So, I was listening to Big Eddie Schultz on my drive home yesterday. When I tuned to Radio Free Ohio (there's a free plug, fellas, use it with care) Big Ed was launching into some deep ramble about the "middle class" and how the middle class would still be there after the Rove story was over.

Ed's phrasing wasn't memorable, but one thing stuck with me-- the middle class is working harder and paid less. And that resonated with me, because I'm just another workin' stiff (yeah, I work in front of a computer screen most of the day and move symbols around, but I still gotta get paid so's my mortgage banker can get his cut, y'dig?)

In my work I do get around. And I talk to a lot of people in a lot of plants and companies and towns and cities and it seems like every goddamn one of us is bustin' his ass.

Every time there's another announcement of layoffs from somewhere, believe me, some hard workin' bitches and sonsabitches are all gonna be feelin' a little nervous. And once there's the blood has been let, those who remain don't have a lot of time to celebrate their survival. The work still has to be done, and if you don't want to follow your late and lamented former colleagues out the door, you damn well better pick it up.

If, on the other hand, you're one of those who either through luck, inheritance, or marriage (the reward for hard work isn't riches-- it's always more hard work), the changes wrought over the last few decades have been really helpful.

The American economy has been given over more and more to capital, and it's close enough to equate that with money. Wealth. Moolah. Cash. Paper (who thought up that fucked up nickname? It's worse than the 60's "bread," fer Ghod's sake).

Dem what has gets, dem what don't, don't.

Taxes on capital have been shrunk, shrunk, and shrunk again. The Republicans have made taxes on capital Enemy Number One. Inheritance taxes? Uh, no, those are "death taxes" and to be abhorred as though they were the cause of death themselves.

So-- if your income comes from your ownership of "capital," you've seen your tax rates go down faster than a transgender hooker in the back of Hugh Grant's car.

If your income comes from "the sweat of your brow," on the other hand, you're gonna get taxed at the fullest possible rate.

Higher tax rates for the working person; far lower job security for the working person-- while the trustafarians talk about strangling government in the bathtub.

Lately I've been hearing the old Communist rallying cry in my head- "Workers of world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!"