Thus, today’s Republicans are finally close to fulfilling Hammond’s and Reagan’s vision (while ironically repudiating America’s first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln)…
Wow, absolutely wow. Now I just did learn something new, and a new concept as well.
Thanks Thom
Edit Added: I can't speak to 1858, as I was born in 1939, but lacking social mobility, which is pretty much the state of affairs for most labor. The only real difference between wage slavery and chattel slavery is that your off duty hours are yours, and you can't be bought and sold.. That and many corporations and business owners , have found a way to bind you to your job and abuse you, by way of benefits, like health insurance, and the promise of a retirement. Promise, virtually unfulfilled.
{EDIT: THIS CONVERSATION HAS BEEN AMENDED BELOW} }In many parts of the American South, after “forced integration,” white people stopped sending their kids to public schools . Those public schools, also, were in too many places NOT adequately supported by taxes from the local communities {indeed, in the North, we depend heavily but not entirely on property taxes, a flawed and regressive system, but one that puts public money from a community into its schools }. After integration, many parts of the South did not levy a property tax at all and did not put much money at all into the public schools that were required to accept all students, white, Black, Asian, et al.
My family who lived in Louisianna decades ago said to me, “White people send their kids to private schools. “ They spend what they would on property tax to send their kids to Montessori or other private schools. The private schools don’t accept all comers — only white kids.
This business of “vouchers” is just a continuation of something they’ve been doing all along, and a way to extend it to every state in the union. That’s the look of it from where I sit.
Well to do white folk maybe send their kids to public schools, but most folk can't afford to pay property taxes and send their kids to private schools.
Payment of property taxes is not discretionary, at least not in the states that I owned homes in, and in fact a mortgage payment usually includes taxes and insurance, unless you opt out.
Don't pay your taxes and you get a visit from the reeve of the shire,with paper in hand, and you find your home repossessed.
{EDIT__SEE AMENDED INFO BELOW!} Read what I wrote — I said some Southern states did not even have a property tax, which is one central source of funds for local schools in all the states I have lived in, though state and federal revenue sharing always added to it, as well — In Southern states after Brown v Board of Ed, small private schools sprang up and white families sent their kids there and paid a small fee, and public schools where kids from minority communities went were abysmally starved of funds. There weren’t any property taxes making everyone contribute to their own public schools… Demanding that we establish a country-wide system of publicly-funded “charter schools” that now TAKES money from the public purse directed to schools and provide it as “vouchers” for schools that don’t accept all comers … sounds like trying to spread the old racist option to the whole country to me.
I never heard of a state that didn' have a property tax, Google sez: Sadly for investors, the answer is no, there are no states without property tax. This is because property tax is a useful way for local governments to fund public services such as schools, fire and police departments, infrastructure and libraries.
Actually property taxes are levied by the counties, the counties are administrative organs of the state.
All states need to levy taxes to pay for public services, fire, police, roads, bridges.
I agree about Charter Schools and vouchers, I don't want my property taxes going to Christian schools either.
BTW I did read what you wrote. I found it unbelievable that there were any states that didn't have a property tax for reasons cited above., even in the south. A state income tax is not going to pay for a city's fire and police department, and some states don't have an income tax. (Mine doesn't), sales and excise taxes won't do either.
YES, my statement was too absolute. I do have relatives who lived in the South who didn’t pay property taxes. Checking back, it was based on age and income level.
My main point — that taxes are the basis for paying for schools {though taxes are almost never enough to cover, and need to be supplemented by revenue sharing of other ways to supplement local taxes to cover school costs, or the schools are abysmally inadequate} still stands. My family who had children in public schools paid {fairly low} private tuitions to keep their kids out of the ABYSMALLY poorly supported public schools. My family members were not trying to avoid integration — just trying to avoid really bad schools. When they moved North, they put their kids in public schools that were better served by our communities.
So, the tax rates and supports of schools were massively deficient {this was decades ago, and I can’t speak for whether it’s gotten any better}.
The primary point again is that siphoning public money to charter schools is a way to damage public education, not to mention re-segregate on the basis of things like race and class.
But you are mostly right — since the country instituted both property AND real estate taxes in most places {a few locales were exempt} just about everyone {except the vastly poor} have paid some amount of $ for property or real estate tax, though a many states have had “exemptions” that allowed homeowners not to pay much, if anything.
As I understand it property taxes are one thing, in Washington state, they are taxes on property, specifically the state determined value of vehicles, but have been since been revoked by a referendum.
My real estate taxes are called property taxes, based on an evaluation of my property by the county assessor, and are updated yearly by a computer program. Pretty dam high where I live, but am not bitchin because they pay for fire and sheriff, EMS, schools and roads that I use.
I know that property taxes adversely affect poor neighborhoods, as a source of school funding, poor neighborhoods, low value property, low taxes, piss poor education.
I can't imagine any poor family not owning property, much less not paying property taxes. My county has a formula for reducing taxes for old farts like moi, but they also have an income limit and I don't qualify., again not bitchin.
I can't wrap my head around a poor person owning property and not paying taxes. My fathers family lived in a company owned house in SW Arkansas, and in WWII moved to company owned (Texaco) homes in west Texas, They didn't pay property taxes, renters do, indirectly, via rental payments.
I totally agree about Charter Schools and Vouchers, they are a tool to dumbing down America and producing religious, barely literates.
I mentioned on another post, that at least one major airline sends their planes to El Salvador for scheduled maintenance. The crews that work on them don't speak English,and the tech manuals are kept in the office. They are trained like Henry Fords production line, to do one or two tasks, and are paid a pittance.
So long as the job or task does not require finesse, judgement, skill of any sort or ongoing quality control, a trained chimpanzee is all that is required.
It has it's drawbacks, back in 1960, newly wed, I bought a 1956 Ford, I kept hearing a rattle in the passenger door. Finally dismantled it and found a whiskey bottle.
People on the production line were numb with repetitive chores, and drank on duty, evidently they hid their liquor bottles in the vehicles they were assembling.
A great many customs and laws in our country are …. mmmmmm … shall we say, not uniformly applied. I personally think “renting” the homes we “own” from our towns in the majority {but not all} of US municipalities — which municipalities can repossess said homes, if we don’t pony up, regardless of our ability to pay up — is less than an optimal way to fund our society, but that’s basically what it comes down to, pretty much. In most places in this country, we can own a home until we can’t afford the taxes, and then we don’t own it any more … Definitely regressive …
[AMENDED BELOW IN CONTINUED CONVERSATION]Read what I wrote — I said some Southern states did not even have a property tax, which is one central source of funds for local schools in all the states I have lived in, though state and federal revenue sharing always added to it, as well — In Southern states after Brown v Board of Ed, small private schools sprang up and white families sent their kids there and paid a small fee, and public schools where kids from minority communities went were abysmally starved of funds. There weren’t any property taxes in those states making everyone contribute to their own public schools… Demanding that we establish a country-wide system of publicly-funded “charter schools” that now TAKES money from the public purse directed to schools and provides it as “vouchers” for schools that don’t accept all comers … sounds like trying to spread the old racist option to the whole country to me.
Under "massive resistance" some districts did not offer free public education for several years after Little Rock. In VA, Prince William and Fauquier (pronounced fuck-you) within commuting distance from DC.
Among other things I don't list in my CV, I am a graduate of the US Army Engineer school -- Fts. Belvoir and Leonard Wood. We made mudsills using raked soil fortified by rebar, filled by loads of "mud" a.k/a concrete (could bs sand or clay) carried by "Georgia buggies" a/k/a wheelbarrows. In Vietnam, when not in the field, we made hooches, latrines, over mudsills. Our sign: WETSU. "We eat this shit up!"
Reading what Mr. Hartmann wrote, one hears the echos of the old British culture {and certainly true of others countries, as well, but I hear it with a British accent} of people who knew “their place,” and had not the temerity to dare stepping out of it. The royals, the lords and ladies and members of the court, the shop people, the serfs, all well and staying “where they belong.”
Today's piece by Thom adjusted into clarity my lenses about the whole of the Republican Party agenda. All the abhorrent principles of authoritarian financial control were linked, with the supporting clarification of the historical record as vouchsafe. Kept separate and kept unlinqued, the issues remained without center, the public at large, like me, has remained unaware of their true fascist financial control, the linking gist.
All this was, for me, at least, a metanoic shift into focus. Invaluable.
Don't think I'll bite the bait. This time. I have noticed that you have told others in this and other forums how to write, with various other suggestions on how to behave. Can I assume that your status as proctor of performance is "self-appointed"?
You can assume anything that you wish Gerald, That your comment is self congratulatory and beyond the comprehension of the average person, or dare I suggest the educated, is not my problem, but yours. Get angry and attack me as you desire. The problem is not me, but you.
If your comments are incomprehensible to the public, then you might as well bark at the moon.
Your assumptions about just what is above the comprehension of the "average person or
. . the educated" are merely your projections to bolster your own need to assume control of the narratives, to be in complete control. This is evidenced by your diversions to correct others re their ways of writing, etc. Amazingly you refer often to my education as proof of both erudition and arrogance, though you know nothing of my education. You have gone deep into your education, your long visits to libraries, lauded by others of your "genius" and to top-knot your hubris, you neon your IQ. I doubt my education eclipses most in here. Here's one point on that: during those hours in a classroom I noticed an emerged pattern. When the teacher asked a question, some would or would not respond by RAISING their hand, depending on how they felt that day. But in the front row, people WAVED their hands wildly, and when not called upon, would growl a whimper of pout. I sat in the back row, chair against the wall. Guess where I see you sitting?
Look Gerald. I know that your ego is wounded by the suggestion of a correction. It is an entirely human response. I don't take your accusations about me seriously. I know that you are just being defensive and striking back at the source of your pain.
Wounded? Defensive? Pain? Anger? Even my muse is laughing. I was actually in a fun mindset. Your "suggestions . . .of correction" belie your attempts to control mine and others' freedom of speech, and your ambition to control the narrative is rife with self-promotions that you would mirror on others. I don't need to win. And I will write as I write.
Thank you Thom. This is maddening! Poor America. Doomed. This gop is filled with a bunch of corrupted loonies who just think to squeeze evrything possible to fill their own pockets. And make the rest of the world similar to them. Damned!
The mudsill theorists have won or are winning across the globe, but most obscenely in America, the “Land of Opportunity”. They will keep winning until the mudsill hardens and cracks so badly it brings down all that has been built upon it. I won’t live to see that, but I pray for that day. The oppressors deserve a severe day of reckoning. Whether it will ever come is an open question, which in itself has led me to despise the species of which I am a member, happily soon to leave it for whatever lies beyond the grave, though even just the grave looks good to me now, as I turn 76 in a few days, in failing health and yet too possessed of my mental faculties to have any faith in the wisdom, compassion, fairness or dignity of humanity.
I believe the Judeo Christian book called the bible sez, The meek shall inherit the earth.
How one defines the word meek, depends on one's predisposition, it is actually vague like the English word love. The English bible is a translation from the Hebrew, chaldean and Greek
Hebrew word for meek is anaw, which refers to someone who is afflicted or bearing a heavy burden. . It is largely an explanation about the circumstance someone is willing to endure, rather than a state to succumb to. Google sez.
When a civilization collapses, those at the top of the pyramid fall the hardest, and are least likely to survive. Those at the very bottom, who lived off the land, and mastered the art of survival, the meek, actually do inherit the land.
Geneticists know that there is more genetic diversity in Africa than in Europe (hard to believe for those who see only skin color).
There was an obvious bottle neck at the end of the last ice age. Something happened concurrent with the beginning of the holocene, and only about 12,500 years ago
“The oppressors deserve a severe day of reckoning!”… that is a huge 100% correct statement… but willl they ever get it?… I think not due to the Supreme Court being so corrupt and incompetent
If we raise the minimum wage to a living wage, we wouldn't have to worry about the mudsill theory. Problem is, the GOP wants to abolish the minimum wage and all social benefits to non-breeders.
With a higher minimum wage, we could create our own middle class that could move with upward mobility. The rich are hell bent on keeping us in debt and impoverished. currently. Unlimited greed or capitalism is not sustainable in the long term without population control and alternative energies and land zoning.
The fat cats love the exploitive caste system, as they sit atop it, profiting handsomely (and feeling entitled to!), while contributing minimally. Early on, America was distinguished from Europe by it's class fluidity and potential for living the "rags to riches" story - though the upper classes despised the 'nouveau riche' who threatened their perch on the top rung. Caste supporters are newly re-empowered to cut off paths for hard work and ingenuity to benefit those perceived to be on low rungs of the system.
Enforced poverty is everywhere in this country. It's not just child labor, but the manner in which Social Security Disability benefits are severely limited in the amount of money beneficiaries can earn. The benefits themselves are poverty level benefits. So these folks are stuck in a cycle of poverty. The income limits to qualify for Medicaid are also a problem. When a family income reaches a certain level, which in most cases is not a living wage situation, these families loose Medicaid and must pay out of pocket for healthcare which they likely cannot afford. Many of us who are on non-disability Social Security must supplement that income to get by. Social Security was supposed to end poverty for retirees. It has not. The major reason for poverty in this country is the lack of fairness in the tax code including the amount of money subject to Social Security contributions. Until the rich and big corporations pay their fair share nothing will change. Large corporations and private equity firms are the ones who live from government assistance through the tax code. This is almost never reported in the media.
I grew up in the 50s & recall hearing the proposition that once you become a "laborer" you stay a laborer for life from my mother's friends, encouraging their kids to get an education. Thom your columns always give me flashbacks to my childhood & much food-for-thought as well as insight into why I am who I am.
Massively overpopulated societies spontaneously form into status hierarchies which quickly become the norm. Only sparsely populated ancestral Hunter-Gatherer clans/bands are egalitarian and most often matriarchal. In populations and their behavior, size matters. As usual, Thom is a great source of historical info., but the status stratification of massive populations is well known and can be seen worldwide.
Greeley, just because it is prevalent does not mean it's the natural order. I have felt the downward pressure since the age of sixteen. I was brought up in a working class neighborhood and was supposed to stay in my place, and so we're my children. That's why Rawl's "veil of ignorance" theory of determining social policy resonates with me. During the pandemic, mudsill workers were suddenly called "essential workers." We don't mind doing it. Somebody has to. But appreciate, reward it with security like income and healthcare, and provide an opportunity and upward path through affordable education.
Anon, the inability to like seems to be a google chrome problem. I can't like in chrome but when I copy and paste the URL to Firefox I have no problem. I just liked Ruth's comment in Firefox, but can't in Chrome. Maybe it is something between substack and Google.
And yet, the trickle-downers insist that "these moochers just gotta pull themselves up by the bootstraps and go out and get a job like the rest of us."
Although I was commissioned via a bootstrap commissioning program, the concept of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is ridiculous. You can pull your boots on via straps, but not yourself.
About 20% of the general population needs a hand up.
Actually, Title I of the Education Act, SSI, Pell Grants, the military, the public health service, athletic scholarships, etc. do a pretty good job. I represented a school district that got Title I foundation grants and poor kids out performed most prep school kids. I grew up with kids who were deemed "retarded" but had a learning disorder that was treated and they went from poverty to wealth as a result of fairly recent discoveries in education.
None of my relatives had a pot to piss in during the Depression, yet many of my uncles' families prospered due to the WWII GI bill.
Here in Baghdad By the Sea, immigrants who set out on rafts without any money or education made it to the states and now are doctors, lawyers and jefes. All got a grant to get started under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act. https://immigrationhistory.org/item/cuban-adjustment-act-of-1966/
Roger on the military. If it weren't for the military, I would probably have ended up in prison or died at an early age. It straightened my young punk ass out, provided me opportunities that I was smart enough to take advantage of, most of my peers didn't.
As a commissioned officer and a team leader I wound up on a team, in which most of my troops had been peers or subordinates when i was a NONCOM. One of them had started studying at a community college with me, but then stopped, I went on to earn a four year degree and a commission. He told me, in a downcast look, that he should have kept on like I did.
The Repubs of today love the idea that some in society must exist to be lower class with an existence that keeps them down. Cheap labor they see as a goal mostly thru cultural means of women providing free or low cost service to family or society traditionally teachers, nurses and typists paid very low. I have said that the north used minority and cheap labor as essentially slaves. Non living wages is slavery and cannot be denied its reality. This view is the oppressors view and their goal. When I wrote so I was told I denigrated the slaves and what they experienced. Mudsill
I realized way back in H.S. (1965) that the Middle Class would one day be attacked by the wealthy, for being “too expensive and demanding “. It was a time of strong unions. While most were deep into the “commies are coming!” Mindset , I said that what we had to worry about was Fascism. I just never expected to see the takeover in my lifetime.
How is Thom Hartmann even possible? The quantity AND quality of his work are off the chart because there is no chart capable of illustrating the otherworldly dedication and relevancy Thom produces - every single day.
Is it the Mudsill theory or the Shock Doctrine economic theory of James Buchanan and Milton Friedman? I think it’s the latter, and that is more sinister.
The Shock Doctrine IS Friedman/Buchanan’s economic agenda in the “shock and awe” phase of Libertarian Fascism. We are entering that phase when the Fascists can wipe out social and health care safety nets, wipe out environmental regulations, systematize racism, and continue the process of “binding democracy in chains” with bureaucratic rules/laws/regs that prevent a democracy from functioning in the interests of the People. The fascist billionaires will siphon off wealth with measures like privatizing schools, privatizing prisons, altering the tax system to favor the wealthiest and passing laws like, “Corporations are People.”
Private Prisons alone are the return of slavery and they need inmate/workers who are incarcerated for minor non violent crimes for long periods of time. Example like smoking weed.
I agree with you, But am trying to link Hammond's Mudsill to Klein's shock doctrine
In the book, Klein argues that neoliberal free market policies (as advocated by the economist Milton Friedman) have risen to prominence in countries and regions such as the United States, the United Kingdom, China, the European Union, and Eastern Europe, because of a deliberate strategy of "shock therapy"
As I see it, the Friedmanite, libertarian, neo liberal model inexorciably leads to neo serfdom or rather neo slavery. Hammond's Mudsill society.
Neo slavery, slavery where people are bound to but not owned by an employer.
Such a form existed, even into the 19th Century, it is called indentured servitude, but involved a contract, the new form of servitude does not necessarily involve contracts, however such contracts are ubiquitous among athletes, actors, and specialists., they difference being that they are usually very well renumerated, yet still not a free agent.
William, if there are not enough jobs to go around, a worker is owned by his employer because there is no other alternative or opportunity to survive. The GOP likes high unemployment levels.
The premise of the green society is that we would be a service economy, only service workers don't get paid that mach.
There was a book that came out in 1970 called the Greening of America. the on campus commie hailed it as the bible to destroy capitalism, but was he fucked in the head, It didn't destroy the hated capitalists, it enriched them and forced them to go global, thanks a decade later to the incentive offered by Bill Clinton.
On the other hand it has become a boon for those in the trades, skilled tradesmen I mean, not the day workers hired outside of Home Depot, or illegals hired by roofing companies.
It is hard to find a decent plumber, electrician, or carpenter, and at a reasonable price these days, I had a local heating and A/C tech come out to fix my heat pump, he spent 20 minutes, replaced a fuse and charged me $145. I now have a spare fuse and know how to do it myself.
To get even a carpenter I have to be on a wait list
William, once at an anti-military draft rally, the Communists showed up and held up their flags at each end of the block. We had people driving by calling us Communists and I told them to go to hell. Those Communists were not invited, I think they were capitalist paid infiltrators designed to make us look bad. That sounds like what that clown in your college did also. Fascists have been good at infiltrating leftist groups!!!!
I became a greeny when the book the population bomb by Paul Ehrlich came out in 1968!
Currently thanks to FDR, we do have a lot of excess jobs because of the trickle up theory. Once the fascist install their trickle down theory, there will not be enough jobs to go around and they will be sent off to wars or extermination camps if they can't find a job or work! If you think the billionaires are going to support them, you are completely out of your mind! Or if anyone else does!
“When pundits marvel that the Republican Party could accept a man like Donald Trump, who has five kids from three wives and talks in public about having sex with his daughter, they’re missing the point.
Trump doesn’t signal a lowering of standards of morality by Republican voters.
Instead, he gives them a chance to prove how little they have always cared about those issues. Trump just removes the necessity of pretending.
“Family values” was never a set of morals or values that the Republican Party really desired to live by; instead, “family values” was useful in attacking and defining Democrats.
It was just another weapon to help portray those on the other side as being out of the mythical American mainstream.
It was an “otherness” tool, as in those who didn’t loudly proclaim their strict adherence to its code were “other” than normal.
Like not being white is “other.” Like not being Christian is “other.” Like not being heterosexual is “other.”
The entire modern Republican definition of the conservative movement is about efforts to define itself as “normal” and everything else as “not normal.””
— It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump by Stuart Stevens
Wow, absolutely wow. Now I just did learn something new, and a new concept as well.
Thanks Thom
Edit Added: I can't speak to 1858, as I was born in 1939, but lacking social mobility, which is pretty much the state of affairs for most labor. The only real difference between wage slavery and chattel slavery is that your off duty hours are yours, and you can't be bought and sold.. That and many corporations and business owners , have found a way to bind you to your job and abuse you, by way of benefits, like health insurance, and the promise of a retirement. Promise, virtually unfulfilled.
{EDIT: THIS CONVERSATION HAS BEEN AMENDED BELOW} }In many parts of the American South, after “forced integration,” white people stopped sending their kids to public schools . Those public schools, also, were in too many places NOT adequately supported by taxes from the local communities {indeed, in the North, we depend heavily but not entirely on property taxes, a flawed and regressive system, but one that puts public money from a community into its schools }. After integration, many parts of the South did not levy a property tax at all and did not put much money at all into the public schools that were required to accept all students, white, Black, Asian, et al.
My family who lived in Louisianna decades ago said to me, “White people send their kids to private schools. “ They spend what they would on property tax to send their kids to Montessori or other private schools. The private schools don’t accept all comers — only white kids.
This business of “vouchers” is just a continuation of something they’ve been doing all along, and a way to extend it to every state in the union. That’s the look of it from where I sit.
Well to do white folk maybe send their kids to public schools, but most folk can't afford to pay property taxes and send their kids to private schools.
Payment of property taxes is not discretionary, at least not in the states that I owned homes in, and in fact a mortgage payment usually includes taxes and insurance, unless you opt out.
Don't pay your taxes and you get a visit from the reeve of the shire,with paper in hand, and you find your home repossessed.
{EDIT__SEE AMENDED INFO BELOW!} Read what I wrote — I said some Southern states did not even have a property tax, which is one central source of funds for local schools in all the states I have lived in, though state and federal revenue sharing always added to it, as well — In Southern states after Brown v Board of Ed, small private schools sprang up and white families sent their kids there and paid a small fee, and public schools where kids from minority communities went were abysmally starved of funds. There weren’t any property taxes making everyone contribute to their own public schools… Demanding that we establish a country-wide system of publicly-funded “charter schools” that now TAKES money from the public purse directed to schools and provide it as “vouchers” for schools that don’t accept all comers … sounds like trying to spread the old racist option to the whole country to me.
I never heard of a state that didn' have a property tax, Google sez: Sadly for investors, the answer is no, there are no states without property tax. This is because property tax is a useful way for local governments to fund public services such as schools, fire and police departments, infrastructure and libraries.
Actually property taxes are levied by the counties, the counties are administrative organs of the state.
All states need to levy taxes to pay for public services, fire, police, roads, bridges.
I agree about Charter Schools and vouchers, I don't want my property taxes going to Christian schools either.
BTW I did read what you wrote. I found it unbelievable that there were any states that didn't have a property tax for reasons cited above., even in the south. A state income tax is not going to pay for a city's fire and police department, and some states don't have an income tax. (Mine doesn't), sales and excise taxes won't do either.
YES, my statement was too absolute. I do have relatives who lived in the South who didn’t pay property taxes. Checking back, it was based on age and income level.
My main point — that taxes are the basis for paying for schools {though taxes are almost never enough to cover, and need to be supplemented by revenue sharing of other ways to supplement local taxes to cover school costs, or the schools are abysmally inadequate} still stands. My family who had children in public schools paid {fairly low} private tuitions to keep their kids out of the ABYSMALLY poorly supported public schools. My family members were not trying to avoid integration — just trying to avoid really bad schools. When they moved North, they put their kids in public schools that were better served by our communities.
So, the tax rates and supports of schools were massively deficient {this was decades ago, and I can’t speak for whether it’s gotten any better}.
The primary point again is that siphoning public money to charter schools is a way to damage public education, not to mention re-segregate on the basis of things like race and class.
But you are mostly right — since the country instituted both property AND real estate taxes in most places {a few locales were exempt} just about everyone {except the vastly poor} have paid some amount of $ for property or real estate tax, though a many states have had “exemptions” that allowed homeowners not to pay much, if anything.
I stand corrected.
Curious as to where and just as important when.
As I understand it property taxes are one thing, in Washington state, they are taxes on property, specifically the state determined value of vehicles, but have been since been revoked by a referendum.
My real estate taxes are called property taxes, based on an evaluation of my property by the county assessor, and are updated yearly by a computer program. Pretty dam high where I live, but am not bitchin because they pay for fire and sheriff, EMS, schools and roads that I use.
I know that property taxes adversely affect poor neighborhoods, as a source of school funding, poor neighborhoods, low value property, low taxes, piss poor education.
I can't imagine any poor family not owning property, much less not paying property taxes. My county has a formula for reducing taxes for old farts like moi, but they also have an income limit and I don't qualify., again not bitchin.
I can't wrap my head around a poor person owning property and not paying taxes. My fathers family lived in a company owned house in SW Arkansas, and in WWII moved to company owned (Texaco) homes in west Texas, They didn't pay property taxes, renters do, indirectly, via rental payments.
I totally agree about Charter Schools and Vouchers, they are a tool to dumbing down America and producing religious, barely literates.
I mentioned on another post, that at least one major airline sends their planes to El Salvador for scheduled maintenance. The crews that work on them don't speak English,and the tech manuals are kept in the office. They are trained like Henry Fords production line, to do one or two tasks, and are paid a pittance.
So long as the job or task does not require finesse, judgement, skill of any sort or ongoing quality control, a trained chimpanzee is all that is required.
It has it's drawbacks, back in 1960, newly wed, I bought a 1956 Ford, I kept hearing a rattle in the passenger door. Finally dismantled it and found a whiskey bottle.
People on the production line were numb with repetitive chores, and drank on duty, evidently they hid their liquor bottles in the vehicles they were assembling.
A great many customs and laws in our country are …. mmmmmm … shall we say, not uniformly applied. I personally think “renting” the homes we “own” from our towns in the majority {but not all} of US municipalities — which municipalities can repossess said homes, if we don’t pony up, regardless of our ability to pay up — is less than an optimal way to fund our society, but that’s basically what it comes down to, pretty much. In most places in this country, we can own a home until we can’t afford the taxes, and then we don’t own it any more … Definitely regressive …
[AMENDED BELOW IN CONTINUED CONVERSATION]Read what I wrote — I said some Southern states did not even have a property tax, which is one central source of funds for local schools in all the states I have lived in, though state and federal revenue sharing always added to it, as well — In Southern states after Brown v Board of Ed, small private schools sprang up and white families sent their kids there and paid a small fee, and public schools where kids from minority communities went were abysmally starved of funds. There weren’t any property taxes in those states making everyone contribute to their own public schools… Demanding that we establish a country-wide system of publicly-funded “charter schools” that now TAKES money from the public purse directed to schools and provides it as “vouchers” for schools that don’t accept all comers … sounds like trying to spread the old racist option to the whole country to me.
Under "massive resistance" some districts did not offer free public education for several years after Little Rock. In VA, Prince William and Fauquier (pronounced fuck-you) within commuting distance from DC.
Among other things I don't list in my CV, I am a graduate of the US Army Engineer school -- Fts. Belvoir and Leonard Wood. We made mudsills using raked soil fortified by rebar, filled by loads of "mud" a.k/a concrete (could bs sand or clay) carried by "Georgia buggies" a/k/a wheelbarrows. In Vietnam, when not in the field, we made hooches, latrines, over mudsills. Our sign: WETSU. "We eat this shit up!"
Reading what Mr. Hartmann wrote, one hears the echos of the old British culture {and certainly true of others countries, as well, but I hear it with a British accent} of people who knew “their place,” and had not the temerity to dare stepping out of it. The royals, the lords and ladies and members of the court, the shop people, the serfs, all well and staying “where they belong.”
Bleah!!
Today's piece by Thom adjusted into clarity my lenses about the whole of the Republican Party agenda. All the abhorrent principles of authoritarian financial control were linked, with the supporting clarification of the historical record as vouchsafe. Kept separate and kept unlinqued, the issues remained without center, the public at large, like me, has remained unaware of their true fascist financial control, the linking gist.
All this was, for me, at least, a metanoic shift into focus. Invaluable.
English please Gerald. I am impressed you are educated, but the truly educated don't speak over the heads of the audience.
Don't think I'll bite the bait. This time. I have noticed that you have told others in this and other forums how to write, with various other suggestions on how to behave. Can I assume that your status as proctor of performance is "self-appointed"?
You can assume anything that you wish Gerald, That your comment is self congratulatory and beyond the comprehension of the average person, or dare I suggest the educated, is not my problem, but yours. Get angry and attack me as you desire. The problem is not me, but you.
If your comments are incomprehensible to the public, then you might as well bark at the moon.
Your assumptions about just what is above the comprehension of the "average person or
. . the educated" are merely your projections to bolster your own need to assume control of the narratives, to be in complete control. This is evidenced by your diversions to correct others re their ways of writing, etc. Amazingly you refer often to my education as proof of both erudition and arrogance, though you know nothing of my education. You have gone deep into your education, your long visits to libraries, lauded by others of your "genius" and to top-knot your hubris, you neon your IQ. I doubt my education eclipses most in here. Here's one point on that: during those hours in a classroom I noticed an emerged pattern. When the teacher asked a question, some would or would not respond by RAISING their hand, depending on how they felt that day. But in the front row, people WAVED their hands wildly, and when not called upon, would growl a whimper of pout. I sat in the back row, chair against the wall. Guess where I see you sitting?
Look Gerald. I know that your ego is wounded by the suggestion of a correction. It is an entirely human response. I don't take your accusations about me seriously. I know that you are just being defensive and striking back at the source of your pain.
It is what we humans do.
Wounded? Defensive? Pain? Anger? Even my muse is laughing. I was actually in a fun mindset. Your "suggestions . . .of correction" belie your attempts to control mine and others' freedom of speech, and your ambition to control the narrative is rife with self-promotions that you would mirror on others. I don't need to win. And I will write as I write.
Thank you Thom. This is maddening! Poor America. Doomed. This gop is filled with a bunch of corrupted loonies who just think to squeeze evrything possible to fill their own pockets. And make the rest of the world similar to them. Damned!
The mudsill theorists have won or are winning across the globe, but most obscenely in America, the “Land of Opportunity”. They will keep winning until the mudsill hardens and cracks so badly it brings down all that has been built upon it. I won’t live to see that, but I pray for that day. The oppressors deserve a severe day of reckoning. Whether it will ever come is an open question, which in itself has led me to despise the species of which I am a member, happily soon to leave it for whatever lies beyond the grave, though even just the grave looks good to me now, as I turn 76 in a few days, in failing health and yet too possessed of my mental faculties to have any faith in the wisdom, compassion, fairness or dignity of humanity.
The Boomer Donald cult supporters will leave a living hell on Earth to their children and grandchildren! And everyone else's if they get their way.
I believe the Judeo Christian book called the bible sez, The meek shall inherit the earth.
How one defines the word meek, depends on one's predisposition, it is actually vague like the English word love. The English bible is a translation from the Hebrew, chaldean and Greek
Hebrew word for meek is anaw, which refers to someone who is afflicted or bearing a heavy burden. . It is largely an explanation about the circumstance someone is willing to endure, rather than a state to succumb to. Google sez.
When a civilization collapses, those at the top of the pyramid fall the hardest, and are least likely to survive. Those at the very bottom, who lived off the land, and mastered the art of survival, the meek, actually do inherit the land.
Geneticists know that there is more genetic diversity in Africa than in Europe (hard to believe for those who see only skin color).
There was an obvious bottle neck at the end of the last ice age. Something happened concurrent with the beginning of the holocene, and only about 12,500 years ago
“The oppressors deserve a severe day of reckoning!”… that is a huge 100% correct statement… but willl they ever get it?… I think not due to the Supreme Court being so corrupt and incompetent
If we raise the minimum wage to a living wage, we wouldn't have to worry about the mudsill theory. Problem is, the GOP wants to abolish the minimum wage and all social benefits to non-breeders.
With a higher minimum wage, we could create our own middle class that could move with upward mobility. The rich are hell bent on keeping us in debt and impoverished. currently. Unlimited greed or capitalism is not sustainable in the long term without population control and alternative energies and land zoning.
Excellent commentary Bob!
The fat cats love the exploitive caste system, as they sit atop it, profiting handsomely (and feeling entitled to!), while contributing minimally. Early on, America was distinguished from Europe by it's class fluidity and potential for living the "rags to riches" story - though the upper classes despised the 'nouveau riche' who threatened their perch on the top rung. Caste supporters are newly re-empowered to cut off paths for hard work and ingenuity to benefit those perceived to be on low rungs of the system.
Enforced poverty is everywhere in this country. It's not just child labor, but the manner in which Social Security Disability benefits are severely limited in the amount of money beneficiaries can earn. The benefits themselves are poverty level benefits. So these folks are stuck in a cycle of poverty. The income limits to qualify for Medicaid are also a problem. When a family income reaches a certain level, which in most cases is not a living wage situation, these families loose Medicaid and must pay out of pocket for healthcare which they likely cannot afford. Many of us who are on non-disability Social Security must supplement that income to get by. Social Security was supposed to end poverty for retirees. It has not. The major reason for poverty in this country is the lack of fairness in the tax code including the amount of money subject to Social Security contributions. Until the rich and big corporations pay their fair share nothing will change. Large corporations and private equity firms are the ones who live from government assistance through the tax code. This is almost never reported in the media.
I grew up in the 50s & recall hearing the proposition that once you become a "laborer" you stay a laborer for life from my mother's friends, encouraging their kids to get an education. Thom your columns always give me flashbacks to my childhood & much food-for-thought as well as insight into why I am who I am.
Massively overpopulated societies spontaneously form into status hierarchies which quickly become the norm. Only sparsely populated ancestral Hunter-Gatherer clans/bands are egalitarian and most often matriarchal. In populations and their behavior, size matters. As usual, Thom is a great source of historical info., but the status stratification of massive populations is well known and can be seen worldwide.
Greeley, just because it is prevalent does not mean it's the natural order. I have felt the downward pressure since the age of sixteen. I was brought up in a working class neighborhood and was supposed to stay in my place, and so we're my children. That's why Rawl's "veil of ignorance" theory of determining social policy resonates with me. During the pandemic, mudsill workers were suddenly called "essential workers." We don't mind doing it. Somebody has to. But appreciate, reward it with security like income and healthcare, and provide an opportunity and upward path through affordable education.
Capitalism and free trade has failed to raise all boats. But we do have several thousand billionaires now.
Anon, the inability to like seems to be a google chrome problem. I can't like in chrome but when I copy and paste the URL to Firefox I have no problem. I just liked Ruth's comment in Firefox, but can't in Chrome. Maybe it is something between substack and Google.
And yet, the trickle-downers insist that "these moochers just gotta pull themselves up by the bootstraps and go out and get a job like the rest of us."
SMDH.
Although I was commissioned via a bootstrap commissioning program, the concept of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is ridiculous. You can pull your boots on via straps, but not yourself.
About 20% of the general population needs a hand up.
Actually, Title I of the Education Act, SSI, Pell Grants, the military, the public health service, athletic scholarships, etc. do a pretty good job. I represented a school district that got Title I foundation grants and poor kids out performed most prep school kids. I grew up with kids who were deemed "retarded" but had a learning disorder that was treated and they went from poverty to wealth as a result of fairly recent discoveries in education.
None of my relatives had a pot to piss in during the Depression, yet many of my uncles' families prospered due to the WWII GI bill.
Here in Baghdad By the Sea, immigrants who set out on rafts without any money or education made it to the states and now are doctors, lawyers and jefes. All got a grant to get started under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act. https://immigrationhistory.org/item/cuban-adjustment-act-of-1966/
Roger on the military. If it weren't for the military, I would probably have ended up in prison or died at an early age. It straightened my young punk ass out, provided me opportunities that I was smart enough to take advantage of, most of my peers didn't.
As a commissioned officer and a team leader I wound up on a team, in which most of my troops had been peers or subordinates when i was a NONCOM. One of them had started studying at a community college with me, but then stopped, I went on to earn a four year degree and a commission. He told me, in a downcast look, that he should have kept on like I did.
And my story is not unique either.
The Repubs of today love the idea that some in society must exist to be lower class with an existence that keeps them down. Cheap labor they see as a goal mostly thru cultural means of women providing free or low cost service to family or society traditionally teachers, nurses and typists paid very low. I have said that the north used minority and cheap labor as essentially slaves. Non living wages is slavery and cannot be denied its reality. This view is the oppressors view and their goal. When I wrote so I was told I denigrated the slaves and what they experienced. Mudsill
I realized way back in H.S. (1965) that the Middle Class would one day be attacked by the wealthy, for being “too expensive and demanding “. It was a time of strong unions. While most were deep into the “commies are coming!” Mindset , I said that what we had to worry about was Fascism. I just never expected to see the takeover in my lifetime.
How is Thom Hartmann even possible? The quantity AND quality of his work are off the chart because there is no chart capable of illustrating the otherworldly dedication and relevancy Thom produces - every single day.
Is it the Mudsill theory or the Shock Doctrine economic theory of James Buchanan and Milton Friedman? I think it’s the latter, and that is more sinister.
Why not both Dawna? Milton Friedman's "Comparative Advantage" rests upon an ignorant and stable labor force.
I don't see how Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine fits.
The Shock Doctrine IS Friedman/Buchanan’s economic agenda in the “shock and awe” phase of Libertarian Fascism. We are entering that phase when the Fascists can wipe out social and health care safety nets, wipe out environmental regulations, systematize racism, and continue the process of “binding democracy in chains” with bureaucratic rules/laws/regs that prevent a democracy from functioning in the interests of the People. The fascist billionaires will siphon off wealth with measures like privatizing schools, privatizing prisons, altering the tax system to favor the wealthiest and passing laws like, “Corporations are People.”
Private Prisons alone are the return of slavery and they need inmate/workers who are incarcerated for minor non violent crimes for long periods of time. Example like smoking weed.
I agree with you, But am trying to link Hammond's Mudsill to Klein's shock doctrine
In the book, Klein argues that neoliberal free market policies (as advocated by the economist Milton Friedman) have risen to prominence in countries and regions such as the United States, the United Kingdom, China, the European Union, and Eastern Europe, because of a deliberate strategy of "shock therapy"
As I see it, the Friedmanite, libertarian, neo liberal model inexorciably leads to neo serfdom or rather neo slavery. Hammond's Mudsill society.
Neo slavery, slavery where people are bound to but not owned by an employer.
Such a form existed, even into the 19th Century, it is called indentured servitude, but involved a contract, the new form of servitude does not necessarily involve contracts, however such contracts are ubiquitous among athletes, actors, and specialists., they difference being that they are usually very well renumerated, yet still not a free agent.
Is that right?
William, if there are not enough jobs to go around, a worker is owned by his employer because there is no other alternative or opportunity to survive. The GOP likes high unemployment levels.
The premise of the green society is that we would be a service economy, only service workers don't get paid that mach.
There was a book that came out in 1970 called the Greening of America. the on campus commie hailed it as the bible to destroy capitalism, but was he fucked in the head, It didn't destroy the hated capitalists, it enriched them and forced them to go global, thanks a decade later to the incentive offered by Bill Clinton.
On the other hand it has become a boon for those in the trades, skilled tradesmen I mean, not the day workers hired outside of Home Depot, or illegals hired by roofing companies.
It is hard to find a decent plumber, electrician, or carpenter, and at a reasonable price these days, I had a local heating and A/C tech come out to fix my heat pump, he spent 20 minutes, replaced a fuse and charged me $145. I now have a spare fuse and know how to do it myself.
To get even a carpenter I have to be on a wait list
Ditto! I’m thinking of switching careers - an electrician makes more per hour than I ever did with a college degree
William, once at an anti-military draft rally, the Communists showed up and held up their flags at each end of the block. We had people driving by calling us Communists and I told them to go to hell. Those Communists were not invited, I think they were capitalist paid infiltrators designed to make us look bad. That sounds like what that clown in your college did also. Fascists have been good at infiltrating leftist groups!!!!
I became a greeny when the book the population bomb by Paul Ehrlich came out in 1968!
Currently thanks to FDR, we do have a lot of excess jobs because of the trickle up theory. Once the fascist install their trickle down theory, there will not be enough jobs to go around and they will be sent off to wars or extermination camps if they can't find a job or work! If you think the billionaires are going to support them, you are completely out of your mind! Or if anyone else does!
Well said, Dawna!
Family Values & Other-ness
“When pundits marvel that the Republican Party could accept a man like Donald Trump, who has five kids from three wives and talks in public about having sex with his daughter, they’re missing the point.
Trump doesn’t signal a lowering of standards of morality by Republican voters.
Instead, he gives them a chance to prove how little they have always cared about those issues. Trump just removes the necessity of pretending.
“Family values” was never a set of morals or values that the Republican Party really desired to live by; instead, “family values” was useful in attacking and defining Democrats.
It was just another weapon to help portray those on the other side as being out of the mythical American mainstream.
It was an “otherness” tool, as in those who didn’t loudly proclaim their strict adherence to its code were “other” than normal.
Like not being white is “other.” Like not being Christian is “other.” Like not being heterosexual is “other.”
The entire modern Republican definition of the conservative movement is about efforts to define itself as “normal” and everything else as “not normal.””
— It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump by Stuart Stevens