It rails against gentrification and making certain neighborhoods "less sketchy" by bringing in Whole Foods, Starbucks and Trader Joe's, etc.
So the answer is more slums?
I grew up in one and don't want to go back.
Don’t Communists describe these people as the ‘Bourgeoisie’?
At the same time it's an attack against 529s. So I think it's actually a cat fight between the lower and middle middle class liberals, and the upper middle class liberals.
Which, of course, is excellent.
History repeats itself because the neuropathways that dictate behavior are inherently genetic. This guilt ridden pseudo intellectual screed is reminiscent of the rants of the Russian newly rich who were so enthusiastic about the “revolution”. Their most fervent wish came to be. They and their ilk were soon liquidated in Russia but their genetic cousins are still here.
hmmmm.....
bttt
THE AUTHOR
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reihan_Salam
Conservative whose parents came from Bangladesh
Article seems to be a slightly veiled critique of the hypocrisy of upper middle class liberals.
I qualify for this class based on income--but not culturally.
He makes some very fresh and valid points
The upper middle class tends to spawn revolutionaries.
I found this article to be crap.
At one point he seems to indicate that he’s a conservative. Any conservative worth the name knows that there are no classes here. What he calls upper middle class are simply people who have in myriad of ways reached a certain economic success. These are not people that are born to “a class” and will remain in that class all their life as virtue of their birth.
And he never says how they are “ruining” America. The closest he comes to is that they watch out for their self interest, as though everyone doesn’t, including himself?
Lastly I gather he himself belongs to this “class” and apparently feels guilt pangs (probably because he didn’t earn his position but inherited it). And since misery loves company, he’s working hard to make fellow upper middle classers feels guilt pangs as well.
In summary, he seems like a Bill Ayres in the making.
Upper Middle Class = Whitey...
It was a terrible article. Neither the author, nor you have any concept of the science of economics.
What you call "selfish behavior" is yet another example of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" which guides capitalist societies to the maximum possible production of goods and services.
In 1776 there were two events which would shape the world for centuries to come. One, as every American knows, was the Declaration of Independence, the second, which was at least as important was the publication of a book called Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith.
Smith showed how if each individual is left to maximize his own wealth this will act as an "invisible hand" guiding our entire society in turn to maximize its wealth.
Attempts to squash each individual's ability to maximize his own interests, frequently by shaming these actions as "selfish", always lead to disaster in the long run.
True conservatives know these truths, and understand the consequences of suppressing self-seeking. Look at the fate of the communist block nations to see what happens.
I have family like this. They and their children are big time democrats yet they move to the suburbs to flee the lousy Portland public schools, bitch when medium density affordable housing (apartments) are build in their neighborhood and complain that everyone should learn English.
I heard it somewhere already.
First they ‘ve come for the Czars, then for bourgeois, then for kulaks and so on down to a dude who was ‘rich’ enough to own two pairs of shoes instead of just one.
The fatal error of this pundit (and Obama’s attack on saving for college - his retreat from the 529 college plan tax - the vehicle Reihan Salam employs to run with this rant):
Americans want to join the Upper Middle Class, not rot in the lower classes.
This guy claims he is a conservative.
My a@@!.
“Though virtually all of these polite, well-groomed people were politically liberal, I sensed that their gut political instincts were all about protecting what they had and scratching out the eyeballs of anyone who dared to suggest taking it away from them.”
For you people that cannot understand why there are so many rich people that are liberals, this explains it best.
What the rich fear, more than anything else, is the masses seizing control and stringing them up. So they try to use their money and their politics to bribe the people who lead the masses, like Al Sharpton - in other words, if you give Al Sharpton enough money and say enough things about the country being unfair to the “working class”, perhaps Sharpton will keep the next Eric Holder, who likely will have a last name even closer in spelling to Hitler, off their backs. In other words what does a rich person do if ISIS nabs them during a trip to Dubai, for example? He does what they demand and tried to buy his way out.
By the way, not that NOTHING ever proposed by the Democrats even hints at taking away the WEALTH of the rich, rather only the incomes of people trying to achieve that status (they even cut the inheritance and gift tax way down). BIG DIFFERENCE, and that is the reason that the Dems are able to hold on to the rich.
To the rich, in many cases, they could CARE LESS about ideology - they just want to keep their money and not end up like the Russian Royal Family in 1917. If it takes being liberal to do that (in their demented heads), so be it. If they felt safer supporting conservative causes, they would do that instead.
I agree, good article. But does anyone REALLY THINK that the 529 plan proposal was thrown in there haphazardly. They have millions and millions of dollars to spend on focus groups and the data necessary to actually call up and talk to the people benefiting.
I’m thinking it was test case, to gauge overall reaction. The question being “Could the Masses be used to turn on the rich, and defeat them in a wealth grab?” With the BIG PRIZE being 401k plans and figuring out a way to get their hands on that huge pot of money. Figuring out the relative political power of the masses versus some well-connected rich (and near-rich) is much tougher to gauge. And it looks like they got the answer they didn’t want - the Masses will not get behind the Dems as they try to pit the country against each other based on wealth. In this case, the Masses stayed quiet, and all the Dems heard was very high-decibel anger from the people that would have been directly affected.
So, so much for a direct approach - I suspect that the Dems will soon turn to the courts to do their dirty work here (in some way) as they’ve always done.