From: "Sue McPherson" To: Cc: "Martha Gimenez" References: Subject: Re: Class Dismissed Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 15:52:32 -0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Precedence: bulk Sender: psn-owner@csf.colorado.edu Re: Class Dismissed http://www.latimes.com/la-000006735jan27.story This article is really quite good. It would be interesting also to know how you plan to use it - whether you just give it to your students or whether you would also offer points of view not raised in class. It is certainly something that could get students looking further into "The American Dream" and what that means. If you think of it mainly as the notion that everyone has an equal chance of achieving success, then the same ideal holds true in Britain, or at least is supposed to, now. But inherited aristocratic beliefs of superiority are difficult to get rid of within only a few decades. It could take a while yet, over here - a long, long, while. There are many truths in the article, and one of course is the notion that the concerns of those living in poverty are largely ignored. And this would be partly because they would be seen as deserving of their situation. They would have to be, for we all, whether in england or america, live in lands of equal opportunity, and if we only work harder, and have at least some intelligence, we too could achieve success. I'm sure people still believe in the American Dream. But I believe the values underlying the dream have changed. It used to be that Abraham Lincoln, for instance, would be admired for his ability to understand the people and his sense of fairness. Now, while people may still believe in the Dream, there is a different way of thinking about it, and a different way of proceeding towards it, for some. People might still believe in a just world, but the author errs when he stops at the point where he claims that most people "believe that the rich are deserving and that, with a few breaks, we might get ours, too". The rich may be deserving - (or they may not be) but are they more deserving than those who didn't get rich, some of whom, in fact, could be living in poverty? In the quote from Martha's message, Gabler writes,"Whatever happened to good old-fashioned class-based politics pitting haves against have-nots? I don't know what Lincoln's old- fashioned beliefs on this would have been. But this is what capitalism is all about, isn't it? Competition and exploitation. And part of this is the poor and the working class trying to improve their situation, and those with more wealth (some in England at least) trying to keep the lower classes "in their place" and protect their interests. Gabler thinks "class warfare has been destroyed through a kind of national brainwashing". Even if this is so, isn't there a better way of conceptualizing the problem, and the solution, instead of suggesting a renewal of class conflict? Sue McPherson sue@mcphersons.freeserve.co.uk ----- Original Message ----- From: "Martha Gimenez" To: Cc: Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 3:05 AM Subject: Class Dismissed > This is a great article we can use in our teaching. I intend to send it > to my social stratification students. > > Martha > > **************** > -------------------- > Class Dismissed > -------------------- > > Whatever happened to the politics of pitting the haves against the have-nots? > > By NEAL GABLER > Neal Gabler, a senior fellow at the Norman Lear Center at USC Annenberg, is the author of "Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality." > > January 27 2002 > > AMAGANSETT, N.Y. -- More than 100 years ago, the "Great Commoner," William Jennings Bryan, whipped the Democratic National Convention into a frenzy and changed the party's politics for a generation when he declaimed against Eastern bankers, "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." Less than a decade later, President Theodore Roosevelt inveighed against trusts that threatened to wrest power from the people, and three decades after that, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sneered at "economic royalists." This was the grand rhetoric of class conflict. How long ago it was. Despite the sudden erosion of the budget surplus in the face of a $1.3-trillion tax cut that largely favors the wealthiest Americans, you don't hear that kind of talk anymore. You are far more likely to hear dark warnings against invoking the issue of class. When Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) recently attempted to tie the current recession to the tax cut, he got little traction in the press or among the public. Similarly, when Republicans advocated dispensing huge refunds to some of America's largest corporations to reimburse them for the minimum corporate tax they had paid, while at the same time opposing expansion of health benefits to unemployed workers, there was an astonishing lack of umbrage. Not even the spectacle of Enron executives enriching themselves while their employees watched their life savings evaporate seems to have roused middle-class Americans from their stupor. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned class-based politics pitting haves against have-nots? > > The complete article can be viewed at: > http://www.latimes.com/la-000006735jan27.story > > Visit Latimes.com at http://www.latimes.com