America IS Joe, the plumber. and that's the problem!

[R_P_A_S]

Last night Barack Obama and John McCain squared off in their final debate. While discussing taxes and health care they used Joe a plumber that wants to start his own plumbing business as their example. Joe is a real American that Obama met while campaigning in Ohio I believe.

I don't think I'm wrong or too far from the truth when I say that Joe symbolizes many American's dreams and hopes, To start, run their own business. I mean isn't this the road to the "American Dream?" This is what we are taught from grade school till we die. To be independent, to make our own money and be successful via the petty bourgeoisie way. After all entrepreneurship and small business benefits Capitalism way more than the working class in general correct? It just keeps breeding individuality over and over.

America is where Capitalism is supreme king! Is not like other industralized countries where there are some large socialist parties or the economy is a mixed of socialist policies and capitalism. Most Americans don't know anything outside their economic model and consider welfare, nationalization and the government alien to them. I notice that many politicians love to use the word "BIG GOVERNMENT" to scare people away from Healthcare for all or any other socialist models. Obviously in America Small government means more free enterprise and more cut throat capitalism. Then again this government is not a peoples government its just an elitist class of more capitalist.

SO! how do you get Americans to realized that becoming, striving to become "joe the plumber" is not the answer to their problems. BUT the problem... Competing and individualism, the whole.. "you can do it! you can survive! fight" bullshit that has millions of people trying to fit inside this tiny little door to "financial freedom" or whatever the hell.

How do we make working class people who have been breaking their backs working for years realized that they should drop everything they worked towards and join their fellow workers in unity and demand real changes for all. How? If all they know is compete, compete, me me me! I can make it. I will do it!

?????

[Psy]

A Marxist would have asked the plumber if he rather be taxed to bail out the capitalist elite like both the Democrats and Republicans are doing, also point out that the bulk of tax dollars actually goes to capitalists (in the form of interest of loans and goverment contracts) not into the hands of the needy, that if he really is against taxes he should be against capitalism itself as capitalism can't exist without the capitalist state.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

No, actually I think RPAS is making the more Marxist analysis. The petit bourgeoisie, no matter how petit, is a class enemy of working class struggle.

[chegitz guevara]

Actually, it isn't. It has its own interests, but a powerful, forward moving proletariat movement can win the middle classes over to its own side. After all, the middles classes are oppressed by the big bourgeoisie also. They are the mice in the land of the dinosaurs.

[Psy]

The petite-bourgeoisie while striving to be capitalists are not capitalists, and really their businesses are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, we really don't need to care about the independent shop owners. Even distribution has already been largely collectivized by capitalism leaving the petite-bourgeoisie controlling a insignificant portion of the means of production (and distribution).

[bcbm]

Middle-class is not the same as petit-bourgeois.

[BraneMatter]

Listen to him talk, and it's obvious "Joe the Plumber" is an idiot, a whacko, and very possibly even a plant (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/16/02217/845). His whole story has pretty much been exposed as a fraud (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/17/MNQ013J6JV.DTL), and he has some questionable connections (http://suzieqq.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/joe-the-plumber-keating-five-family-operative/)and dealings as well. He may also be related (http://www.eisenstadtgroup.com/2008/10/15/joe-the-plumber-wurzelbacher-related-to-charles-keating-oops/)to someone who was indicted in connection with the Keating Five scandal involving McCain. At any rate, he is irrelevant.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of Americans who think just like him.

[Enragé]

i don't think the average american has the resources to start a company of about 250.000-280.000$

[GPDP]

i don't think the average american has the resources to start a company of about 250.000-280.000$

Well durr-hurr. Of course they don't. The promise of "financial well-being" and "starting your own business" crap is little more than a carrot on a stick, designed to keep us subservient to this system because there is a chance that you'll make it big that apparently does not exist on any other system. What they don't tell you is how small that chance is.

[rebelworker]

You are right but for the wrong reasons...

Joe is the average American, in debt, struggling to get by and in denial about how well he's doing.

It turns out Joe isnt named joe, he dosen't have a plumbers license and owes $2000 in taxes to the state.

[R_P_A_S]

A couple of you made some good valid points. In the direction I want to take this discussion. Let's forget if Joe the plumber is a fraud or not. He's just my general example of what Americans strive for. What we have been taught to work hard for our entire lives.

1. to achieve financial freedom.
2. start our own business
3. be our own boss

This mind state is one that many WORKING CLASS Americans share. No matter "how stupid they sound" they are STILL working class people and we shouldn't just dismiss the issue and facts simply because they sound "like idiots"

My main point is, when I said "America is Joe the plumber, and that's the problem" That working class people are not thinking or conscious about working class unity and capitalism as the cancer to their life struggles. They are instead conscious that "life is hard" and that you have to "work hard to make it." and making it is NOT organizing and it sure as hell not revolution. IT STILL IS, "working within capitalism, to make it" because thats what all workers want. "to make it"

How do you make working people that hold on to this idea and hope dearly that, that is not the answer and that they should give up all their hard work that they have done to start "their own business" and turn those efforts towards class unity for a real change!

These people, are the hardest ones for me to reach. And we don't have the best track record, either. There aren't "successful socialist" on TV for say like they are capitalist.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

I don't know about the real Joe.
Self-employed small business owners who work for a living can hardly be grouped with the petit bourgeoisie, on second thought.

[Chapaev]

Joe the plumber is a delusional liar. He does not have a plumber's license. He does not have a yearly income of $250,000 and it is hard to believe that any plumber does. Joe the plumber is so blinded by racial prejudice that he allows it to supersede his class interests. Joe the plumber is a crude caricature of the common man. It is cynical to portray this narrow-minded philistine as a reflection of the working class.

The problem with America is that people like Joe the plumber are morons. They need to be educated about their class interests.

[Kassad]

Well, to be honest, despite anyone's opinion on it, starting up a business at the current time is not a prudent financial decision, with the bailout crisis and all.

[bootleg42]

Listen to him talk, and it's obvious "Joe the Plumber" is an idiot, a whacko, and very possibly even a plant (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/16/02217/845). His whole story has pretty much been exposed as a fraud (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/17/MNQ013J6JV.DTL), and he has some questionable connections (http://suzieqq.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/joe-the-plumber-keating-five-family-operative/)and dealings as well. He may also be related (http://www.eisenstadtgroup.com/2008/10/15/joe-the-plumber-wurzelbacher-related-to-charles-keating-oops/)to someone who was indicted in connection with the Keating Five scandal involving McCain. At any rate, he is irrelevant.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of Americans who think just like him.

The New York Times basically found some stuff out about him and just by reading carefully, you can tell that he does not represent the majority of working people in the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/us/politics/17joe.html


One week ago, Joe Wurzelbacher (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/joe_wurzelbacher/index.html) was just another working man living in a modest house outside Toledo, Ohio, and thinking about how to buy the plumbing business where he works. But when he stopped Senator Barack Obama (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per) during a visit to his block last weekend to complain about taxes, he set himself on a path to becoming America’s newest media celebrity — and as such suddenly found himself facing celebrity-level scrutiny.

As it turns out, Joe the Plumber, as he became nationally known when Senator John McCain (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/john_mccain/index.html?inline=nyt-per) made him a theme at Wednesday’s final presidential debate (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/p/presidential_debates/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), may work in the plumbing business, but he is not a licensed plumber.


Thomas Joseph, the business manager of Local 50 of the United Association of Plumbers, Steamfitters and Service Mechanics, based in Toledo, said Thursday that Mr. Wurzelbacher had never held a plumber’s license, which is required in Toledo and several surrounding municipalities. He also never completed an apprenticeship and does not belong to the plumber’s union, which has endorsed Mr. Obama. On Thursday, he acknowledged that he does plumbing work even though he does not have a license.


His full name is Samuel J. Wurzelbacher. And he owes back taxes, too, public records show. The premise of his complaint to Mr. Obama about taxes may also be flawed, according to tax analysts. Contrary to what Mr. Wurzelbacher asserted and Mr. McCain echoed, neither his personal taxes nor those of the business where he works are likely to rise if Mr. Obama’s tax plan were to go into effect, they said.


None of that is likely to matter to those who see Mr. Wurzelbacher as a symbol of the entrepreneurial spirit they hope to foster with tax cuts, but even Mr. Wurzelbacher said he was shocked by all the attention.
“I’m kind of like Britney Spears having a headache,” he told The Associated Press on Thursday. “Everybody wants to know about it.”


Just five days ago, Mr. Wurzelbacher, 34, lived in anonymity in Holland, Ohio, a single father who, as he said on national television, worked all day and came home to fix dinner and help his son, 13, with his homework.
But he became the hero of conservatives and Republicans when he stopped Mr. Obama, who was campaigning on his street, and asked whether he believed in the American dream. Mr. Wurzelbacher said he was concerned about having to pay higher taxes as an owner of a small business.

“I’m getting ready to buy a company that makes $250,000 to $280,000 a year,” he told Mr. Obama. “Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?”


That encounter wound up on YouTube and led to appearances on the Fox News Channel, interviews with conservative bloggers and a New York Post editorial, all of whom seized on a small part of Mr. Obama’s long reply. “I think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody,” Mr. Obama had said.


Mr. McCain invoked Mr. Wurzelbacher in Wednesday’s debate as a way to criticize Mr. Obama’s tax plan and wealth-sharing argument, and picked up the theme again on Thursday.


“You know what Senator Obama had to say to Joe? That he wanted to spread his wealth around,” Mr. McCain said at an event in Downingtown, Pa. “America didn’t become the greatest nation on earth by spreading the wealth,” he said. “We became the greatest nation by creating new wealth.”
After some version of “Joe the Plumber” was mentioned two dozen times during the debate, Mr. Wurzelbacher found news crews outside his home and Katie Couric (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/katie_couric/index.html?inline=nyt-per) on the phone.


Mr. Wurzelbacher told reporters that the company he works for, Newell Plumbing & Heating, has two full-time employees: himself and the owner, Al Newell.


Neither Mr. Newell nor Mr. Wurzelbacher responded to telephone calls. And Mr. Wurzelbacher has provided only vague information on his and the company’s finances since talking to Mr. Obama. But if the plumbing business remained a two-person company and the net proceeds — after deductions for business expenses — were shared by the two men, both incomes would most likely fall well below the top tax brackets on which Mr. Obama wants to raise rates, as would the company itself.


Both, in fact, would probably be eligible for a tax cut, said Bob Williams, senior research associate at the independent, nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, though the cut would probably be greater under Mr. McCain’s tax plan than Mr. Obama’s.


According to public records, Mr. Wurzelbacher has been subject to two liens, each over $1,100. One, with a hospital, has been settled, but a tax lien with the State of Ohio is still outstanding.


In his interview with Ms. Couric, Mr. Wurzelbacher, who voted Republican in Ohio’s March primary, said that his encounter with Mr. Obama had been prompted by his desire “to ask one of these guys a question, and really corner them and get them to answer a question for once instead of tap dancing around it. And unfortunately I asked the question, but I still got a tap dance.”


He added, “He was almost as good as Sammy Davis Jr. (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/sammy_davis_jr/index.html?inline=nyt-per)”

[R_P_A_S]

its fucking worthless to discuss anything with you people.

[R_P_A_S]

i said.. FORGET ABOUT JOE THE PLUMBER BEING LEGIT OR NOT... lets talk about some class issues, etc. BUT NO! sounds like fucking gossip locker talk in here.

[Enragé]

A couple of you made some good valid points. In the direction I want to take this discussion. Let's forget if Joe the plumber is a fraud or not. He's just my general example of what Americans strive for. What we have been taught to work hard for our entire lives.

1. to achieve financial freedom.
2. start our own business
3. be our own boss

This mind state is one that many WORKING CLASS Americans share. No matter "how stupid they sound" they are STILL working class people and we shouldn't just dismiss the issue and facts simply because they sound "like idiots"

My main point is, when I said "America is Joe the plumber, and that's the problem" That working class people are not thinking or conscious about working class unity and capitalism as the cancer to their life struggles. They are instead conscious that "life is hard" and that you have to "work hard to make it." and making it is NOT organizing and it sure as hell not revolution. IT STILL IS, "working within capitalism, to make it" because thats what all workers want. "to make it"

How do you make working people that hold on to this idea and hope dearly that, that is not the answer and that they should give up all their hard work that they have done to start "their own business" and turn those efforts towards class unity for a real change!

These people, are the hardest ones for me to reach. And we don't have the best track record, either. There aren't "successful socialist" on TV for say like they are capitalist.

Well one of the things you could say is that very few people actually make it to being their own boss, that the american dream is something that happens incidentally, for very few people. Most people work hard all their lives and end up with nothing.

Also, it's impossible under capitalism to have everyone become their own boss, since each boss creates people underneath him. You can't have a capitalist class without a working class.

As for people having those ideas in the first place, as you said, we're brought up with this nonsense. The ruling ideas in society are always those of the ruling class, and yep, it's hard to blow a hole in the ideology seeing what we're up against (corporate media and the like).

[Concept]

damn RPAS i remember when u had like 100 posts
sounds like u've been keeping up on the research..ur arguements are getting tight

i know exactly what ur talking about tho...people are so oblivious to anything class related as long as they are making money and living their own life
i've tried talking to many people at work about these things but they always say it's just the way things are...they have no hope and i've almost lost mine in them

sometimes i think some of my fellow workers would not get a thing done if not for a supervisor...collectivization would place more responsibility on us meaning less time to have fun but maybe something we need

have an idea tho...thought about buying some land and starting up a hemp farm...have factories for all possible applications of it and then build my own 100% green community and spread like a virus from there...we need responsible leaders more then anything right now (very disappointed with recent results from Canadian election)
unless you can get others to open their eyes sooner and accept responsibility for their communities and one another cuz i've run out of ideas and think just imposing it upon people may be the only option left

everything is too global for control to go directly to the people...we need a transition starting with supervisors stopping riding ur ass at work when u do more in a day then they do in a year (mine is a prick...lol)

some people in general need an attitude change towards others
we need to apply the buddhist precepts: no lying, no stealing, no sexual misconduct, no intoxication, no intentional destruction of life

[La Comédie Noire]

A lot of working class white men hold the same position as Joe the plumber(or is it Sam the plumber?). They don't see how a system that has treated them well for so long could ever possibly screw them over.

To them we live in a free society, we're free to do anything, which means anything that happens to us is our own damn fault! That's right we are so free we can "choose" to starve to death and live in poverty.

It never occurs to him that misery is inherent in the Capitalist system, after all it works for him.

Even if he's going down the shit shoot, which seems to be the case according to Bootleg42's article, he can always blame it on those damn poor people who have to take his money.

How dare they take goverment hand outs!

I know, it's fucking disgusting, but that's what 50 years of privitization will get you.

What we have here is a very backwards section of the working class, the middle class white male.

[ckaihatsu]

A lot of working class white men hold the same position as Joe the plumber(or is it Sam the plumber?). They don't see how a system that has treated them well for so long could ever possibly screw them over.


What we have here is a very backwards section of the working class, the middle class white male.



Joe the plumber is so blinded by racial prejudice that he allows it to supersede his class interests. Joe the plumber is a crude caricature of the common man. It is cynical to portray this narrow-minded philistine as a reflection of the working class.

The problem with America is that people like Joe the plumber are morons. They need to be educated about their class interests.


I think that while these critiques of American racial prejudice are useful, we also have to be careful about cynically blaming the masses and writing them off as incapable of ever "getting" class consciousness, as if it were an all-or-nothing kind of thing. Let me pose this question, in parallel: Don't you think this same archetype would also agree that "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer"?

We know that, objectively, working-class people of all ethnicities have more in common economically with each other than they do only throughout their own racial / ethnic group. However, historically, under capitalism, we *have* seen certain racial / ethnic groups immigrate into the U.S. (and Britain and European countries) and then build up wealth and social position for themselves, relative to newer waves of immigrants, who are the new-kids-on-the-block and catch a lot of shit -- call it racism if you like (or ethno-wealthism, or something...).

As things stand social position *can* make a difference in how people live out their lives -- plenty of people play the wealth-privilege or racial-privilege card every day, successfully using elitism and racism in their never-ending quests for one-upmanship. I think of it as having the ability to rise up off of the ground, sociologically speaking. Physiologically speaking, white and wealthy people are no different from anyone else, but because of privilege they enjoy a dominance in everyday life that is akin to the stature of a skyscraper.

I tend to visualize this wealth phenomenon as being similar to one of those glass-bubble Christmas-y things, where you shake them up and the snowflakes float down inside -- the semi-sphere glass bubble part is the superstructure of society, while the base is, well, the base. Most people are down-to-earth, part of the base, or even underground. The privileged float upward into the superstructure, or perhaps they've been there for generations, never having to know what it's like to have their feet touch the ground. Because of their position the rest of us have to crane our necks upward, if only to examine them, like we would have to for a church's steeple.

Given this reality it's not surprising that people gravitate towards the mythology of capitalism and individualism -- after all, it seems like the privileged are *right there*, within sight, but just higher up than we are -- how to we build the right kind of staircase to get there ourselves?

Of course the statistics are that -- especially in an economic downturn -- it's very unlikely for working-class people to build up enough reserves *and* make all the right business decisions to lift themselves up out of having to work. But the libertarian bullshit mythology is the intellectual fascism of our times -- it is *very* useful for displacing the reality of our common interests within the working class.

I'd say we need to be somewhat sympathetic to the "Joe the Plumber" types -- working-class people, like myself, may also just want to have several irons in the fire -- a diversified skill set is not a bad thing, and if it means putting up with the capitalist build-your-own-empire bullshit, then so be it -- people don't *always* buy into the propaganda even if it surrounds them. They / we know that to be a capitalist and make your money work for you you actually have to have capital to begin with...!


Chris



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[La Comédie Noire]

I never said they couldn't become class concious, I just said as of right now they are not. The illusion of social mobility or as you call it the ability "to rise up off the ground" is what keeps these poor bastards chipping away.

Some escape, most do not and that gap is ever widening. The ground is going to become a horrible place to be.



We know that, objectively, working-class people of all ethnicities have more in common economically


Of course they do, but what do you see when you turn on tv? Successful white people and that makes them say to themselves "why can't I have that?"

And the capitalist's answer is "You just aren't working hard enough for me!!!"

[ckaihatsu]

I absolutely agree, Comrade Floyd.

Let me introduce another aspect to all of this: In our current era of digital- and Internet-based, freely duplicatable cultural goods, what else is left, materially? The clothes? The dinners out? Better toys? The house? The car? The boat? The air travel? The hotel rooms? The private jet?

Certainly, as a materialist, I have no problem with people going after these things and enjoying them, but let me also differentiate between the material and the social-material.

I think that those who chase after material rewards may not necessarily be doing it for the material things (and the pleasures they bring) themselves, but more so for the *social position* that comes with that level of wealth.

It is *that* aspiration that is fundamentally politically reactionary. Really it reminds me of a monarchical impulse, of wanting to "hold court", or be king (or queen) of the playground (perhaps because one didn't have the charisma to do it at the age of 6 or 7). Certainly the relative democratization of wealth, compared to the age of kings and queens, allows more people to create their own, private organizations -- which, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing -- but the flipside of it is that the private wealth allows the ready creation of more cults of personality, along with the surrounding, mainstream culture which encourages that kind of aspiration.

I think every satire of the corporate world brings this dynamic into view -- the cohesive, fascistic national culture has given way to umbrellas of localized, corporate-sponsored fascism, now tailor-made to your particular identity and lifestyle.

So which is worse, living on the ground where you'll be exposed to everyone above you, or rising to the level where you'll have to be constantly monitoring the underlings for their obedience to your rulership? This is why the class division is a burden on everyone, no matter what your level of material wealth.

[Kukulofori]

You can start a business in communism too. Just nobody'll work for you if you take over an area and claim to own it and their labour like a prat.

The american dream is built on making people do things that they don't want to do. That's not freedom, equality, or even prosperity.

[ckaihatsu]

You can start a business in communism too. Just nobody'll work for you if you take over an area and claim to own it and their labour like a prat.


That's got to be just about the most contradictory thing I've ever heard.

Of course there would be NO businesses under communism. Any use of labor would strictly be a political decision, which would be part of an overall, global project with a *very* wide scope. By no means would there be local, much less individual, initiatives for the use of land, labor, machinery, or resources, without it being cleared at higher levels.

Maybe you're thinking of what people might do with their free time, but then it wouldn't be a business, either, because there'd be no private property, profits, or even money for that matter -- it'd be more like a club, at best, with voluntary membership. Anything more ambitious would, by definition, be political and therefore enter into the larger system.

[Kukulofori]

...What're you going on about? Higher levels?

I don't think you really get this whole "communism" thing.

[Drace]

Joe the Plumber was a fake.


Joe the Plumber's tale has a few leaks

BY NICHOLAS SPANGLER Miami Herald

After becoming the star of the final presidential debate, Joe the Plumber isn't exactly what he seemed to be.

Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher turned famous last weekend.

With cameras rolling, he stood toe-to-toe with Barack Obama and said he'd had enough: ''I'm getting taxed more and more for fulfilling the American dream,'' he said when the candidate visited a suburb of Toledo, Ohio.

He was big and none-too-pretty, blunt-talking and hard-working, a self-described plumber who had scraped together enough to buy his own business and get moderately rich and wasn't afraid to tell big government hands off. He was Joe the Plumber.

Except, as it turns out, Joe the Plumber isn't a real plumber.

Never served in the apprentice program or got a license, according to Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 50, in Toledo. Doesn't make anywhere near the $250,000 that would subject him to higher taxes under Obama's proposed tax plan.

It was ironic that he was discussing taxes, too, as Joe owes $1,182.98 in back income taxes, according to state of Ohio records.

And oddly, considering the Republican Vice Presidential pick, Joe picked up a speeding ticket in Alaska.

Alaska records show Wurzelbacher listed a North Pole address in 1992 and 1993, and Eielson Air Force Base address in ’94 and ’95. He applied for hunting permits, owned an old Ford and a new Dodge, and paid a $76 fine in Fairbanks court for speeding.

Wurzelbacher’s son was born in the Fairbanks area in 1995, Morrison said.

Most of this came out late Wednesday and all day Thursday, hours after the televised debate in which John McCain invoked his new friend's name about two dozen times.

''I went from paycheck to paycheck to finally being able to save some money,'' Joe the Plumber is saying on Neil Cavuto's Fox News program. ``You work hard, you're going to get what you want eventually.''

''You're my kind of plumber, Joe,'' says Neil, by way of farewell.

Then he was on Good Morning America, then he was on YouTube, then he was on a McCain campaign commercial: ''Your new tax plan's gonna tax me more,'' he says to Obama during their exchange on Shrewsbury Street in Joe's neighborhood last weekend. Doesn't get tongue-tied or star-struck, doesn't mince, he just says his piece.

''I think he's looking for attention, and it's gonna bury him,'' said Tom Joseph, business manager for Local 50, said Thursday afternoon. ''He's got himself into some serious problems with presenting himself'' as a bona fide plumber.

According to Joseph, Joe claimed on a social networking site to be a working union member and even used the pipefitters' insignia as a background. ''He's never been a member of the union,'' Joseph said.

When a reporter went to Wurzelbacher's door Thursday afternoon, he declined to answer questions. ''I don't want to stir things up again,'' he said.

Turns out, Joe works for a small plumbing shop in Toledo that's on call for leaky pipes, running toilets and gas leaks; but without licensing, he's years away from owning his own business -- legally, at least.

In fact, Joseph said, Joe isn't even supposed to work as a plumber in Toledo or the surrounding suburbs because he's not licensed under any of the local codes.

''Unless he's way out in the boonies working on some farmer's leaky pipes, he's not allowed to do any plumbing,'' Joseph said.

Reporters camped out in Joe's front yard wanted to know if he planned on paying those back taxes.

In the end, Joe's adventure in presidential pop politics may amount to little.

The latest Gallup poll shows Obama with a six-point national lead over McCain, about what it's been the last few days. Two major viewer polls after the debate gave Obama a decisive nod.

''We're in silly season right now,'' said Casey Klofstad, assistant professor of political science at the University of Miami. ''Obama's trying to run out the clock, McCain has got to swing at the fences. . . . This is really not a game changer at all.'' Emphasizing she wasn't speaking for the McCain campaign, Erin Vansickle, Florida Republican Party communications director, said ''I don't think someone is going to say he's not licensed to be a plumber and therefore I'm not going to vote for [McCain].'' Regarding the revelations about his union claims and back taxes, Vansickle said, ``It's an unfortunate situation if those things are in fact true. . . . I think it finally got out of control. I feel bad for the guy.''


Miami Herald staff writers Charles Rabin and Mike Sallah and special correspondent Dave Hochanadel contributed to this report.

[ckaihatsu]

...What're you going on about? Higher levels?

I don't think you really get this whole "communism" thing.


I've run into this issue before, in other threads. Here's the deal: *Any* system of economics / (politics) is going to run into the question of "levels", or, to use the U.S. as an example, the question of federalism.

In other words, what's to prevent an economic system from generalizing its wealth in order to enable larger-scale projects? Under imperialism we know what these projects are, but the same generalizing dynamic would probably emerge of its own accord under a global communist system, too -- the question is whether we would remain in denial of this dynamic, or would we want to participate to influence it in a certain policy direction?

I think revolutionaries automatically think of communism as being very ground-level, and this may very well be the case at the beginning, but from what I know about history and systems theory this would not remain the case for very long.

Let's keep Joe the Plumber in this, by letting me put it this way: Just keeping track of all of the political overhead in a very horizontal arrangement would be a real pain-in-the-ass right away for Joe. If Joe, as a responsible, politically enfranchised worker, had to keep track of several dozen (or scores of) adjacent workplaces and the data from each, on an ongoing basis, it might quickly become prohibitive.

If, however, the productivity from several workplaces in a local area were *generalized*, then an entire metropolitan area might have shorter, more collectivized reports which everyone would read in common.

Note, then, how this process of generalization could easily reach upwards from there, with an inherent tendency towards large-scale -- though still worker-approved -- projects.

[Sendo]

Listen to him talk, and it's obvious "Joe the Plumber" is an idiot, a whacko, and very possibly even a plant (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/16/02217/845). His whole story has pretty much been exposed as a fraud (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/17/MNQ013J6JV.DTL), and he has some questionable connections (http://suzieqq.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/joe-the-plumber-keating-five-family-operative/)and dealings as well. He may also be related (http://www.eisenstadtgroup.com/2008/10/15/joe-the-plumber-wurzelbacher-related-to-charles-keating-oops/)to someone who was indicted in connection with the Keating Five scandal involving McCain. At any rate, he is irrelevant.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of Americans who think just like him.

Was this the guy Obama talked to who made over 250,000.

IF you make 250,000 YOU ARE NOT A PLUMBER. At least not the same kind that 99.9% of plumbers are. There's a difference between a neighbor who is a self-employed plumber who lives in suburbia with shades of middle class neighbors and a man with a plumbing business. Big difference.

[R_P_A_S]

A lot of working class white men hold the same position as Joe the plumber(or is it Sam the plumber?). They don't see how a system that has treated them well for so long could ever possibly screw them over.

To them we live in a free society, we're free to do anything, which means anything that happens to us is our own damn fault! That's right we are so free we can "choose" to starve to death and live in poverty.

It never occurs to him that misery is inherent in the Capitalist system, after all it works for him.

Even if he's going down the shit shoot, which seems to be the case according to Bootleg42's article, he can always blame it on those damn poor people who have to take his money.

How dare they take goverment hand outs!

I know, it's fucking disgusting, but that's what 50 years of privitization will get you.

What we have here is a very backwards section of the working class, the middle class white male.

ok. but back to "Joe The plumber" not the actual guy. but just the "character" in america today... He's not really "middle class" he's trying to be middle class. he's trying to be a petty bourgeoisie, own his own business and employ a few people. So he can still act like middle class and have the interest they have? despite being working class?

I think most working class Americans consider them selves middle class. and thats completely wrong.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

That's got to be just about the most contradictory thing I've ever heard.

Of course there would be NO businesses under communism. Any use of labor would strictly be a political decision, which would be part of an overall, global project with a *very* wide scope. By no means would there be local, much less individual, initiatives for the use of land, labor, machinery, or resources, without it being cleared at higher levels.

Maybe you're thinking of what people might do with their free time, but then it wouldn't be a business, either, because there'd be no private property, profits, or even money for that matter -- it'd be more like a club, at best, with voluntary membership. Anything more ambitious would, by definition, be political and therefore enter into the larger system.

Your vision is not only scary, it's downright regressive. No local initiative to use land? What in the bloody hell has the Left become? Hopefully this is just the Old Guard passing along.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Spiting small business owners is not getting to get our movement anywhere. The reason the real Joe Plumbers enjoy predominance in our society is because most small business owners actually do have some very core struggles to their rise. Unlike capitalists who make their wealth through the state, the government oftentimes snubs small business owners with absurd tax policies (corporate tax - the only people who pay that are small corporations). Being a small business owner in this current climate is tough. Arguably not as tough as most workers, but it's not like most small business owners are purely managerial positions. We're talking about job schedules that extend into 50 hours if need be. And let's be frank - I have more sympathy for a small business owner busting his ass for 50 hours a week than some (not all, not even a plurality) of the shits here who take pride in ripping off the welfare program.

The argument should focus more on an emancipation of labor, I believe.