It starts over here.

Breaking news of the last, oh, century or so:

"...human biology has changed..."....People in the industrialized world are taller, heavier, stronger. They're more resistant to disease and more likely to overcome it when they do get sick. They live longer, their lives less fraught with chronic ailments. "We're just not falling apart like we used to,"..."Even our internal organs are stronger and better formed."... this process of improvement, "technophysio evolution."...is "not only unique to humankind, but unique among the 7,000 or so generations of human beings who have inhabited the earth."

The good old days, before the genocide:

Work in 19th Century England, for children: In textile factories they often worked for more than 12 hours a day.

America, Irish Immigrants, 1850: "The Five Points slum area in Manhattan: Described by a witness as having 75 people living in 12 rooms. Many tenements did not have indoor plumbing or running water. Sewage collected in outhouses and rats were prevalent, carrying and spreading disease, often to children. In 1857, 2/3 of New York City's deaths were children under age 5, mostly Irish. Wages for unskilled jobs during the 1840s were under 75 cents a day for 10-12 hours of work. In 1833, Irish women who worked making cotton shirts were...paid between 6-10 cents a shirt and worked about 13-14 hours a day. "

And since the only group possibly lower than the Irish were African-Americans, we can be pretty sure that's about as bad as it got; unless perhaps the Chinese railway builders had it worse. When it's that bad, it's hard to tell who has it worse.

Further evidence of the genocide perpetrated against the American middle class:

They all have at least one indoor toilet connected to a properly functioning sewage system; and they don't have to share it with the neighbors. Nonsense, you think?

For comparison:

"In the early 19th century poor families often had to share toilets and on Sunday mornings queues formed."

And so on, across multiple indexes: access to public tools for communication; access to tools for personal and public hygiene, from curbside garbage collection to shampoo; access to public tools for increasing literacy, from public schools to public libraries.

That's right: it's a never ending trail of tears; and a never ending demolition of everything you cherish; a genocide of not just your economic place; but the genocide of your very dreams.

So, by this index, the use of the Pity Me meme (see my blog posts on Meme Watch:The Pity Party) by the Republican Party means that they may be correct when they say: "We are the future of politics in America."

Be afraid; if not of The Pity Party, then stupid hyperbole and inapt use of words by fake progressives who refuse to employ publically available tools to access publically available information.

That's politics. You're welcome.