A recent article in the Washington Post<\/a> pointed out a \u201cmyth\u201d about the Civil War that relates to why middle and low income people in contemporary America have acquiesced to the continued tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.<\/p>\n

In an op-ed piece on January 9, 2011 entitled \u201cFive myths about why the South Seceded,\u201d James W. Loewen states that one of the five myths was the belief that, since most white Southerners didn\u2019t own slaves, they wouldn\u2019t secede for slavery.\u201d\u00a0 He states that there were:<\/p>\n

\u201cfactors [that] caused most Southern whites, including those who were not slave-owners, to defend slavery. First, Americans are wondrous optimists, looking to the upper class and expecting to join it someday. In 1860, many subsistence farmers aspired to become large slave-owners. So poor white Southerners supported slavery then, just as many low-income people support the extension of George W. Bush’s tax cuts<\/a> for the wealthy now.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Without attribution to anyone, it has been said that if you tell a lie enough times people will\u00a0 eventually believe it.\u00a0 Similarly, when a myth based on falsehood is perpetuated, people can come to accept it as truth.<\/p>\n

Perhaps there was a time when Americans correctly saw their society as upwardly mobile.\u00a0 However, that is not true now.\u00a0 We are falling back into an economic abyss similar to those of the gilded age and 1929.<\/p>\n

Have you ever heard someone say, \u201cIf I can lose 75 pounds anyone can?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 The words are intended to be encouragement to someone else; in reality they are self-aggrandizement, because the speaker wants us to believe that no one else\u2019s weight loss challenge could be greater than his or hers.<\/p>\n

Funny how television is now rife with programs about \u201cget rich quick\u201d schemes and the glory of weight loss competition.\u00a0 \u00a0If these programs are of any interest, it is only because getting rich quickly or losing pounds by the dozen rarely happen, but we want to believe that it can happen for us.<\/p>\n

In America\u2019s 21^{st<\/sup> century, the odds of a middle or lower income person becoming a millionaire are about as slim as they were for a slave to gain his or her freedom in the ante-bellum South.\u00a0 But many Americans are not very wise at handicapping odds.\u00a0 If they were, they wouldn\u2019t go to the casinos, where the only guaranteed winner is the house.<\/p>\n}

It\u2019s not that Americans are incapable of resenting wealthy people who want even more.\u00a0 In 1994, when millionaire baseball players and billionaire owners could not reach a working agreement, fans sad a pox on both your houses.\u00a0 The average salary of a player in 1994 was $1.2 million.\u00a0 Fans justifiably asked how could anyone be unsatisfied with making over a million dollars to play a kids game; a game that I would play for free.\u00a0 And sweet resentment was reserved for the owners who pleaded poor, when making more money than ever.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t remember the strike, just wait until a month after the Super Bowl when it is quite feasible that there will be a work stoppage in the NFL.\u00a0 You\u2019ll notice it when there\u2019s no April draft of college players.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

If there is a labor stoppage in March, today\u2019s heroes, such as Payton Manning or Adrian Peterson, are likely to become the targets of our ire.\u00a0 But the damage done to the average American by professional athletes or even their \u201cowners\u201d is miniscule compared to the Wall Street barons who have bought a few hundred politicians in order to keep their marginal tax rate at 36% rather than 39.6%.<\/p>\n

Part of Republican framing involves displacement; convincing people to demonize the wrong party.\u00a0 When insurance companies are making out like bandits, Republicans call it a government takeover, and many Americans believe it.<\/p>\n

So if an NFL strike happens, let\u2019s use it as an opportunity to try to educate the American people that however the labor dispute is resolved, it will have little or no impact on them. Conversely, rescinding the Bush tax giveaways to the wealthy would raise nearly a trillion dollars over a decade.\u00a0 As former Republican Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois once said, \u201ca billion here, a billion there; pretty soon we\u2019re talking real money.\u201d\u00a0 Progressives need to convince more Americans that zeros do mean something, especially when they are strung at the end of an already large number.<\/p>\n

Back to the Civil War.\u00a0 Think of how many individuals in gray lost their lives to defend a system that was of no economic gain to them.\u00a0 Similarly, how many of today\u2019s middle and lower income individuals are undermining their real economic self-interests in order to satisfy their economic fantasies.<\/p>\n

We need to try to teach Americans a little placement rather than displacement.\u00a0 This will not be an easy task, but opportunities to come along when it\u2019s easier to make the point.\u00a0 If the NFL has a work stoppage, seize the moment!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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