THE RISE AND FALL OF THE MIDDLE CLASS: A FAMILY STORY

My parents were born in the early part of the 20th century, 1906 and 1908 - my mother in Mississippi and my father in Oregon.  Both were born into blue collar families, working class - farmers and ranchers and day job people.  But they both ended up well educated and working as professional class people - a minister and a school teacher.  That was beneficial to me because I grew up in a solid middle class home, upper middle class to be exact.  I married a woman first time around who came from a blue collar background, but she ended up with a college degree and in a profession that has pushed her into upper middle class status.  My second and current wife owns her own business, started as a hairdresser, turned it into a productive profession.  She saw to it that her daughter got well educated, college and advanced degrees.  She the director of a health care outfit, does well.  I spent 35 years being a college professor, saw to it that both of my children were well educated, expecting they'd carry on the family tradition of upper middle class status.

My son graduated from college and got an advanced degree in fine art, but he works now as a bartender in a large city, does OK financially, but has no plans to ever teach or work as an artist.  My daughter got a degree in biology, taught school for a while, married another teacher the first time around.  She didn't take to teaching, ended up in management - restaurants mostly.  She married a police officer the second time around, but he now works in the oil fields.  He's a decent man, works hard, provides well for his family, but is not well educated.  My son has never married, lives with a long time girlfriend who also works in the bar business.  My two grandchildren, both from my daughter, are leaning toward lower middle class lives.  The grandson flunked out of college in a hurry, had gone from job to job since then and shows no inclination to do much with his life.  My granddaughter is a freshman in college studying for a profession in criminal justice.  She plans to marry a guy before long who is a high school dropout, works as a welder.

My sister and her husband have also enjoyed upper middle class life.  She's mostly a housewife, is big time involved in church work, and he's a retired chemical engineer.  Their four children have done fairly well, with three of them getting college and advanced degrees.  Her two daughters live in New York City, do not work at jobs that require those hard earned degrees.  One of them has a doctorate she never uses professionally.  One son dropped out of college, went to work as a computer specialist in drafting, has done well . . . perhaps better than the others.  My sister's family has done a little better at upholding the family standard to upper middle class status than has mine.

Am I disappointed with how things have turned out so far?  Yes, I most surely am . . . but I'm also aware that my kids and grandkids are growing up in a society that is far different from the one I grew up in.  What has happened to my family has happened all over America in recent years - the lowering of class status and the demise of the middle class.  If you asked the average American what class they belong to, they'd likely list one higher than then qualify for.  The worst of the slippage in class status has occurred at the lower middle class status, among those people we call working class people. What we're talking about here just might be more critical than what has happened to the white collar set . . . the loss of the craftsmen, trained technicians, trained workers, the people who make the wheels go around in a society.  Many of those people, because of poor economic conditions and dwindling job markets, have slipped from lower middle class down to upper lower class.

You could write forever about what has caused this, and many are these days.  You can blame it on the workplace environment, businesses going high tech, modernization of equipment, outsourcing jobs to other countries, etc.  The workers themselves have changed, and so have their expectations. Reality sets in when they discover that what they're trained to do just isn't available, and you can believe me when I say that when the jobs went down in quality, so did class status.  You can only do what you can do, if that makes any sense.  We all have to work at something, and if what we really want isn't available, we have to do something else . . . and often jobs like that won't sustain us in a lifestyle that keeps our social status at an acceptable level.

I could blame it on anything, I suppose, but I choose to blame government.  Put plainly, they let us down when it came to protecting the American worker, both white collar and blue collar . . . and they did that to the benefit of the rich, the upper class, the vested interests.  One of my right wing friends recently told me, "Well, all those jobs going to foreign countries was a smart business move. Workers here in America demand too much, and you can't pay what they demand.  It's their own fault."  I always write comments like that off to just being words out of an idiot's mouth, shake my head, and walk off.  My thoughts are that if foreign companies can come here and hire American workers to build their products, why can't our own companies?  It's done all the time.  And that makes the real culprit here greed . . . just plain greed.

Here's a good question:  Why doesn't government do something about that?  Why do we not have some rules in place that would keep jobs at home?  The answer is simple, at least in my mind.  Our politicians are in the pockets of the people outsourcing the jobs, giving away our future . . . and we just keep electing the dumbasses to office . . . and our middle class is going away . . . and with it goes our chances of ever being a dynamic, self-sufficient country again.

Damn, I'm glad I'm old and near the end.  I hate watching anything die.

YOU HAD TO KNOW IT WAS COMING . . . AND IT DID

So, the Republicans have taken control of the Senate . . . and in a big way.  Talking heads now will speculate about what that means, blow lots of hot air (and even more bullshit), and in the end will say little of importance.  You had to know it was coming, but what will it change?  Not much.  Gridlock will still be the order of the day with Congress passing measures the President will veto.  Forget about Congressional override of the vetoes 'cause that's not likely to happen.  The shoe is now on the other foot with Democrats having to become an obstructionist party, something the Republicans are very good at.  Democrats are less proficient at obstruction, but they'll likely toe the line and do fairly well at it.  What changes come about will be minor.

Second term presidents are often faced with the same thing now facing Obama. In many ways, he's been facing it all along . . . the frustration of trying to lead his own divided party and at the same time deal with a right wing dominated Republican party.  We'll never know if he would've made a good President; all we know at this point is that he hasn't been.  The divisions won't end with this Republican victory in Senate races, might even grow more intense.  If you are a Republican, the victory gives you some cause to feel confident that you can be even more of a thorn in Obama's side, and in the side of Democrats who are now in the scramble mode.  They just took a serious ass-kicking, so now it's time to do some self evaluation . . . and that will cause some real squabbles within their ranks.  If they don't make some adjustments, they're looking at another loss in the 2016 elections.

This could be a good thing for Democrats in the long run.  They need to change, and that's a fact.  They need to forget the Clintons and Bidens and any other old school candidates and start looking for people who can deal with a rejuvenated Republican party.  I don't see anybody in their ranks at the moment who can pull that off other than Brian Schweitzer, former governor of Montana.  He's a moderate to right kind of Democrat, a practical man who is often a critic of his own party.  He can run against a Republican candidate and at the same time run against Obama, and that's what the next election is going to come down to.  Obama has been disastrous to Democrats, and that should be obvious by now.  Since Schweitzer has been a critic all along, he's tailor made as a candidate who can run for office promising change . . . and I think that's what voters are going to want.  The answer to our problems isn't going to the right, to the hard line Republicans.  They never have been able to run government.  But voters need a choice other than either the left leaning Democrats or the right leaning Republicans.  We need someone in the middle because that's where most reasonable thought comes from . . . and never from the extremes.

DOES THE GHOST OF COLONEL REB HAUNT OLE MISS?

I started being an Ole Miss (That's the University of Mississippi) fan as a youngster, have followed them ever since . . . and that's a long time.  I still like seeing them win, but it's been a while since they've had a top quality football team.  This year has been a little different - new coach, new program, new players, and new success.  They lost their second game of the season tonight to Auburn, a game they should've won.  Bad luck cost them the game, and the same was true last week when they lost a close one to LSU.  I wrote a blog back in 2010 when Ole Miss dropped their long time mascot, Colonel Reb in favor of some stupid bear.  Yeah, a bear called Rebel Black Bear, or something dumb like that.  Colonel Reb faded into history, and I predicted in my somewhat angry blog that his ghost would haunt Ole Miss.  I said it mostly in jest, of course, but now I'm starting to wonder if I wasn't right.

What irked me about dropping Colonel Reb was the criticism of him as being a symbol of racism. That's just plain and simple bullshit, and I'm not the only former fan who lost some interest in them.  That's what I said - former fan.  I was a fan of the Ole Miss Rebels, a team with a mascot that well represented the state.  But a bear?  Mississippi isn't home to bears of any kind, but it is home to a proud tradition that's partly based on lots of brave soldiers who died in the Civil War.  Nobody remembers that war, not from a first hand experience of having lived through it, but it's history, dammit, and you can't ignore that.  My great, great grandfather fought and died in the Civil War, and he fought for the south as a native of Mississippi.

One well known Mississippi historian says that the former mascot, Colonel Reb, was based on a black man, not some hotshot confederate officer.  Even if he wasn't, he still shouldn't have been scrapped because some people who'd rather not remember Mississippi's proud history didn't like him. But times change, and so do universities, and the bear replaced Colonel Reb.  The Ole Miss loss tonight put an end to any chance of them making the finals, the playoffs for national champion.  It also puts an end to any hopes they had of being SEC champs.  With a demanding schedule remaining, they could lose two more games.  Arkansas almost beat Miss. State tonight, and Ole Miss must play them . . . and they play State the final game of the year.  They could, of course, win both games, finish the season 10-2, and end up in a respectable bowl game.  But I'd be willing to bet that they don't win out.  As I watched the seconds tick down in tonight's 35-31 loss to Auburn, I could almost swear I heard the rattle of sabers and distant cannon fire.  The ghost of Colonel Reb is alive and well . . . and my guess is, he's pissed off.  Good luck, Black Bear.  You're gonna need it.