This would be the same American middle class whose members voted in substantial numbers for George W. Bush and his Republican and Democratic enablers in Congress.

This would be the same middle class whose members sat in front of their televisions saying not a discernible word in protest as we laid siege to and destroyed a sovereign nation in an aggressive attack built on transparent lies.

This would be the same middle class that has for years declined the opportunity to demand of its leaders that they resolutely stop China from pegging its currency to the dollar at such a ridiculous, disequilibrium exchange rate that tens of millions of American jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars in industrial capital disappeared overseas.

This is the same middle class that just gobbles up those nice, fat tax rebate checks without bothering to ask where, exactly, the United States Treasury, which is compelled to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars to pay its regular bills, is getting the money for those pandering rebates. (HINT: it's from the same people to whom we sent that money in exchange for their cheap imports; the rest comes from the American banking system that profits from every cycle of Treasury securities auctions the Federal Reserve prints staggering quantities of money to cover.)

This is the same middle class whose people bitch to High Heaven about our educational system, yet themselves are ignorant of history, economics, and even basic English grammar and who, at any opportunity, stick their own noses and those of their kids in front of mind-rotting television.

This is the same middle class that chose to blubber and wave flags after the attacks of September 11, 2001, rather than scream bloody murder for retributive accountability from the man who was so hard-up to be President that his thugs stole an election less than a year before.

This is the same middle class that now chooses between an addled, corrupted corporate shill and a corrupt, inexperienced, pandering chameleon.

This is a middle class whose members think their civic duty to the body politic is to the extent of maybe voting in this or that election and then washing their hands of further, on-going, vigilant watch and action over the stewards they elect to lead them.

Yes, this American middle class is suffering; and yes, some members of that middle class—especially the young—do not deserve what is happening to them.

Perhaps those who do not deserve it, including the young lambs being led with their parents to the collective slaughter, should take up the matter with the many who do deserve it.

Live like sheep; bleat like sheep.

The silence of the lambs is, nonetheless, deafening.