The Rich Are Still Getting Richer

[Lanval]

I'm gonna bow out after this because, while I mean no harm & am clearly upset about similar things as you, I'm not feeling informed enough to have an intelligent conversation here and feel my perspective is clouded and one sighted perhaps. I live a pretty hyper localized life at this point... by choice. I am, in no way, hoping that anyone "eats dirt". I grew up "privileged" and have seen first hand people with money abuse it and abuse the system and abuse drugs and abuse each other ad nauseam. Having lost said privilege over the decades I've also seen it all from the lower rungs as well. To my mind there is no distinction between rich or poor when a person is taking advantage of something. Rush Limbaugh and his housekeeper are equally at fault. The problems in this society are too vast and complex to categorize by income. Let's go after the rich first... I don't care... I just don't think it will help... or even be even remotely effective sadly.

Are things different in Whitefish, though? Personally, I feel this discussion is as local as it is regional, national or global. Look at this story: http://www.greatfallstribune.com/articl ... /203210303

The problems of misuse of power aren't something that happens over there. Kind of reminds me in Fiddler on the Roof when one of the townspeople asks the Rabbi if there is a proper blessing for the Czar... the Rabbi replies, "Yes. The Lord bless the Czar, and keep him far away from us!"

That didn't work out too well for them, because it turns out that a systemic form of abuse operates at all levels; what is OK at the federal level becomes tolerated at the regional, state or local level. This makes the issues of social structure just as important/relevant at the local level you live at. Maybe the wrongs are less egregious, but they are there, nonetheless.

As for Rush and his housekeeper, I think the law (and we the people who make the law) understand circumstances and shades of gray; Rush has an awful lot of autonomy in his choices; he has the money and social authority to do whatever he wants within the limits of legality (and even outside those limits); his housekeeper? Not so much. The ability of the rich to have what they want beyond their needs make their thieving much worse than those who live on the edge. But that's really a 'straw man' ~ we all sympathize with the beggar who steals a loaf because he's starving.

What about the lazy bums who sit around and collect money from the government because they can, rather than need to? Are they truly morally equivalent to oil companies that use oil profits to influence legislation and manipulate circumstances, silence critics and threaten the ecosystem as well as lives, all to increase their profits from 6 billion quarterly to 10.5 billion quarterly (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/ ... 5O20110428)?

The law recognizes difference in severity, and punishes accordingly. And if we argue that the system allows Exxon to do those things (debatable ~ being wrong and being proven wrong are not the same thing at all), then we understand the importance of fighting the current system; we are then in the shoes of MLK, who wrote, in his Letter from Birmingham Jail "We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was 'legal' and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was 'illegal.'" He further noted that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" ~ even in Whitefish, MT, I'd guess.

Bumblebus, you needn't bow out unless your feeling browbeat (been there myself, courtesy of some others here); you may not have Colin's ready reference to numbers, but we can still talk of what is, and what should be, and how we get from the first to the second. Personally, I don't like to anyone feel powerless (I'm thinking here in terms of your statement that nothing we do will matter); we can make a difference, especially at the local level. And just as what starts at the top comes down, what starts at the bottom will go up.

Thanks for your interest in debating this, and avoiding the raging rhetoric that can emerge here; it is your willingness to talk about this at all that Colin values (I suspect ~ but I shouldn't put words in his mouth

Best,

Michael L

[Amskeptic]

it is your willingness to talk about this at all that Colin values (I suspect ~ but I shouldn't put words in his mouth
Best,
Michael L

It is, and I do have to settle down, I know I know, but I am seriously and deeply bent out of shape over the people I have met on the road who I cannot forget. I get seriously and deeply infuriated at the arrogant scorn and contempt that the blowhards on TV shows spew about lazy people who just won't get a job.
I am a self-made man making an independent path through the shoals of this American economy, yet there is no way I can express anything but gratitude for this opportunity, and I sure as hell am not going to judge people whose circumstances are far tougher and more soul-sucking than mine. I will pay my taxes happily happily! for the safety net for others happily! and the roads I drive on and the infrastructure and space exploration and public education and the publically-funded arts I enjoy, but I am enraged that my taxes go to subsidies for people hell-bent on personal enrichment who do not need them and who do hate on my fellow citizens unfairly.
I apologize for anything remotely resembling a personal attack, and I will preemptively apologize again and again if necessary, when I find that there are people who have enjoyed stunning advantages and opportunities who yet feel that other citizens do not deserve a serious and abundant public education, access to healthcare, and especially the dignity to work a normal work week and still be able to afford their rent. I do not apologize for that.
ColinWhoNeedsToStayOffTheWSJblogs

[BellePlaine]

I’ve been starting to judge my own actions and my feelings towards others actions/situations by asking if the long-term view or the short-term view guided the decision making processes. It’s like if my life is a bank and choices that I make which benefit me in the short-term are the withdrawals and my long-term choices are the deposits. I understand that life is not always black and white but generally speaking we have to invest in ourselves and in our communities more than we cash-out.

[Amskeptic]

generally speaking we have to invest in ourselves and in our communities more than we cash-out.

I thought we as a Nation understood this. The most productive period in our Nation's history was after WWII where we did invest in GI Bills, we did support public education, unions were a healthy counterpoint to our corporate growth, and we built an infrastructure second to none . . . with a 90% tax rate at the top.
Colin

[BellePlaine]

generally speaking we have to invest in ourselves and in our communities more than we cash-out.

I thought we as a Nation understood this. The most productive period in our Nation's history was after WWII where we did invest in GI Bills, we did support public education, unions were a healthy counterpoint to our corporate growth, and we built an infrastructure second to none . . . with a 90% tax rate at the top.
Colin

We are a different people now. My grandfather’s generation lived through The Depression and valued the tools that were required to survive like community, hard work, and delayed gratification. Maybe because they had not been fooled to think that they deserved to own every stupid little thing that their heart desired, they were also not over-leveraged in debt. After WWII, the world’s capacity for manufacturing had been bombed out. The USA benefited from this advantage but since then we’ve transferred our manufacturing away for the short-term benefits. The consequence is high debt and an awakening by some of us that this lifestyle isn’t sustainable, though you wouldn’t know it by following this presidential campaign season. Our mentality after WWII was just a temporary gift that we squandered away because of our short-sightedness. I think that both rich and the poor are too preoccupied with our own hubris now than we were then.

[Lanval]

Our mentality after WWII was just a temporary gift that we squandered away

Don't put that on me ~ the scurrilous Baby-Boomers hold the receipt for that. No other generation in the history of the world has been given so much, and then proceeded to piss it away on their own self-centered, local interests to the detriment of all.

I think we can change things, but it's going to take effort to overcome the massive, solipsistic inertia of the Baby-Boomers who will vote en masse for whatever is good for them, the rest of us, and the future itself be damned.

Michael L

[BellePlaine]

Right. "They" squandered it away.

Why must we humans have such an inability to learn from the past? Is it that our lifespans are too short to notice the cycle? I'll bet that we are bound to suffer again, it's how we are.

[hambone]

We are on the back of the technological dragon. It will take us down into the fiery depths; are we even able to stop it's momentum? What if a pandemic/metor whatzits hits the earth and no one can maintain the nuke plants? All those rogue weapons floating around out there, missile silos. We have riddled the earth with our black arts, and it will take some time to cleanse. Superfund sites...But the cake batter will again fold it all in as we are snuffed evermore.
I saw 1984 last night (great flick but the book is mo better), has it come to pass? When do we receive the tracking implants? And the new Battlestar Galactica, which alludes to the cosmos repeating itself, even the same lives lived differently over and over...is it all a test? A trick of wrong perception? Ministry of Love indeed.
"You used to have a home garden - now they want to grow it on the moon and eat it raw"

[DjEep]

Jumpin' right in... I saw a couple references to the Lazy Bums. I've always been a champion of social services and the greater good of society as a whole, but lordy-lordy, in my last few years I sure have seen a great number of people, mostly young, able-bodied people, who really are abusing the system. So many people in this particular area think that food stamps and the like are their god-given right. They can always find money to party, and prepare feasts when new-stamps day hits, but then complain that the "1%" or whatever is holding them down. Sad part is, I can't really blame them. They've been fed the expectations of high living through the entertainment industry, while opportunities to actually earn a living have been ripped away from them. So they live as the think they are supposed to, while using the rich folks tactics of stealing every advantage they can to support this lifestyle. Really scared of what up coming generations will do when this false tower previous generations have built, and they live in, finally crumbles, and they have no idea howto lay a single brick.

I think this is the whole plan, the rich insulate themselves while they bring down society around them, save for the very poor that serve them. Then the world will finally be theirs.

[Sylvester]

I think this is the whole plan, the rich insulate themselves while they bring down society around them, save for the very poor that serve them. Then the world will finally be theirs.

Sounds like Soylent Green to me.

[Amskeptic]

Jumpin' right in... young, able-bodied people, who really are abusing the system. So many people in this particular area think that food stamps and the like are their god-given right. They can always find money to party, and prepare feasts when new-stamps day hits, but then complain that the "1%" or whatever is holding them down. Sad part is, I can't really blame them. They've been fed the expectations of high living through the entertainment industry, while opportunities to actually earn a living have been ripped away from them.

This is important to acknowledge.
I think it is divisive and wrong to blame people for being lazy-asses when true employment opportunities have been decimated. The partiers and flunkies and drug-addicted poor may very well be *reactive* in their disdain, already burned-out by the serial job-application rejections, and I hear self-satisfied suburbanites every damn day cluck scoldingly at the lazy-asses, but when they get down-sized out of a job, and suffer 450 job-interview rejections, and deal with the stress of feeling disenfranchised, perhaps they won't feel so quick to judge. If I was a new entrant to the job market now, I have no idea how it would feel looking around at the obscene unjustifiable inequities and reading job applications that require me to piss in a cup and sign loyalty oaths and read the smarmy "team member playbook" "you will occasionally be required to work past normal work hours".

I have known all too many flippant, pissed-off, surly, lazy, delinquent, angry, hopelessness-hiding-behind-brashness kids who are staring at a bleak *future*.

There is a deep human need for fairness, you hear it hotly declared on the playground every day. This country has always had fairness in its promises for the individual pursuit of happiness. It is more unfair now than it has ever been. There ARE more people than jobs in this country at this point. We have stagnant wages. We have increasing expenses. Technological innovation and greed has seen to that. Anyone who gets all snotty about the lazy unemployed, I think is distancing him/herself from the hopelessness.

And while I count myself among those who wake up happy to make a day of it, I will not pretend that gung-ho is all you need. I am friggen grateful for this opportunity. I do not cloak myself in personal initiative homilies nor hold myself out as an example. Wearing a paper hat at Pizza Hut might not cut it. I get that. I do not think there is any mentally healthy person who takes pleasure in being on the dole.
Colin

[DjEep]

I've been on Facebook too long. I keep wanting to "Like" your posts, Colin. Good to be back. I kept/keep finding myself getting angry/envious at these kids myself, watching them play while I toil, only to keep coming back to the realization that they are good people, only misguided and actually the ones getting "ripped off" in the long run. Been distancing myself lately, as I can't control my impulse to "teach" them, which only life can do. Unfortunately, I see things getting much worse before they get better, but I really hope I'm wrong.

[BumbleBus]

Wearing a paper hat at Pizza Hut might not cut it.

Not when collecting unemployment and entitlements nets you more money that's for sure.

Stirring the pot...

[glasseye]

Don't put that on me ~ the scurrilous Baby-Boomers hold the receipt for that. No other generation in the history of the world has been given so much, and then proceeded to piss it away on their own self-centered, local interests to the detriment of all.

*DISCLAIMER* I was born in 1946. In fact, I turn 66 tomorrow.

You're right. We're bad.

I'd say to the current generations: "Geeze, ay?. Sorry about the mess. Ashtrays all full. Garbage everywhere. Air smells horrible. Empty pizza boxes. Bank account's empty.

But y'know what? It was a GREAT party. You should have heard the music. Man, we had great music.

While we were partying, some good things did happen, though.

It's no longer illegal to love someone of the same sex.

Even if you're not white, in the eyes of the law you're equal.

You have instantaneous virtually cost-free access to most of the sum of human knowledge.

[Lanval]

Don't put that on me ~ the scurrilous Baby-Boomers hold the receipt for that. No other generation in the history of the world has been given so much, and then proceeded to piss it away on their own self-centered, local interests to the detriment of all.

*DISCLAIMER* I was born in 1946. In fact, I turn 66 tomorrow.

You're right. We're bad.

I'd say to the current generations: "Geeze, ay?. Sorry about the mess. Ashtrays all full. Garbage everywhere. Air smells horrible. Empty pizza boxes. Bank account's empty.

But y'know what? It was a GREAT party. You should have heard the music. Man, we had great music.

While we were partying, some good things did happen, though.

It's no longer illegal to love someone of the same sex.

Even if you're not white, in the eyes of the law you're equal.

You have instantaneous virtually cost-free access to most of the sum of human knowledge.

Being of the next generation, I'm a little less sanguine about the whole "sorry about that" attitude. The Baby Boomers aren't dead, so there's still time to rectify their errors; I won't wait up for that though.

The music statement is true enough; though I like the music I grew up with, the music of the late 60's has held up better, and sounds less dated than most anything that's come after.

It is in fact quite illegal to love someone of the same sex in many places in the US. Sodomy laws remain on the books in various states, Same-sex marriage is NOT an accomplished fact in more than a few jurisdictions, and prejudice remains.

"In the eyes of the law you're equal" ~ really? Tell that to Trayvon Martin's parents.
The battle for racial equality has been fought for generations, over hundreds of years. The Baby-Boomers made did not make everyone equal in the eyes of the law; many others also fought that battle, including abolitionists, former slaves such as Frederick Douglass and the many men and women who sacrificed so much in the Civil War. Yes the Baby Boom kids continued that fight, but:

1. They did not create the fight for equality; it is as old as America itself, and many, many Americans have risked more, and fought harder for the rights of others than the Baby Boomers.
2. The fight wasn't "won" with equality before the law; that was merely one step in a long succession of battles that is NOT finished.

**************

There's no question that the 60's kids contributed much to our society, but it's wrong to apply a varnish of sanctity to it. Most of what was done in the 60s was done for the wrong reasons. The sexual revolution wasn't about freeing society from centuries old ideological oppression; it was about young kids not wanting to be responsible. Are you surprised to discover that the following generation (mine) is experiencing a decline in divorce? You shouldn't be; we grew up watching Baby Boomers treat the family unit like a convenience; people hopped in and out of marriage without any sense of personal responsibility to anything other than their own personal happiness.

I remember watching an interview with Steven Spielberg some years ago (the uber-Baby Boomer; also born in 1946) where he was talking about his film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind; he commented that if he wrote the film now, he would probably have written it differently. In the original film, the lead character Roy Neary (played by Richard Dreyfuss) leaves his wife and children (with no explanation), and takes off into space with aliens. Spielberg said that now, as a husband and father, he was uncomfortable with the way the film portrayed the family relationship as meaningless to the main character.

And that is pretty much the Baby Boomer ethos right there ~ "hey we had a great time being selfish, and you're totally going to have to pay for our mistakes, so sorry."

And that pretty much brings us back to where we started this post, doesn't it? It's very much easier to be selfish and then apologize, than to simply do the right thing to begin with. And that is the center of the Baby Boomer ideology: "It's all about us"

For those of us who followed, that's a hard pill to swallow. What makes it worse in many ways is the endlessly sanctimonious crap that flows from Baby Boomers about how they changed the world. Yeah, they did a lot. But they also gave us Lloyd Blankfein. Oh, you can't remember who he is? He's the CEO and chairman of Goldman Sachs. The guy who said that Goldman Sachs was "doing God's work".

So fine; the Baby Boomers helped change the world for the good in 1968; they have also spent the remaining 40 years grabbing everything they can, while pissing on everyone else, and AT THE SAME TIME, telling us how great and important they were; how special they were AND are; and how their problems are the important problems, their needs are the important needs.

Whatever good was done by those kids so long ago, in the that special five years, has been greatly overshadowed by what has been done since.

**************************

Glasseye, I seem to recall you're a documentary filmmaker; I watched Following Sean recently (it was outstanding) and thought how Sean's comments about his father really hit at the problem of the Baby Boomers; there was his Dad, a true hippie to the end, and Sean says, "yeah, but what has it got him?" Sean recognizes his father's ideals as an illusion ~ not designed to change the world, but to make himself [the father] the center of everything else. It really hits home when Sean's father "borrows" money from his son; Sean knows the money won't come back, but there's Dad, promising to pay in the never-to-be future, but taking his pleasure, and Sean's money today. Selfish to the end.

This is all NOT an indictment of you ~ I don't know enough about you personally to say if anything here applies to you: I've met more than a few Baby Boomers who NEVER gave up on their ideals (one of the main benefits of growing up in Eugene, OR), so when I speak of the Baby Boomers, I ONLY speak of them as a whole: the cumulative effect, as it were. You're clearly a smart engaged guy, and I'll bet, from what you've written elsewhere that you're not a selfish idiot. But I hope you can start to see how it looks to those of us who came after, and have to live with the effects of the Baby Boomers, even after their gone.

Michael L