If the GOP wins, the poor of today will be looked upon as the lazy throngs of welfare dependents. The poor will be likened to the faux parable of feeding monkeys and causing them to be dependent. This era will be looked upon as the time when the nanny state was destroyed.

Fortunately the GOP won't be writing history for long. Unfortunately that'll be because humanity will go extinct under their uncontested watch.

I'm thinking that the present set of business and political leaders are beyond even caring about defining history. They simply don't care.

History is one of those pesky reality-based concepts. So lame.

This is a race to the bottom. Fuck history. Fuck the judgement of future generations. What a silly notion!

One of the most insightful things I heard Bill Moyers discuss once is how some people just think they are chosen, so therefore feel they can act outside of the social constructs. He was referring mostly to extreme right wing religious types - that they feel as if their ticket to heaven is punched, so they can behave any way they like. But I can see it being extrapolated to the wealthy also - in fact they may think they are wealthy because they were chosen to be so.

I'm thinking they've been "chosen" for something way beyond what they are imagining. I wonder what the French nobility were "thinking" before the French Revolution. It likely was something like what our elites are thinking now. Good luck with that.

and they're desperately trying to keep things pasted together until they're in a position to take the money and run--to where, I have no idea.

The real money at the very top are utterly clueless about anything outside their own circle of comfort, which they try to keep as comfortable and stress free as possible. They don't want to hear any bad news from the hired help and they sure as hell don't want to hear what the rapacity of the hired help has cost the rest of their fellow citizens. Their fellow citizens are utterly invisible to them and they want to keep it that way, thinking if they can't see us, we can't see them.

The reverse is not true, and we're a lot more aware of them, even if a majority of people point to the hired help as the origin of the problem.

I await the tumbrils. My knitting is at the ready.

It's true what you say.

That's a bit of a revelation, too: that banksters are akin to septic tank workers to those they serve.

"Marxists!"

Anyone who systematically critiques capital is essentially considered an enemy.

what social utility do parasites like Romney and his ilk serve? Are they feeding anyone? Are they healing anyone? Are they teaching anyone? Are they housing anyone? Just exactly what is their purpose and why are they still allowed to exist?

Fuck their self-awareness (or lack thereof). Down with all human parasitism.

When you begin developing compassion, understanding the feelings of others and how your actions may harm them, you begin to opt towards the constructive and selfless versus the selfish and destructive.

Generally, but not absolutely.

Intelligence? There is bad intelligence, that of predators. Lacking emotional intelligence does not preclude one from being a superb hunter. It assists.

.....Now if we can get into the heads of the working class people who support the 1 percent.......................

more stratified than has generally been the case in the 20th century.
Grunts-stuck there
middle managers-stuck there
Upper crust-BORN there. de facto aristocracy
People do not rub shoulders with people of different classes as much as was the case
40 years ago, there is no community. Naturally this will lend to increasing levels
of cluelessness at all levels. Of course, this is most dangerous among the 1%
who make most of the decisions. Like Romney and Dubya, they do probably
see themselves as more fit to rule then the rest of us, even though they're fucking
idiots. They love power, they love to mumble about "freedom" without actually
allowing the average person a decent amount of control over their own lives.
Lying sociopath hypocrites who belong in jail or on skid row had they been born
into different families. And, they continue to rule partly thanks to the cluelessness of a
different type among the talk radio/Fox news crowd.

Apart from the 1%(fraction of 1%, really) there is the next 10% or so of McMansion
dwelling mid-level executive and senior technocrat yuppies that think their
technocrat "education" and "skills", and a willingness to work too many hours
to actually ENJOY their gawdy pretentious cheesy shitbox houses will keep their balls out
of the economic fire indefinitely. If their "education" was a real one or if they were
as intelligent as they think they are, they would read the writing on the wall.
First, the 1% came for the factory workers, then they came for the hi-tech workers.
So, duh, the 10% or so yuppies are next. I know some of these people-I went to
school with their entitled pretentious asshole children.
their smarmy gee-just-yesterday-I-was-such-a-big-shot-faces will be a fucking hoot as they have to
sell their Escalades, mini-yachts, liquidate their
kids college funds, IRAs etc. I'm sure it's already happened to a few, many more to come.
Then we will be living in a 300+ million populated third world fiefdom under the iron boot
heel of Mitt Romney and his pals, ruling from their distant guarded gated mansions, not
taking a damn bit of the "responsibility" for their actions they LLLLOOOOOOVVVVVEEEEEEEE
to lecture us about.

it is the awareness of others in their social context that they lack. They do understand themselves. They know that they want more money in their accounts and how to get it