“The success of the latter parts of the 20th Century for this country resulted in everyone thinking themselves rich enough to vote Republican.”

That is why it had to get worse before it got better. People are not beginning to put 2+2 together and getting 4 (rather than 3) for the first time in quite a while. People are drawing lines and shouting “enough” as the witness abysmal failure, continued decline, and the lies the right trell about it. This has become clear enough even without clarity and objectivity from the MSM.

It has started getting bad enough that large numbers of Americans are no longer able to sustain Walter Mitty-like fantasies about their own economic prosperity.

I’m still groping for explanations for this surreal optimism myself but it might not be anything more than hopefulness, albeit self-centered and exploited by those whom the afflicted pine to become.

U2’s Bono commented on this phenomenon with amusement, observing how American’s see a wealthy person’s beautiful house on a hill and say to themselves “If I work hard I might have one like it some day.” He added that the Irish see that same house on the hill and think “I’m going to get that sucker.”

I’ll breathe a deep sigh of relief when we finally get the religious divisiveness behind us and return to the good old fashioned class struggles of yesteryear.

Pual Krugman in his new book, the Conscience of a Liberal, disputes conventional wisdom which assumes the directly proportional relationship between economic disparity and political divisiveness has economic disparity as the progenitor. He compellingly argues that the causal effect runs in the opposite direction.

There’s some hope in that for me.

…We’re strangling ourselves with our own stinginess to each other.”

Great blog. This supposition of superiority is nothing that comes from the tech or science communities. Some of the greatest advances are 1% inspiration and 99% slogging away. Chances of advancement are increased in proportion to the number invested in a given problem.

These childish, ignorant myths certainly do not originate from anyone who is tech or science savvy.

Isn’t it curious how the right would react with military force to even the slightest hint of a threat (1% doctrine?) yet cede entire high tech industries (electronics manufacturing and hybrid cars are just the tip of the iceberg) and pursue a policy of neglect with regard to education as opportunities for higher learning elude the middle class with nary a worry?

These are traits of a ruling elite who’ve already got theirs. Things look just peachy from where they stand.

Just how much farther do we let them go?

But it’s all about getting everyone to sing a patriotic song while the powers-that-be trample on everything this country is supposed to stand for.

Henry Ford is supposed to have answered the question ‘Why do you pay your workers so much?” with the answer “So they can afford to buy the cars they build.” Bil gates had the vision of the personal computer so cheap and popular it would be a staple in every home. But these visionaries are in scarce supply; business is all about exploiting labor (foreign & domestic) to the max.

The result is the cliche ‘The rich get richer while the poor get poorer’ Except now it’s happening to a greater degree than I have EVER heard of. The 2 poles of rich and poor are taking off in opposite directins like rockets.

We’ve had one generation of free market ideology here, with its ruinous refusal to invest in people - either via health care or education, or for that matter in new techology. America rode the last wave of technological advance - the computer revolution - which ended around the time of the dot com bust - but other than exotic pharamceuticals, there is little else in that pipe. Other countries are passing us up in the areas of stem cell research, hybrid + low emission cars, and green technologies, while we waste billions on bullying the world. In the meantime, we are spending like there is no tomorrow, continuing to keep up appearances, while our economy is hollowed out.

Fortunately, more practical leadership is on the horizon in 2009, but the real issue is going to be shifting the country’s priorities and having an honest discussion about all of this vis-a-vis taxes. Being married to any ideology has to be exposed for the turkey it is.

It’s what happens when Democrats succeed.