Oh say can you bourgeois-ie
Jan. 28th, 2008 07:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfield"Let me tell you why I'm no fan of the middle class, okay? Nothing 'middle' is all that great. Middle class, Middle Ages, Middle East ... they're trouble."
- Esteban Colberto (a.k.a. Stephen Colbert), The Reporto Colberto (a.k.a. The Colbert Report)
The President's State of the Union address is now mere minutes away, and we are certain to hear about some sort of "stimulus package," the "thrust" of which is to "goose" the economy through the "injection" of capital, thereby avoiding a "sagging" markets and a "flaccid" economy. To economists, a stimulus package is the fiscal equivalent of Spanish Fly.
According to most reports, the heart of the package is a broad tax rebate, geared toward individuals and families between the income margins. Meanwhile, Lou Dobbs (your everyday man-of-the-people) has a best-seller with his tome War on the Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War on the American Dream and How to Fight Back Against Ridiculously Long Subtitles. John Edwards has based his entire campaign on "fighting for the middle class," which is a remarkably noble gesture from a guy sporting a $400 haircut.
Of course, when media and politicians wax rhapsodic about the noble middle class, what they're really doing is aiming at the biggest target. This is not just because the "middle class" constitutes the bulk of the population's bell curve, but also because so many of the people outside the middle class like to think of themselves as inside it, anyway. Somewhere out there tonight is a skunk-eating yokel who thinks he's a yuppie, and a millionaire in a first-class airline seat cursing the billionaire in his private jet.
I don't know if I'm middle-class or not. But I'm nearing middle-age in a middling middle-management job, living in a mid-sized apartment building (furnished according to middle-brow tastes) with my lovely girlfriend, who is herself a middle child from middle-America. Is that enough to earn me my $600?
At least I'm at the end of this entry.
- Esteban Colberto (a.k.a. Stephen Colbert), The Reporto Colberto (a.k.a. The Colbert Report)
The President's State of the Union address is now mere minutes away, and we are certain to hear about some sort of "stimulus package," the "thrust" of which is to "goose" the economy through the "injection" of capital, thereby avoiding a "sagging" markets and a "flaccid" economy. To economists, a stimulus package is the fiscal equivalent of Spanish Fly.
According to most reports, the heart of the package is a broad tax rebate, geared toward individuals and families between the income margins. Meanwhile, Lou Dobbs (your everyday man-of-the-people) has a best-seller with his tome War on the Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War on the American Dream and How to Fight Back Against Ridiculously Long Subtitles. John Edwards has based his entire campaign on "fighting for the middle class," which is a remarkably noble gesture from a guy sporting a $400 haircut.
Of course, when media and politicians wax rhapsodic about the noble middle class, what they're really doing is aiming at the biggest target. This is not just because the "middle class" constitutes the bulk of the population's bell curve, but also because so many of the people outside the middle class like to think of themselves as inside it, anyway. Somewhere out there tonight is a skunk-eating yokel who thinks he's a yuppie, and a millionaire in a first-class airline seat cursing the billionaire in his private jet.
I don't know if I'm middle-class or not. But I'm nearing middle-age in a middling middle-management job, living in a mid-sized apartment building (furnished according to middle-brow tastes) with my lovely girlfriend, who is herself a middle child from middle-America. Is that enough to earn me my $600?
At least I'm at the end of this entry.
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Re: Expensive haircuts
Date: 2008-01-31 08:44 pm (UTC)And despite all that, a majority of people want him to drink a beer with them?
Maybe that's not a sign of popularity at all. Maybe it's a sign that we're just bored.
Re: Expensive haircuts
Date: 2008-01-31 10:04 pm (UTC)Re: Expensive haircuts
Date: 2008-01-31 10:34 pm (UTC)I guess I'm like the people in that poll: I'd much rather hang out with him than John Kerry.