The Martha's Vineyard Factor

President Obama was recently taken to task by some conservative commentators (not by any liberals, please note) for having vacationed in a fortified redoubt of the elite white power structure, namely Martha's Vineyard... even though his vacation time was rudely cut short (by a few hours) by a pesky hurricane. And yes, it seems, on the surface of things, a bit anachronistic for a “man of the people” -- a “community organizer”, no less – to be vacationing and hobnobbing with the most screamingly white, and rich, people on the planet. (My guess is that his was the first black family ever officially permitted to land upon Martha's Vineyard's shores.) But, even though this was upsetting to populists on both the left and the right, I have to ask – what did they expect? Where was he supposed to take a vacation -- Youngstown, Ohio? I mean, I guess he could have spent a couple of weeks at his upper-crust digs in Chicago, but that's no fun. And when you think about it, the Secret Service could not have been happier about his choice of an island – much easier to defend, and keep an eye on the comings and goings of everybody to and from the mainland. (An Islamic “terrorist” would, no doubt, stand out in the crowd at an outdoor art exhibit in Edgartown.) Plus – to give credit where credit is due – Obama does not have a “ranch”... nor does he have a “summer White House”, or a “compound”, or basically anything else that might mark him as a member of the hereditary elite. No, he is most certainly a self-made man... or at least a “made” man, if you get my drift.

But the inconvenient truth is that, by vacationing and hobnobbing with the white power elite, Obama was, basically, checking in with the home office – with the people who are really in charge, not only of things in general but also of him, his administration, and his party. Yes, for all their pretenses to being the “people's party”, the Democrats are every bit as much a creature of the controlling power elite as the Republicans are; they're just more unwilling to admit it – to themselves or anyone else. Obama has left his community organizing days far behind, and is now totally a creature/lap dog/poodle of the Regime, and among their many playgrounds (for they are human too – at least I think they are) is that island fastness called Martha's Vineyard. So by vacationing there, Obama expresses solidarity with... well, not with the people who helped him rise to the top of the political heap, but with his new-found “peeps” and “homies”. These are the people who really count for Obama, and who will continue to count. The “people”, the left, the activists – they have all been left behind in the dust. Obama is now our latest war president, and as such can only serve one master, and that is the Regime, which includes the armaments makers and everyone else who has an “interest” in what happens in the Middle East. Oh sure, Obama delivers a “shout-out” now and then to the old neighborhood, but make no mistake – he would rather see them all dry up and blow away than to try and defy his new masters. If you'll excuse a simile to the Old South, the field n***** has become a house n*****, and there is no looking back from that new, exalted position. His duty is now to the people who are really in charge, and if he has, occasionally, to mouth radical leftist words to keep the peace with his “base”, that is all perfectly natural – and the base will fall for it, which is the main thing. They still think that Obama is their man! (And the "voting patterns" next year will reflect this; make no mistake.)

But even this requires closer analysis. You'll notice that Obama has plenty of things to say about “business” and all the abuses attributable thereto. But does he ever mention the biggest businesses – the ones he continues Bush's tradition of bailing out? And does he ever mention banks, especially of the international kind? And does he ever mention the top financial manipulators? No – for the simple reason that he is in their employ. What he is doing instead is scapegoating the honest businessmen, AKA the middle class – and they have no effective defense. Oh yeah, they have the Chamber of Commerce and, to some extent, the “tea party”, and you see what sort of treatment both of those get from the mainstream media.

So what I am saying is that this is just the latest round in the long-sought-after and long-planned liquidation of the middle class – along with the current stock market gyrations. When Obama, or the Democrats, talk about “business”, they are speaking in code (something the Republicans are regularly accused of doing) – what they really mean is the despised middle class, AKA the bourgeoisie. Yes, those distinctions and hostilities are still alive and well, after all these years! No one will be satisfied until the middle class is wiped off the map – economically, socially, politically, “values”-wise, culturally, and every other way. The American middle class at this point is caught in a vise – between the lumpen proletariat (AKA “tax receivers”) and the ruling elite. How much longer it can continue to survive is a mystery; certainly it is losing ground at an accelerating rate. But the paradox, historically, is that most revolutionaries come from middle-class backgrounds – and this is something for a Freudian psychoanalyst to figure out. Economic/political/social rebellion is a relatively new thing, historically speaking – I don't expect that it goes back much further than the French Revolution (which had its share of people “born to the purple” betraying their own class). And there is, after all, something about middle class complacency and smugness that offends the working (or non-working) class, and that also offends the upper classes, since “who do these people think they are, anyway?” The toughest thing for anyone to do is agree – in their heart of hearts – to share the planet with everyone else. There is always one group of people who must be eliminated in order for life to be good – and in our time, it has boiled down to the middle class vs. those above, and those below. Not only the middle class, but its values, its customs and traditions, its iconography... everything, in short, that makes it what it is. These things are all universally despised by the mainstream media, and looked down upon by the ruling elite. And they are the things that are dangled in front of the proletariat in order to get them riled up. “Nobody can have two BMWs until everyone has one BMW”, etc.

Now, I'm not saying that this is the only significant political trend of our time – far from it. We are living in a complex political world that rivals the open seas of the South Pacific, where the native navigators have to distinguish – using nothing but immediate physical evidence – among many varieties and directions of waves, tides, and currents. But it certainly doesn't hurt to identify, and keep in mind, that the elimination of the American middle class is one of the top agenda items of those in charge, and of their loyal servants. If, whenever you're puzzled by a given turn of events, you ask, can this be identified as another assault on the middle class? -- you're going about it in the right way.