D., I never said it would be easy.
The classic revolution, with barricades and storming of palaces, has been made impossible by television and fast food. Maybe if Obama's or some future administration drops the economic ball in some spectacular fashion, but not likely.
More feasible would be to use current crisises inherent in capitalism to advance more control of the economy by the producers, i.e. the workers. Again not through violence, which is suicidal ( the far right in this country is going to learn that lesson… again) but through strikes, elections, demonstrations, etc.
I guess it would be easier to be nihilstic ( hell, that's encouraged) and say " fuck it". But capitalism has proven over and over again that it cannot solve the problems that threaten our species with extinction. Think I will have a go at something else, even if it is percieved as " uncool".

By: Evan Sultanik

Evan Sultanik — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:19:50 +0000

Where'd you get that number for the poverty line? According to [1] it should be around $11k for a single person household. Also, am I correct to assume that the minimum wage numbers were corrected to account for inflation? If so, a more elucidating graph might be to plot uncorrected minimum wage as a percentage of the historical poverty threshold.

[1] http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/threshld/thresh08.html

By: Fat Charlie the Archangel

Fat Charlie the Archangel — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:46:06 +0000

I've been bitching for years about airline deregulation, specifically this fact: Pre-deregulation, when smoking was still allowed on planes, the air quality in cabins was actually better. By federal law, airlines that allowed smoking were required to change air filters frequently, and re-circulated air was to be kept at a minimum. But with deregulation, no new laws covering air quality on planes were drafted, so any airline that banned smoking was also free to stop giving a shit about expensive air filters. As a result, sitting on a plane is now literally sitting in a nest of wafting germs. Why do we let businesses get away with this shit?

By: Desargues

Desargues — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:31:47 +0000

Dear Comrade X — feel free to expatiate at length on the prospects for a revolution here in America. As a detached observer with some previous exposure to proletarian paradises, I hasten to note that, in the Home of the Brave, revolutionary impetus is caught in a lethal dilemma. (1) Either the "people" will start it–but the oppressed in this country seem to have succumbed forever to false consciousness, whether in the form of allegiance to Baby Jebus or to Access Hollywood. (2) Or a politically enlightened elite (would that be us eggheads?) might spark the tinderbox by grabbing power somehow–but the corporate masters would kill them in no time, then parade their heads on spikes in public, posing as defenders of liberty. This is a recipe Machiavelli suggests for holding on to power in nominal republics, in Discourses on Livy.

Is there a third avenue that I'm missing?

By: comrade x

comrade x — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:10:44 +0000

Great link, Des. But Tolstoy once said, " If you cannot explain it to a peasant, then the fault is with you, not the peasant."
Progressives have to compete with the televised brainwashing that fills the American mind from the moment of birth. But you have to get through to the masses and win them over or we will once again see them elect a reactionary who's agenda is to wipe out all of the gains the working class has made over the last century.
You know, the best thing about a socialist revolution would be there wouldn't be some asshole trying to sell you something every moment of your life.

By: jazzbumpa

jazzbumpa — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:42:34 +0000

Shorter Ed:
If you get to frame the argument, you've gone a long way towards winning it.

By: Desargues

Desargues — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:52:10 +0000

One little problem here is that you are such an outlier, as they say. You have the height of a white corporate executive, yet (I conjecture) you probably earn just a little bit better than an exploited Mexican (I'm in the same position, so I'm allowed to complain). Really, at 6'4'', you're way above your national average. While the rest of your points stand -- and the insight about minimum wage is very true -- it's a bit unfair to complain that for-profit companies only make seats big enough for an average male, which in America is about half a foot shorter than you. (And that only includes Whites and Blacks. Some minorities are even shorter, on average -- about 5'7''. Also, this leaves out female average height, which is clearly less.) As a foreigner who escaped the Commies in search of "freedom" in god's Shiny City on a Hill, I have come to see with dismay that Anglo-Saxon peoples* will bend over and spread their buttocks for the corporate shaft quite obediently once you're indoctrinated them enough with fairy tales about the free market, personal responsibility, equal chances, and whatever else passes for official propaganda in this plutocracy. Also, for some of the American masses, there's the god shit, to complete their lobotomization. They're now ready to take whatever abuses and indignity their overlords see fit to dish out at them, as long as it's packaged in the accepted mythology. Matt Taibbi sees that clearly. *In England, they wait like so many sheep for trains that are chronically late, yet nobody dares ask for an explanation of such incompetence. Plus, the British have a long tradition of training their underclasses to say, 'Oh, mustn't grumble,' no matter how much the ruling elites screw them over.

By: comrade x

comrade x — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:45:48 +0000

Flying is such a pain in the ass that I don't bother anymore. Hell, if I had to go to Santiago, Chile, I would take my chances and drive there. Even that would be better than getting stuck in the middle seat between a sweaty fat guy and a mewling brat for 6 hours.
Also, my Mom used to tell me and my brother when we were kids that we would all own flying cars when we were forty.
What a rip- off.