Titanic Post

I am relieved that civil rights have been incorporated into our legal system, at least in regard to race. Women’s rights and gay rights also show promise of becoming a part of our legal system. Blacks, women, and gays have always been acutely aware of their status because the culture of elitism never let them forget their place, or lack of place, in society. Everyone assumes that we live in a (white) man’s world. Even poor white men believe they are a privileged part of that world.

If you are a working man or woman (or child) and if you are on the receiving end of work orders and have little or no say about your work, chances are you’re a member of the lower working class of humans. We are most commonly known by the middle and upper classes as rednecks, trailer trash, hillbilly, the great unwashed. We are who the middle-class liberals mean when they talk about violence and racism. They also have us in mind when on the rare occasions they talk about poverty. Of course, we are the source of our own poverty. It is our violent nature plus ignorance and laziness, not to mention our complete lack of morals, that has kept us from climbing the ladder to the exalted middle-class.

Because we look similar to those in power, we may think we are truly free of any kind of oppression, but this is not so. The upper-classes control wages and keep jobs scarce while at the same time undermining any meaningful coming together of the working-class. We may think we have equal access to the elite white male world, but we don’t. They restrict access to their institutions to people with the right family connections and the right education. Some are dumber that shit, but they control our wages and make sure we will never get by without a struggle.

Sure, many lower-class white men and women and minority members move up the ladder to the middle-class and have some control over their own work, becoming small business owners, professionals, and managers. The function of these frazled folks is to serve as a protective buffer to insure that there is no contact between the working class and the power elite. “Useful idiots,” as Lenin once said of the bourgeoisie.

The great fear of the upper-class is that the masses will one day realize what’s going on, organize, and rise up against them. The function of working-class upward-mobility is to apply pressure on the middle-class and to divert middle-class frustration downward. Yes, and before you accuse me of fostering class warfare, allow me to remind you that this war was started long ago by the upper-class and we are still losing.

We will never have true liberty until we recognize the full extent of our complicity in our own oppression and the oppression of others. We defer our good judgment and power to our institutions of church, education, military, government, and business. We believe corporate and government misinformation and allow ourselves to act contrary to our own moral, economic and physical interests. We die protecting our “national interest.” This term is double-speak for some foreign oil field owned by a multi-national corporation, whose board of directors are calling in a favor from our government.

It is time that we understand our true situation and demand our rights as free human beings.