How do you define middle and upper-middle class?

I personally like nice even fifths. The bottom 20% are lower class, next 20% lower-middle, next 20% middle-middle, next 20% upper-middle, and the top 20% as upper class. The middle class, being the bulk of the population, can be those three middle fifths, which leaves quite a spread but focuses nicely on the middle of the bell curve.

So where does a household (solitary individuals, other non-family households and families combined) earning $250K/year sit in that breakdown? In the 2009 tax year (the most current data), there were roughly 2,372,000 households earning $250K+/year out of a total of 117,538,000 households in the US. That puts a household earning exactly $250K/year above 97.98% of the whole batch. That seems quite a lot towards the upper end to me, and not very middle at all.

So how do the fifths break down?

Lowest: $0 - $20,453 (Mean $11,552)
Second: $20,454 - $38,550 (Mean $29,257)
Third: $38,551 - $61,801 (Mean $49,534)
Fourth: $61,802 - $100,000 (Mean $78,694)
Fifth: $100,001+ (Mean $170,844)

And for good measure, the top 5%: $180,001+ (Mean $295,388)

I would imagine that the vast majority of new businesses created are created by people earning substantially less money than you claim. I see a lot of small firms of professionals, construction & trades contractors, mom & pop corner retail stores, basement tech startups, or even just entrepreneurs with a crazy big idea they try to make real. Some may have had a sweet job earning the big bucks before striking out on their own, but I doubt it's anywhere near most. A lot of people mortgage their houses to get startup money, then seek out venture capital as things get rolling. Many fizzle and fail in the first year.

Where you have a point about business creation is for people earning $250K+/year in investment income. They tend to be able to start businesses left and right, and can afford to have a few fail without disrupting their portfolios. But we call those rich people, because they usually have net worths in the multi-millions.

If the top-heavy international finance economy centered in the US collapses, all of the necessary factors will be in place to quickly reinvent the US as a new economic superpower. There are many good reasons why the US is the wealthiest country on the planet in spite of its mistakes, and those reasons will survive any potential economic collapse.

You have a large and educated workforce. (And any recent undermining of the education system can be easily reversed.)
You have a well-developed nation-wide transportation infrastructure. (Maybe a little light on rail, but just look at Canada for comparison and it looks fantastic.)
You have vast tracts of rich agricultural land and substantial areas of year-round growing seasons.
You have immense mineral wealth, including a very good supply of rare earth elements and nuclear fuels.

If things continue to decline, and in a period of turmoil the old way cracks apart and topples, it seems likely that a new paradigm could develop that focuses on long-term economic health rather than short term gains to share value or dividend of stocks, one that is inclusive of the working class and even more favorable to the innovative class. If that happens, the turnaround will be awe-inspiring.

If you're a disorganized and scattered band of protesters-turned-rebels trying to go about restoring communications infrastructure, how do you communicate to coordinate everything that's required to restore communications infrastructure?

Actually, imprisonment for non-violent drug offences has some direct parallel to imprisonment for practicing a banned religion.

Members of the Native American Church are allowed under law to use peyote in their religious practices. A new age spiritualist distributing personal-use quantities of psychedelic mushrooms to a group of followers so they can have an entheogenic experience qualifies for a massive amount of time in prison, potentially a de-facto life sentence based upon the number of individuals involved.

Or you could always just compare legal vs illegal intoxicants. Alcohol and GHB have similar impairing effects, are both strongly associated with nonconsensual sex, and both cause a statistically significant number of deaths among their users from accident and overdose. One is legal for adults over 21 to put into their bodies, as the potential harm they cause themselves through its use is within their rights over their own persons, and the other is illegal for adults to put into their bodies, as those rights over their own persons vanish because the chemical is not an approved intoxicating substance.

I personally find rights over one's own person to be powerfully similar to freedom of religious practice, as both are purely personal choices, and would suggest that any nation that espouses personal liberty has no just grounds to interfere with either. The USA is a nation that incarcerates a massive number of citizens for abusively lengthly terms for either engaging in prohibited practices over their own persons or enabling others to do so. The difference between the prohibition against drugs and a prohibition against masturbation or tattooing is minimal at best.

The press release link is a moving target. It's now: http://www.gnome.org/press/2011/04/gnome-3-0-released-better-for-users-developers-3/