Whatever happened to the middle class?

Somewhere along the way from post war racist suburbs to "Who Wants to be a Hilton", the middle class in America has been under attack.
Busting unions, Wal Mart and Diebold are all to blame.
But I also put the blame square on YOU, middle America.
Why did we stop caring about pesky things like wages, working conditions and benefits, instead worrying about whether two men can marry or "religion" in schools.
Somehow, "intellectual" became a bad word.
"Liberal" became a 4 letter word, for Crissakes.

When the grocery unions struck here in Southern CA, I was shocked at the outcry from working people. And anyone that earns a paycheck and relies on it is a working person. I don't care if you make 6 bucks or 100 bucks an hour, that's what you are.
Anyway, the NON-support from a lot of other working people was appalling.
People writing to the Union Tribune saying that it was "outrageous" that their produce man was making 18 dollars an hour or more.
WHAT???
So, let me see if I understand this correctly, you are for the working people in your community making less money and having worse benefits than they have now.
Why is that? Oh, they should be no more or worse off than you. Got it.

There was a time when an engineer coming out of school was a hot commodity.
Now the companies are taking a pass on them so they can interview someone on an H1 Visa.
If they don't out and out outsource you.
I have a friend that had a visitor to their department today at her company during the shareholders meeting. Some big holder of shares.
He remarked to the VP after looking everything over: "you should outsource this to India."
Ha Ha. Wow, how funny is that?
I would have kicked that fucker in the nuts.

See, that's the thing, if it's not you, then "I got mine".
Wow, that is the attitude that I hear from a lot of people.
They'll write a check for tsunami relief (which is a good thing) but they won't support their own community?

Where is the mobility of the worker now?
The old "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" doesn't really fly right at the moment.
Where are you going to go? What are you going to do?
We're on the way to a fucking 21st century Gilded Age with several large holding companies that use foreign labor (as opposed to "slave" labor at the turn of the 20th century) and then the rest of us either working at Wal Mart or picking strawberries.

Check this out:

Randolph T. Holhut: 'A simple formula"