The middle class values are:

conformity

indifference

greed

smug and arrogant

overly complacent

cowardice

passive/aggressive behavior as "normal and healthy"

pathological hatred of people in need (the disabled, the poor, the socially and politically disadvantaged, people in need of more education, better health care, etc)

That is a pretty good start of the values of most (not all) of the middle class people I know that are objectionable. Of course, everyone one of them would deny they are anything like that. They would tell me they are just like me, and they too are progressive.

You paint a nice, pretty, innocuous one dimensional picture of the middle class and of yourself, Amos. It isn't a realistic picture. I know that the above behaviors and values are just as prevalent among the working class and poor as it is the middle class. I know that there are good people who are middle class, and even a few good people who are wealthy (although those numbers seem to diminish pretty dramatically among the upper classes).

I am talking about the qualities, behaviors, values of the mainstream majority and the effect those behaviors and values have upon the dominant Anglo American culture. Intelligent people know there is a lot of racism among people of color, class bigotry among the working class and poor, etc.

The only real difference between working class and middle class is who much power do people wield in our society. There really isn't much the lower classes can do to bring about the needed political, social, and economic changes that would make us a much better society because they exercise no control whatsoever over the institutions. The middle class does. The middle class could, if it chose to, revolutionize our nation for the better, literally overnight.

But they don't. And they don't because they are conformist, indifferent, greedy, arrogant and smug, cowardly and over complacent, overly passive aggressive towards anyone who displeases them for any reason, and because they hate disabled people, poor people, people of different races and religions than themselves (regardless of their race, ethnicity, or religion), and anyone who needs them to provide care for them--like our children and elders, new immigrants to the US, etc and certainly for those rat bastard Arabs and Muslims (the current group most loathed by the US middle class). That is why we are at war with the Arab/Muslim Middle East.

John Kerry has no intention of ending that war on the Arab/Muslim world. He, just like Bush, will carry on with the imperial Anglo crusades.