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PROUD TO BE MIDDLE-CLASS?
Are you middle-class? Am I? What makes us middle-class?
Is it our income? How much or little does it take to qualify as
middle-class? What's the difference between middle-class and
poor? Between middle-class and rich? Is it all about money, or
are their other values that define our status?
The reason I ask these questions is because President
Obama ran his re-election campaign on behalf of the middle-
class, and he fought to keep taxes from rising on the middle-
class during the "fiscal cliff" maneuverings. It is strange
to stake an election and a reputation in defense of a group
that nobody can define or point to or wants to belong to.
Considering what I've been drawing from Fiagpole recently,
I am in the lower class economically, but even so, I do not
aspire to be in the middle-class, and I think a lot of people
feel that way. That's why it puzzles me that political operatives
as smart as the president and his people put so much emphasis
on the middle-class.
I came of age at a time when "middle-class" was a pejora
tive term, especially if you were middle-class, or at least if
your parents were. It had come to mean "bourgeois," "middle
brow," safe-thinking, uncreative worshippers of the status-quo.
Nobody my age at that time wanted to be middle-class, and I
suspect a lot of my contemporaries still sort of cringe at being
thought middle-class. If we don't aspire to be upper-class or
rich, we at least prefer not to
be defined by class-conscious
ness at all.
Take an artist. An artist may
be poor before those $5,000
paintings start selling, but her
income doesn't make an art
ist lower-class. And even after
she has some money, she still
is not middle-class. She is an
artist???even if she's rich. Same
with a writer and an automo
bile racer. Are those guys on
the NASCAR tracks middle-
class? I don't think so. Neither
are they lower-class before they make it, nor are they upper-
class when they start winning. Same with football players. A
middle-class middle linebacker is an oxymoron. Knocking heads
is just not a middle-class pursuit.
I'm serious: Do you know anybody who proudly asserts, "I
am middle-class?" Everybody would be happy to announce,
"I am secure. I have enough. I don't have to worry about not
being able to pay my bills." I just don't know anybody who is
proud to call himself middle-class.
At his press conference just before the Senate voted on
the fiscal-cliff-avoidance package, the president divided the
country into the wealthy two percent and the other 98 percent,
which he called the middle-class. I guess he just got carried
away, but it made me wonder if even the president himself
knows who comprises the middle-class that he has put himself
on the line for.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe people are proud to be called
middle-class or to think they might qualify for this label, but I
can't help feeling that the president won in spite of champion
ing this vague, amorphous group. I think he was right when he
said he was fighting for the 98 percent not in the top two per
cent. It's just that a lot of those people by definition can't be
in the middle-class, and a lot of them, like me, don't want to
be in it. What's wrong with just saying "the American people?"
That's who we are, including the top two percent. That's the
whole point: the top two, as American citizens, should pay
their fair share, just as the rest of us should???rich, poor and
in-between. And speaking of the poor, that vast population is
ignored in the continuing, exclusive emphasis on helping the
middle-class.
But there's no need for us 98 percent of American citizens
to feel smug about a tax increase on our better-off brethren. A
5 percent tax hike on $450,000 is $22,500. You wouldn't want
to have to write out a check that big, even if your income was
large enough to require it. And don't forget; you just got a per
manent tax break that will keep you from having to write out a
check for $2,000 every year. It's hardly fair, but then the idea
that life is fair is so hopelessly middle-class.
Pete McCommons editor@flagpole.com
It is strange to
stake an election
and a reputation
in defense of a
group that nobody
can define or point
to or wants to
belong to.
THIS WEEK???S ISSUE:
IMIMS (ia ^EATUKIS
City Dope 5
Athens News and Views
Two new commissioners get to work, Broun disses Boehner, and what does
downtown development mean for existing student apartments?
Athens Rising 6
Why Didn???t Walmart Come to Downtown?
Athens artists helped defeat the downtown Walmart. Now it???s time to become more
proactive.
Theatre Notes 9
New Year, Old Favorites
January and February look to be unusually rich months for live performance.
Movie Pick 11
Once Upon a Time in the South
Django Unchained is further proof of how vital the western genre still is.
MHUSD??
Threats & Promises 12
Music News and Gossip
Ezelle album and app! King of Prussia returns! Pale Prophet blasts off!
And more...
Top 10 Albums of 2012 13
A Weird, Wild, Wonderful Year in Athens Music
Flagpole???s writers vote on the year???s best local music.
LETTERS 4
CITY DOPE 5
CAPITOL IMPACT 6
ATHENS RISING 6
WTH? ATHENS 7
FORECLOSURES 8
THEATRE NOTES 9
MOVIE DOPE 10
MOVIE PICK 11
THREATS & PROMISES 12
TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2012.... 13
LIKE TOTALLY! 15
HAND SAND HANDS 16
THE CALENDAR! 17
BULLETIN BOARD 22
ART AROUND TOWN 23
CLASSIFIEDS 24
CROSSWORD 25
COMICS 26
REALITY CHECK 27
EDITOR & PUBLISHER Pete McCommons
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR & PUBLISHER Alicia Nickles
PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Larry Tenner
MANAGING EDITOR Christina Cotter
ADVERTISING SALES Anita Aubrey, Melinda Edwards, Jessica Pritchard Mangum
MUSIC EDITOR GabeVodicka
CITY EDITOR Blake Aued
CLASSIFIEDS, DISTRIBUTION & OFFICE MANAGER Jessica Smith
ASSISTANT OFFICE MANAGER Sydney Slotkin
AD DESIGNERS Kelly Hart, Cindy Jerrell
CARTOONISTS Cameron Bogue, Lee Gatlin, Missy Kulik, Jeremy Long, David Mack, Clint McElroy
ADOPT ME Special Agent Cindy Jerrell
CONTRIBUTORS Rachel Bailey, Tom Crawford, Derek Hill, Jyl Inov, Gordon Lamb, Dan Mistich,
Kristen Morales, John G. Nettles, John Seay, Sydney Slotkin, Drew Wheeler, Robin Whetstone,
Kevan Williams, Alec Wooden, Marshall Yarbrough
CIRCULATION Charles Greenleaf, Will Donaldson, Matt Shirley, Emily Armond, Jessica Smith
WEB DESIGNER Kelly Hart
CALENDAR Jessica Smith
ADVERTISING INTERNS Claire Corken, CD Skehan
MUSIC INTERN Jennifer Barron
COVER PHOTOGRAPHS of Lou Kregel???s Chrysanthemum murals
by Kelly Hart (see story on p.7)
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VOLUME 27
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