death rates of white middle class American males

[Eric the Green]

(02-21-2017, 10:48 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(02-17-2017, 01:05 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: I might post the next report next week. But meanwhile, what do you think are the causes of this trend?

I have my opinions, of course....

This statistic started with boomers in 1999 from the age of Donald Trump and Bill Clinton to about the age of Mark Warner and Lindsay Graham, and has increased markedly since then until today for Xers from the age of Chris Christie to about the age of Marco Rubio. The line runs upward from 1999 to today for those aged 45-54.

It concentrates among those without higher education.

These are the folks who put Trump in the White House. Still enough of them around to do that, I guess.

This sickness is contagious.

Many of them have lost jobs. Many of them are using drugs and overdosing. There is increased social isolation and seclusion. Suicides are rampant.

I think culture is important; the fact that TV, music, movies are so vacuous and negative in these days of the 3T and 4T. This makes a difference. And this extends to decline of social gathering places like churches, union halls, clubs, and families of people that have moved away, with many left behind in red states because of industrial decline. Guns make suicide easy, and drugs and alcohol make self-medication and escape easy.

Americans have such empty lives that if they lose their job, they can't see any purpose for themselves. This is due to the inherent emptiness of our culture, and inability to recognize what life is about, despite the counter-cultural movements that revealed it, but were ignored and condemned in white middle red-state America. Like maybe doing some creative things: the arts, science, entreprenuership, new relationships or family, contributing to and helping others, going back to school, or moving to a blue state where culture and opportunity is greater. Unwillingness to take the financial risk of change because money is too tight. If your life is empty, and thus doesn't get you high or fulfilled on life, it's easier to take a drug or a drink to get a false and addictive high instead. Despair leads to self-destruction.

The economic stresses are caused by computer automation, free trade, and wage and salary decline due to concentration of income for the bosses; plus a failed education and cultural system, and poor social services and lack of investment in public infrastructure.

And of course, you can make the situation even much worse by taking out your frustration and despair on liberals and voting Republican, because you are brainwashed into one of their ideologies that hook you: blame the colored people, blame immigrants, blame PC and identity politics, blame women and feminism, blame non-Christians and lax morality, blame welfare recipients, blame taxes, blame gun control, and don't question the bosses, but look to them for salvation, because they are the "job creaters" and are not "dependent," or you can also fall for religious right nostrums and "make America great again!" or patriotic and militarist slogans. When your life is empty, you can't question authority or think critically and with imagination, and you are ripe fruit and easy pickins for a demagogue like Trump. The result is that there are no social services or income supports to help boost you and your community out of economic ruin and emotional despair. No, that would be dependency on big government, and I am too strong and self-reliant to do that. Oh pardon me, I need to get my fix......

America is sick, literally, and needs a great big change, and soon. Something to blast these people out of their deadly self-defeating patterns! There is a greater destiny for America, hidden in our history and our western and world culture, if only we can find it again. If only we can look past our despair and prejudice.

Eric you are looking at this through a 2T filter. RE: bold text.

If the average person loses their job, they lose the benefits that go with the job. Especially health care and dental. Plus others. They lose cash flow. If one is living paycheck to paycheck, that means immediate distress. Loss of purpose is the least of their worries.

Either there need to be enough jobs to employ those who are not knowledge workers, or, there needs to be universal income.

2Ts never end. Spiritual needs are always uppermost. No doubt about the economic needs and stresses. Great cause for worry. 4Ts never end either; we always need subsistence. But the trend of escapism into drugs and alcohol or suicide by gun; these are trends that speak of ennui and despair. There's more than just lack of money going on. Poor people all over the world go on, and don't check out. It's an emotional/spiritual need there too; lack of purpose. Why should people blow their brains out for getting fired, as happened to the family of one of the people interviewed in the PBS report? The loss of a job means little to a person who has other ways to a fulfilling and meaningful life. Artists frequently starve, but they carry on. These people have no sense of what life is about. It is an art, not mere subsistence. That is always true; not just during 2Ts. It's a fact of life.

I say America is sick because of the wild gyrations in the turnings. A healthy society is in 2T all the time, to an extent at least. Most societies put religion and spirituality first. The society that puts material needs first, is in its last days. Talk about something that Americans forget! Plus the fact that most Tea Party/Trump folks are well off. And Americans, even if in a depressed fiscal condition, are far better off than most other peoples of the world.

Jesus is indeed worth quoting here. Man does not live by bread alone. Seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all else will be added. Spoken in the language of his time. Fully relevant today. And Jesus was not someone who ignored the plight of the poor, and the need to help them; or even the need for taxes to help them. But to worry about money, that speaks of lack of faith and purpose. We all need money, but to go suicide and addiction because it's apparently lacking, is an emotional problem. Just consider the lilies of the field. They neither toil nor spin, yet the Lord takes care of them. How much more worthy are you, ye of little faith?