Prometheus 6

David Brooks warns of an insurrection...a quiet riot, if you will.

In this recession, maybe even more than other ones, the last ones to join the middle class will be the first ones out. And it won’t only be material deprivations that bites. It will be the loss of a social identity, the loss of social networks, the loss of the little status symbols that suggest an elevated place in the social order. These reversals are bound to produce alienation and a political response. If you want to know where the next big social movements will come from, I’d say the formerly middle class.

Now...who were the last to join the middle class?

Why were they last to join? 

In the months ahead, the members of the formerly middle class will suffer career reversals....They will suffer lifestyle reversals....The members of the formerly middle class will suffer housing reversals...Finally, they will suffer a drop in social capital.

I would mention how the victims of this economic movement will find themselves in the economic condition Black folks were in during the expansion phase of the cycle, but a lot of them are Black. Plus I'm not sure how much attention I want to draw to that...the fact that the impact of this economic crisis is seen as falling on Mainstream America speeds up the response. A major part of that response will be the creation of jobs. If you look at the physical facts involved, you'll see that's not a ideological statement at all.

An interesting fact that I haven't seen discussed involves the idea of a work program to repair the national infrastructure. It's an excellent thought, a necessary thought. I'm just wondering who'll do the hiring. With conditions, I would like unions to be called on the screen and organize applicants nationally. They have their ill history with Black folks, but at this point I really trust them to be even-handed more than I do certain state and local governments. Plus it would pay off just about whatever campaign promises Obama & Co, made.

I do want to say that I don't want to see any differentiation in the distribution of support for getting out of this mess. The New Deal programs were administered locally, by local standards. That meant the Negroes received reduced benefits when they got them at all.

That can't be allowed to happen this time.