2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumThe Frog in Boiling Water Has Started Feeling The Bern.
Last edited Fri Jan 15, 2016, 10:07 PM - Edit history (1)
OK, the actual science relating to the metaphor, of a frog allowing itself to be boiled to death if the temperature of the water in the pot in which it sits is raised slowly enough, debunks it as a myth. Frogs, it turns out, are not dumb enough to sit still for that type of treatment. Establishment politics though has long operated on the premise that America's general public may be more susceptible to that practice. That belief may be bolstered by stories like this one published by the NY Times in 2009: The Dangers of Taking a Dip in the Hot Tub, where it was reported:
The annual number of emergency room visits has been steadily rising. In 2007, 6,646 people went to emergency rooms after a hot tub injury, compared with 2,549 in 1990.
About half the injuries were caused by slipping or falling, but heat overexposure was the problem in 10 percent of the accidents...
... The study did not include fatal accidents, but the Consumer Products Safety Commission reported more than 800 deaths associated with hot tubs since 1990.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/health/24stat.html?_r=0
An alternate theory for our establishments stubborn determination to forge ahead with politics as usual, regardless of the increasing pain being felt by a majority of Americans, might instead be premised on the same observation that Thomas Paine once made in his pamphlet Common Sense, written at the dawn of the American Revolution
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.
Two hundred and forty year after the penning of those words there's a chorus of those voices raised today, inveighing against the fundamental premise of Bernie Sander's 2016 presidential campaign, that our current political system works against the interests of average Americans. They shout from all points on the long recognized spectrum of respectable political opinion in America, which is to say from the slightly left of center to the hard core right. Opinions like those held by Bernie Sanders until now have routinely been dismissed as fringe and well outside the mainstream by long reigning conventional wisdom.
Conventional wisdom has also long held that the only way to keep Social Security solvent is to reduce adjustments made for inflation in payments made to beneficiaries, and to force seniors to wait longer to become eligible for benefits, while workers in their 50's and 60's get culled from management positions and are forced to compete to become door greeters at Walmart. Conventional wisdom, at least according to Congress and most leading presidential candidates, also considers an income of a quarter million a year to be middle class.
At a time when one out of six Americans, and over a fifth of children under 18, live in poverty (officially defined as an annual income of less than $18,500 for a family of three) our political class places a higher priority on shielding the earnings of those making hundreds of thousands a year from any additional tax hit than it does on eliminating the suffering of children in families earning below twenty grand a year.
All of the mania surrounding recent Powerball drawings pegs that Lottery as our current go to portal for get rich instantly fantasies, but it wasn't always America's most coveted jackpot. For a generation that distinction was held by the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes, the folks who showed up on your doorstep with a banner and a check. Back when the Bush tax cuts were about to expire in 2012, President Obama sought to let them for all above the middle class. A hue and cry subsequently arose over how to define Middle Class income. Obama proposed that couples with incomes less than $250,000 should not be subject to higher taxes. Ultimately, after battles in Congress, that line got drawn at $450,000 for a married couple ($400,000 for an individual), below which they could keep all of their Bush tax cuts. So here's where the Publisher's Clearinghouse comes in.
Simultaneous with that high profile national debate over protecting the tax cut for middle class families, the Publisher's Clearinghouse came up with a brand new giveaway gimmick to excite and entice the masses into subscribing to their magazines. Instead of just giving away ten million dollars like they had been doing, they announced a five thousand dollars a week for life grand prize that some lucky person already held the winning number for. Five thousand dollars a week for life, that's the stuff that dream are made of for hundreds of millions of Americans. That happens to equal an income of $260,000 a year.
The Publisher's Clearinghouse is still selling magazines off of their fabulous $260,000 a year for your life (and your heir's now also) grand prize, while Hillary Clinton is making new vows to shield middle class incomes up to $250,000 a year from any increase in taxes. What's wrong with this picture? Maybe it's the people who are not in it, the ones who have no say when it comes to establishing conventional wisdom or defining the middle class: the ones trying to get by on something closer to the median national income of $50,000 a year. The ones for whom $250,000 is a fortune.
Tens of millions of American voices have long been ignored by the gate keepers of establishment politics. They were the trees not heard falling off in some distant forest, far removed from the corridors of power. Those not listened to are seldom represented. The status quo depends upon estrangement, and long has grown accustomed to elections where most potential voters stay home instead. That's what happens when people tire of voting for the lesser evil, and winning even less than that. That's what happens when the establishment's long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right. Tens of millions of Americans live in poverty while Americas 185 wealthiest clans are collectively worth $1.2 trillion. The system that enabled this is called politics as usual.
Bernie Sanders though is not politics as usual, and the response he has gotten on the campaign trail since he announced his bid for the presidency has been anything but politics as usual. If Sander's views are seen as falling outside the mainstream of American politics that's only because the stream bed is engineered and runs through concrete culverts, narrowly defined and carefully controlled by banks that direct it.
It took Bernie Sanders a slow tenacious life time of hard political work directly pitted against prevailing establishment interests to rise to the rank of Senator from the small state of Vermont, where it was possible for many of his constituents got to know and respect him personally. It took a global financial melt down in 2008 to provide Sanders with a platform dramatic enough for his message to break through nationally. It's a message that resonates easily though when people finally hear it, because they already know it in their bones. It is a call to action, and the frog is feeling the Bern.

Uncle Joe
(60,563 posts)Thanks for the thread, Tom Rinaldo.
dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)Did you write this?
I absolutely loved it. Many great points.
This paragraph in particular jumped out at me, becaue it expressed a difficult to communicate truth in a concise image:
In our current political state, conventional wisdom is an pretty much an oxymoron, because it was designed to benefit narrow interests, those of empire and vast private fortunes.
Tom Rinaldo
(23,023 posts)dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)You might want to, if you haven't already, cross-post it to the Bernie group for more attention.
A Simple Game
(9,214 posts)"...the frog is feeling the Bern."
Green Forest
(232 posts)I am phonebanking in upstate NY tonight. Reading this was a nice break.
Tom Rinaldo
(23,023 posts)It is critical work that I admit to having a hard time getting myself to do. So I try to do some writing for Sanders at the very least.
In an earlier campaign I once looked into submitting an Op-Ed to the NY Times. Their policy demanded an exclusive on submissions and there was no indication of how long they could take before deciding whether to use something.I don't think I could have posted this here for example. A different publication might not be as strict, but most want pieces much shorter than this. Now at least we can go around newspapers and share our writing over the internet.
Green Forest
(232 posts)You're a good voice. Look forward to your next piece.
thereismore
(13,326 posts)Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)If you are on Facebook, you might consider posting this on the People For Bernie page.
Tom Rinaldo
(23,023 posts)I wrote a slightly edited down version of this which I will post there. It's virtually the same, just a little shorter and crisper. Thanks
WillyT
(72,631 posts)

CharlotteVale
(2,717 posts)in_cog_ni_to
(41,600 posts)The frog is feeling the Bern and the DU tadpoles too. .
This is such a great piece of work!
PEACE
LOVE
BERNIE
mog75
(109 posts)
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)daleanime
(17,796 posts)Good writing.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)It is puzzling to the status quo to see how rapidly the people respond to Bernie's message as soon as they hear it. Which isn't surprising because the people were never a priority with the ruling class over the past several decades.
Their reaction, rather than learning something from the people's reaction, has been the worst possible reaction, to attack the messenger hoping for what, I wonder. Lashing out like spoiled children will only further prove the truth of Bernie's message.
TIME TO PANIC
(1,894 posts)
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)and thinking, What total bullshit! I was assured it was true, and I was grateful to eventually discover it was debunked. As the 100th monkey thing has likewise been debunked, but most people think that's true also.
Thank you so much for writing this. I honestly thinking the establishment simply has no clue at this point just how strongly Bernie Sanders and his message are resonating with ordinary people. I continue to be amazed at those who still defend Hillary Clinton as the best possible choice, besides which she's inevitable.
I'm not willing to make a full on prediction, but I am more and more hopeful every day that Bernie Sanders will be our next President.
Tom Rinaldo
(23,023 posts)Last edited Sat Jan 16, 2016, 02:36 PM - Edit history (1)
Most member of it have been blindsided, but that's due to the blinders that they typically wear that (intentionally) shields them from seeing beyond their peer groups. Those who do understand are counting on Hillary bating Bernie back before he gets a full scale general election presidential campaign as a platform for his message.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)Inside the Beltway thing.
In my local newspaper (The Santa Fe New Mexican) today there's an article from the Washington Post, entitled "Some Dems fear ramifications of Sanders nomination" and it focuses on conversations being held on Capitol Hill. All insiders, all well within the Beltway. Which means they just don't get what the feeling really is out here in the rest of the country. They've all been talking only to each other for so long they just have no clue there's anyone else or any other way of thinking out there.
Tom Rinaldo
(23,023 posts)They do talk to each other, and usually presidential candidates hang with that same crowd and are part of those same conversations - grass roots politics rarely is heard from there.
Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)TexasBushwhacker
(20,809 posts)In fact, it puts a family in the top 3%.
And I tell you something. I make about $45K a year and I'm single. I don't have to support anyone but me and my cat. I look at my paycheck and I pay less than $70 a week into Social Security and Medicare. AND THAT'S NOT ENOUGH!
After the personal exemption and standard deduction, and if I don't put a nickel into my IRA, I pay a total tax rate of 10%. If it wasn't for the hundreds of billions wasted on the MIC, I would say RAISE MY TAXES.
I am lucky. I make close to the median household income and it's just little old me. I can live in a one bedroom apartment. My car is paid for. I realize that a family making my income would struggle, and I wouldn't dream of suggesting their income tax be raised. And I recognize that different states have different costs of living.
But let's look at a family if 4, 2 parents with 2 kid, making $153000. That's triple the median family income. They don't consider themselves rich. On the tax table they'll have SOME of their income in the 33% bracket. But after exemptions for each family member, just the standard deduction and the child care tax credit, they will ultimately pay less than 18% of their gross income in federal income tax. If they have more deductions through itemizing, their burden is even less. And if this family has a single breadwinner, they don't pay SS tax on the top 34K, reducing their SS tax liability to 4.8%. Of course earners who make more pay a smaller total percentage of their income to SS.
So yes, I think they could pay a little more. $153K gross income puts them in the top 8%. The $250K limit that Obama suggested is the top 3%. That's not too high, it's too damn low.
Personally, I think the capital gains rate should be raised to the regular income tax rates for higher incomes. And for higher incomes I think capital gains should be subject to SS and Medicare taxes as well. Of course the cap should be raised substantially and eventually eliminated. It makes sense to me to do these things first. THEN and only then, after getting military spending under control, we can talk about raising taxes on the middle class.