The "Unnecessariat" and the rise of Trumpism.

[Odin]

A really depressing blog post about how those currently left behind by out "new economy" and are completely ignored by mainstream politicians. I grew up around the rural "unnecessariat", so this really hits close to home for me. Lots of people out here in "flyover country" killing themselves directly by suicide or indirectly by drugs because they have no hope in their lives.

[pbrower2a]

(07-17-2016, 08:22 PM)Odin Wrote: A really depressing blog post about how those currently left behind by out "new economy" and are completely ignored by mainstream politicians. I grew up around the rural "unnecessariat", so this really hits close to home for me. Lots of people out here in "flyover country" killing themselves directly by suicide or indirectly by drugs because they have no hope in their lives.

We should have gotten a new CCC and TVA -- indeed a new New Deal. Instead we found economic elites squeezing people even harder because such fits the logic of those elites, the only logic that matters to them. So much for "Black Lives Matter" as a desperate protest of police misconduct real or imagined. But dead of overdoses and suicides if one is white is no less dead, and often no less tragic.

The elites used to mollycoddle white people while sowing racism as a division... but that mollycoddling is over.




With the exceptions of New Mexico and the urban counties of Nevada the darkest shades of red would seem to have some correlation with political "redness" -- that is, Republican voting. The blue and light-blue areas include the giant cities with the nastiest traffic jams and highest property rents -- like most of coastal California from the San Francisco Bay Area to San Diego, Baltimore-Washington, southern New England, southeastern Pennsylvania, Baltimore-Washington, Miami, and Chicago.  Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Albuquerque have high suicide rates in contrast to San Antonio and El Paso... go figure. Even the urban wrecks of southeastern Michigan and northern Ohio seem to be doing OK.

So if you have a one-hour commute each way in your car and at least get to listen to an enjoyable book-on-CD or great music, then the stats say suck it up -- you are lucky in contrast to people living in the wrecked mining and forestry towns.

Quote:The View From Here

Its no secret that I live right smack in the middle of all this, in the rusted-out part of the American midwest. My county is on both maps: rural, broke, disconsolated. Before it was heroin it was oxycontin, and before it was oxycontin it was meth. Death, and overdose death in particular, are how things go here.

I spent several months occasionally sitting in with the Medical Examiner and the working humour was, predictably, quite dark. A typical day would include three overdoses, one infant suffocated by an intoxicated parent sleeping on top of them, one suicide, and one other autopsy that could be anything from a tree-felling accident to a car wreck (this distribution reflects that not all bodies are autopsied, obviously.) You start to long for the car wrecks.

The workers would tell jokes. To get these jokes you have to know that toxicology results take weeks to come back, but autopsies are typically done within a few days of death, so generally the coroners don’t know what drugs are on board when they cut up a body. First joke: any body with more than two tattoos is an opiate overdose (tattoos are virtually universal in the rural midwest). Second joke: the student residents will never recognize a normal lung (opiates kill by stopping the brain’s signal to breathe; the result is that fluid backs up in the lungs creating a distinctive soggy mess, also seen when brain signalling is interrupted by other causes, like a broken neck). Another joke: any obituary under fifty years and under fifty words is drug overdose or suicide. Are you laughing yet?

And yet this isn’t seen as a crisis, except by statisticians and public health workers. Unlike the AIDS crisis, there’s no sense of oppressive doom over everyone. There is no overdose-death art. There are no musicals. There’s no community, rising up in anger, demanding someone bear witness to their grief. There’s no sympathy at all. The term of art in my part of the world is “dirtybutts.” Who cares? Let the dirtybutts die.

[Eric the Green]

Suicide is markedly increased by gun availability, so the "blue/red" and "urban/rural" correlations are not surprising.

[pbrower2a]

Quote:The workers would tell jokes. To get these jokes you have to know that toxicology results take weeks to come back, but autopsies are typically done within a few days of death, so generally the coroners don’t know what drugs are on board when they cut up a body. First joke: any body with more than two tattoos is an opiate overdose (tattoos are virtually universal in the rural midwest). Second joke: the student residents will never recognize a normal lung (opiates kill by stopping the brain’s signal to breathe; the result is that fluid backs up in the lungs creating a distinctive soggy mess, also seen when brain signalling is interrupted by other causes, like a broken neck). Another joke: any obituary under fifty years and under fifty words is drug overdose or suicide. Are you laughing yet?

Tattoos are often indicators of criminality. Among whites? I saw one real charmer a couple months ago: the fellow had "WHITE" on one arm and "POWER" on the other.  No, that is not a reference to hydroelectric power. There's nothing bourgeois about overt expressions of that sort of fascism today. Ex-cons are practically unemployable where I live.
An obituary of someone under 50 with more than 50 years often tells of someone whom other relatives recognize. Thus a child who dies of an incurable disease will have parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, and uncles mentioned. An adult who dies of causes unrelated to alcohol, drugs, or suicide might have his work connections mentioned as well as an extended family. Yes, loved ones must pay for the obituary in most newspapers, which may be a difference between having loved ones who care about one and being socially isolated and abandoned.

[Odin]

(07-18-2016, 12:15 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(07-18-2016, 12:41 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Suicide is markedly increased by gun availability, so the "blue/red" and "urban/rural" correlations are not surprising.

Although most of those suicides are by pills washed down by alcohol, or injections followed by alcohol, not guns.

Eric has to make everything about guns in order to justify his being terrified of even stepping foot inside of Flyover Country.

[Eric the Green]

Suicides are greatly enhanced by guns. That's not justifying; it's a fact that gun advocates and apologists ignore.

I shudder to step into states with open carry. Of course Florida is probably the worst; not flyover country, but still home to a lot of lunatics.

[Ragnarök_62]

(07-18-2016, 07:28 PM)Odin Wrote: Eric has to make everything about guns in order to justify his being terrified of even stepping foot inside of Flyover Country.

Ya think?  Eric has OCD issues about guns.

[Eric the Green]

(07-18-2016, 11:46 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(07-18-2016, 07:28 PM)Odin Wrote: Eric has to make everything about guns in order to justify his being terrified of even stepping foot inside of Flyover Country.

Ya think?  Eric has OCD issues about guns.

I don't know what OCD means, but clearly a gun has one and only one purpose: to kill people. I'm not in favor of killing, and I don't know why so many people in red states are so in favor of killing. To have these people, mostly in red states no less, whom we know are (in general) more authoritarian and more prone to violence than others, carrying around guns, is beyond madness. But, what can you expect from red states, or even purple ones, these days? To vote Republican is also madness. And that's what makes them "red states" to begin with. And the trends about guns and red/blue states is almost uniform, and very clearly opposite.

My parents came from red states. I'm glad they got out before I was born They were in Berkeley when I was born

It's true, fly-over country is pretty bad; but I have a yearning to see how the other half lives. But not if I put my life in danger by so doing; whether on the road, or out of the barrel.

[Eric the Green]

The Unnecesariats brought on their fate themselves, by voting Republican for decades. And now they will do it again by voting for Trump, and by thinking Hillary represents the status quo. She doesn't, and she is talking about these people. Instead of committing suicide, they need to vote their interests instead of their prejudices. For people in appalachia and the mountain west, that's unfortunately a tall order these days. They just don't have the education and information level to question authority, so they fall for it again and again, and so their situation declines further.

[Eric the Green]

Our wonderful red-state fly-over country.

[Odin]

(07-19-2016, 12:47 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't know what OCD means, but clearly a gun has one and only one purpose: to kill people. I'm not in favor of killing, and I don't know why so many people in red states are so in favor of killing. To have these people, mostly in red states no less, whom we know are (in general) more authoritarian and more prone to violence than others, carrying around guns, is beyond madness. But, what can you expect from red states, or even purple ones, these days? To vote Republican is also madness. And that's what makes them "red states" to begin with. And the trends about guns and red/blue states is almost uniform, and very clearly opposite.

My parents came from red states. I'm glad they got out before I was born They were in Berkeley when I was born

It's true, fly-over country is pretty bad; but I have a yearning to see how the other half lives. But not if I put my life in danger by so doing; whether on the road, or out of the barrel.

Deer and ducks are people, too?

Listen Eric, you are far more likely to get shot where you live than up here in NW Minnesota. Your fears are completely based on ignorance.

[playwrite]

(07-17-2016, 08:22 PM)Odin Wrote: A really depressing blog post about how those currently left behind by out "new economy" and are completely ignored by mainstream politicians. I grew up around the rural "unnecessariat", so this really hits close to home for me. Lots of people out here in "flyover country" killing themselves directly by suicide or indirectly by drugs because they have no hope in their lives.

Much of this could go away if people would just come to grips with reality.

First, it is now more than obvious that the big drivers in economic activity are large cities.  These cities do need to be connected and supported by smaller cities, towns and rural areas - up to a point.  There are limits to the support needed and people need to grasp those limits and decide if living in less urban areas is worth the limitations that imposes.

Second, we need to completely trash all the economic 'thought' about the unthinking limits or dangers of federal debit and deficits.  There needs to be considerably more federal expenditure on infrastructure, particularly to connect the large urban economic powerhouses with each other as well as the supporting areas - there needs to be high speed rail as well as networked driverless highways that can get people in and out of these power centers so people can live in low-cost and even idyllic settings but draw incomes from their contributions to the economic centers.  Infrastructure for extremely fast Internet connections everywhere would also give those farther afield more options to plugging in and gaining from the economic powerhouses.  Their needs to be greatly increased social expenditure in education and R&D to give people more means to plugging in and to continue to the new goods and services that people don't even know about but will insist on having in the near future.

The biggest barrier to getting to that is actually from the low-informational voters of the "Unncessariat Region" that have been thoroughly manipulated by a Randian elite that want the Unnessariat to continue to be exactly that.

[Eric the Green]

(07-20-2016, 07:15 AM)Odin Wrote:

(07-19-2016, 12:47 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't know what OCD means, but clearly a gun has one and only one purpose: to kill people. I'm not in favor of killing, and I don't know why so many people in red states are so in favor of killing. To have these people, mostly in red states no less, whom we know are (in general) more authoritarian and more prone to violence than others, carrying around guns, is beyond madness. But, what can you expect from red states, or even purple ones, these days? To vote Republican is also madness. And that's what makes them "red states" to begin with. And the trends about guns and red/blue states is almost uniform, and very clearly opposite.

My parents came from red states. I'm glad they got out before I was born They were in Berkeley when I was born

It's true, fly-over country is pretty bad; but I have a yearning to see how the other half lives. But not if I put my life in danger by so doing; whether on the road, or out of the barrel.

Deer and ducks are people, too?

I certainly have no interest in shooting them.

Quote:Listen Eric, you are far more likely to get shot where you live than up here in NW Minnesota. Your fears are completely based on ignorance.

Did I say anything about NW Minnesota?

I never did. But you prefer to think I did, for some reason. That Mercury-Mars square again?

But no, at least anywhere near my neighborhood, I am safe. Maybe less safe in a few neighborhoods 20 miles away. Or in a few 40 or 50 miles away. Still, safer than in open or conceal carry states. Thank the lord I live in a state with relatively sane gun policies! As FDR said about social security, it's "at least some protection!"

[Ragnarök_62]

(07-19-2016, 01:12 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Our wonderful red-state fly-over country.

<snip Red State/Oklahoma diss.

<Snicker>

Joe For America Wrote:Well, they’re stupid enough to deserve the government they get, and we hope they enjoy the coming bankruptcy of their major cities and their state pension funds.  If you’re a state employee, you should consider setting up your own retirement account.
Today’s latest episode doesn’t really focus on the disaster that is California’s government and pension mess, but it’s certainly an indicator of just why the state (and the nation) is in such a mess.
State Senator Leland Yee, a long time and very outspoken advocate for gun registration and confiscation was a candidate for Secretary of State.  If you missed it, earlier this year he was indicted for arms trafficking and public corruption.  Senator Lee is a high ranking Democrat.

Quote:In a stunning criminal complaint, State Sen. Leland Yee has been charged with conspiring to traffic in firearms and public corruption as part of a major FBI operation spanning the Bay Area, casting yet another cloud of corruption over the Democratic establishment in the Legislature and torpedoing Yee’s aspirations for statewide office.

Yup.  Bans lead to black markets.  It's even better to pull for a ban and make a profit on the side.

[Eric the Green]

(07-20-2016, 05:14 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: [quote='Eric the Green' pid='5349' dateline='1468951932']
Our wonderful red-state fly-over country.

<snip Red State/Oklahoma diss.

<Snicker>

Joe For America Wrote:Well, they’re stupid enough to deserve the government they get, and we hope they enjoy the coming bankruptcy of their major cities and their state pension funds.  If you’re a state employee, you should consider setting up your own retirement account.
Today’s latest episode doesn’t really focus on the disaster that is California’s government and pension mess, but it’s certainly an indicator of just why the state (and the nation) is in such a mess.
State Senator Leland Yee, a long time and very outspoken advocate for gun registration and confiscation was a candidate for Secretary of State.  If you missed it, earlier this year he was indicted for arms trafficking and public corruption.  Senator Lee is a high ranking Democrat.

Quote:In a stunning criminal complaint, State Sen. Leland Yee has been charged with conspiring to traffic in firearms and public corruption as part of a major FBI operation spanning the Bay Area, casting yet another cloud of corruption over the Democratic establishment in the Legislature and torpedoing Yee’s aspirations for statewide office.

Yup.  Bans lead to black markets.  It's even better to pull for a ban and make a profit on the side.

Public corruption never prospers. This has nothing to do with the comment "bans lead to black markets," which is irrelevant in every sense and in every way.

[playwrite]

(07-20-2016, 05:14 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(07-19-2016, 01:12 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Our wonderful red-state fly-over country.

<snip Red State/Oklahoma diss.

<Snicker>

Joe For America Wrote:Well, they’re stupid enough to deserve the government they get, and we hope they enjoy the coming bankruptcy of their major cities and their state pension funds.  If you’re a state employee, you should consider setting up your own retirement account.
Today’s latest episode doesn’t really focus on the disaster that is California’s government and pension mess, but it’s certainly an indicator of just why the state (and the nation) is in such a mess.
State Senator Leland Yee, a long time and very outspoken advocate for gun registration and confiscation was a candidate for Secretary of State.  If you missed it, earlier this year he was indicted for arms trafficking and public corruption.  Senator Lee is a high ranking Democrat.

Quote:In a stunning criminal complaint, State Sen. Leland Yee has been charged with conspiring to traffic in firearms and public corruption as part of a major FBI operation spanning the Bay Area, casting yet another cloud of corruption over the Democratic establishment in the Legislature and torpedoing Yee’s aspirations for statewide office.

Yup.  Bans lead to black markets.  It's even better to pull for a ban and make a profit on the side.

Lee should be taken out and shot!

Whoops, excuse me, I thought I was at the GOP convention.  My bad.

[TheNomad]

(07-17-2016, 08:22 PM)Odin Wrote: A really depressing blog post about how those currently left behind by out "new economy" and are completely ignored by mainstream politicians. I grew up around the rural "unnecessariat", so this really hits close to home for me. Lots of people out here in "flyover country" killing themselves directly by suicide or indirectly by drugs because they have no hope in their lives.

This is really good because it's something I've expressed for a while now.  I must tie into the "opioid crisis" and all this mess with healthcare that people are being yanked off medication they need because "you will fall asleep and die". 

I have tied this in to exactly what the OP is saying.  I have believed for a while people ARE intentionally killing themselves due to losing everything in the New Great Depression.  We all were instructed to call it The Great Recession and then that even went away after a while.  No one is talking about it anymore.

No one is really checking into the matters of FACT that entire lives were decimated since 2008.  And lives continue to be decimated still now, a decade later.  Depending on what city or state you live in, there are more homeless on EVERY intersection begging and living under bridges that I care to count.  People are being evicted and forced out with unreasonable rents.  Right now (and not everyone lives in San Francisco but it's an indicator) a 1 bedroom apartment ON AVERAGE costs about $2500/mo.  ONE BEDROOM APARTMENT in the greater bay area.

This is not just a big city problem, it is an everywhere problem.

And I do believe people are just choosing to check out of their own volition.  They may be using prescription drugs to do it.  I happen to use certain prescription drugs and was greatly affected by this nonsense that people are accidentally going to the medicine cabinet in the middle of the night and taking too many pills BY MISTAKE and dying.  I do not subscribe to the idea medications that worked for ppl for decades are SUDDENLY life-threatening.

The fact is, entire lives were and continue to be wiped out, the American Dream is practically dead, and a lot of ppl just don't care to work 5 jobs until they are 80yo and die without ever retiring or saving anything and living paycheck to paycheck with all that stress.

And when people in "flyover" states die like this, no one cares or notices.  It's only when affluent or semi-affluent whites in metro areas do it that it becomes a National Emergency.  But it's not the RIGHT emergency.  It's lies.  People are not dying from opiates because they fell asleep and passed away from accidentally using the prescription not as prescribed.  I believe there IS an epidemic where a huge portion of America has given up.  And I kinda don't blame them.

a short story:

A friend of mine was a self-made business man.  He opened a business and worked it for 25 years.  During that time, he bought a home in which to retire.  When he sold the business and moved to that home, his loans crashed in (as did thousands in the late 00s and beyond) and he ended up losing that home.  He then left the state he was born in and lived in his entire life to move somewhere with his family where they thought they could afford to rent.  Being retired and no other skilled AND DISABLED, he and his family were not able to afford the rent even in a state with much less rent values as where he moved from.  IN THEIR 70s, they moved in with family in a god-forsaken wilderness, sold just about everything they owned, lost ALL the value and savings they had set up to retire on.  My friend died in 2011 from a heart attack which physicians say was due to massive stress.  Not being able to care for his family or pass anything on to his children.

That story above could be told again and again I think.  He did not kill himself, but as far as I am concerned HE WAS KILLED. 

Another friend owned property and rented out most of it while living in one unit.  He eventually bought a home in which to retire.  When he was no longer able to afford his mortgage, they took his home.  His parents had passed down the property to him, it was all they had to give him, it was ALL HE HAD, and then he had nothing.  One day, he moved away and I have not seen him since.

How many ppl have been exiled from the lives they knew?

How many Americans lost everything in this New Depression?

And we are being lied to about Americans DYING with prescription meds.  I truly believe ppl have lost everything and simply gave up.  They had some pills, they sat back with a bottle of wine and checked out.  Honestly, some of them faced THAT or becoming the filthy panhandler at the freeway trying to survive one more day.  In that situation, I cannot really blame ppl who would make that decision.

I have not even spoken here about lost jobs and the "new economy" there are just so many reasons for people to be giving up.  Our lives are really being stolen.  Wealth sucked away, then jobs sucked away, families ruined, people working 7 jobs just to pay monthly bills.... and now the rise of machines doing the work of humans and things like amazon running slave labor while not paying tax (i digress) but jobs are being removed at such a rapid rate............... I believed Americans as a whole are willing to work to maintain their lives......

however, WHO in their right mind accepts the idea that you cannot work ONE job as an average person and simply survive?

ONE JOB to survive.  40 hours a week and you can EXIST.  That isn't America anymore.  if you work on a salary, you are OWNED.  You are compelled to work 80 hours because if you dont SOMEONE ELSE WILL.  And the rent/mortgage is out of control, no one can even afford to PURCHASE property anymore and rents are too expensive...... what is America now except Oligarchs and the 1%?

Truly, there is only the SERVED and the SERVANTS.  Which are you?  The servants will huddle up 10 to a room while the served wander a mansion.

[Kinser79]

(07-18-2016, 12:41 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Suicide is markedly increased by gun availability, so the "blue/red" and "urban/rural" correlations are not surprising.

Gun availability has nothing to do with suicide.  Japan and South Korea have the highest rates of suicide world wide and also some of the toughest gun regulations on the planet.  In the US people choose guns because it is far easier to shoot themselves than to jump in front of the local bullet train like they do in Tokyo.

[pbrower2a]

(05-09-2019, 07:51 PM)TheNomad Wrote:

(07-17-2016, 08:22 PM)Odin Wrote: A really depressing blog post about how those currently left behind by out "new economy" and are completely ignored by mainstream politicians. I grew up around the rural "unnecessariat", so this really hits close to home for me. Lots of people out here in "flyover country" killing themselves directly by suicide or indirectly by drugs because they have no hope in their lives.

This is really good because it's something I've expressed for a while now.  I must tie into the "opioid crisis" and all this mess with healthcare that people are being yanked off medication they need because "you will fall asleep and die". 

I have tied this in to exactly what the OP is saying.  I have believed for a while people ARE intentionally killing themselves due to losing everything in the New Great Depression.  We all were instructed to call it The Great Recession and then that even went away after a while.  No one is talking about it anymore.

Opiates are cheap solutions for pain that might be more effectively treated with surgery or therapy -- often among people with work-related injuries, including the cumulative effects of physical strain and 'minor' accidents in such activities as mining, construction, and logging.  But pills are far cheaper than physical therapy, although they often bring about the ultimate cost -- a patient's life.

Last year I had a backache so severe that it suggested a coronary. It proved muscular-skeletal in nature. I insisted upon physical therapy instead of pain-killers.

Those people who have been injured on the job need new lives. They need retraining and perhaps relocation. But if one is 40+ and a high-school dropout, retraining is probably more difficult than if one is a 30-year-old college graduate. What do we do? Good question.

Quote:No one is really checking into the matters of FACT that entire lives were decimated since 2008.  And lives continue to be decimated still now, a decade later.  Depending on what city or state you live in, there are more homeless on EVERY intersection begging and living under bridges that I care to count.  People are being evicted and forced out with unreasonable rents.  Right now (and not everyone lives in San Francisco but it's an indicator) a 1 bedroom apartment ON AVERAGE costs about $2500/mo.  ONE BEDROOM APARTMENT in the greater bay area.

The problem is that the opportunities to earn a good living are increasingly concentrated in fewer places, and in such places, landlords profiteer off the scarcity of real estate. One loses one way or another.  Life is getting better for our economic elites, but horrible for the rest of us. Economic inequality has been approaching the level that we have usually associated with fascist juntas and plantation societies. To be parts of America have had plantation societies (especially the South) but much of the pattern is spreading.

When manufacturing was less concentrated, people were able to graduate from high school (employers insisted upon the diploma because that showed that one could follow instructions and put up with some unpleasant and unavoidable situations) and get factory jobs that paid enough to afford meeting a mortgage on a tract house in rural America, a car for each working adult, and adequate furniture and appliances. That is over. The manufacturing jobs have gone overseas. Of course, Americans are buying less stuff.

Quote:This is not just a big city problem, it is an everywhere problem.

It is a big problem in rural areas. The heroin epidemic is not so much in places that endured it in the 1960s and 1970s -- it is often in places that missed it then, such as eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia. A generational effect applies; blacks in late-middle age who remember the heroin epidemic of forty to fifty-five years ago are in a position to warn vulnerable youth to stay clear of it.

Where I live we also have lots of perverts, including a trio (if guilty as charged) of plotting to kidnap a little girl, molest her, and kill her. The three were apparently involved in the Dark Web in a site that shares a name with a late political figure whose family would love to shut the site down. That family has legitimate business interests. It is reasonable to assume that anyone involved in such a crime have practically damned themselves to unspeakable, but well-deserved, horrors in prison. I have seen the pictures, and I see meth.

...People used to have strong incentives to stay within expected norms. But if one is working for Third World pay in a culture so soulless that it recognizes material indulgence as the only viable purpose in life, then you can expect any sense of community to vanish.

Quote:And I do believe people are just choosing to check out of their own volition.  They may be using prescription drugs to do it.  I happen to use certain prescription drugs and was greatly affected by this nonsense that people are accidentally going to the medicine cabinet in the middle of the night and taking too many pills BY MISTAKE and dying.  I do not subscribe to the idea medications that worked for ppl for decades are SUDDENLY life-threatening.

The line between suicide and self-destructive behavior is not so clear as we once thought. I have been a suicide risk in recent years as my life collapsed. Life was not so great, but I could occasionally do something enjoyable, like travel to some place different from the dreary hick town in which I live. Now I feel stuck. I have medical problems (including narcolepsy) that could cause me to lose a job. I usually get enough of a warning that I can pull off to the side of the road or at least stop at a highway exit. There are stretches of highway that I do not want to be upon at certain times in the afternoon.

Narcotic medications are  appropriate for temporary pain and for terminal illnesses. They have the merit of cheapness and ease of administration. They are also easy ways with which to off oneself. I would guess that the life of an addict is a miserable one, and many overdoses are suicides for all practical purposes.

Quote:The fact is, entire lives were and continue to be wiped out, the American Dream is practically dead, and a lot of ppl just don't care to work 5 jobs until they are 80yo and die without ever retiring or saving anything and living paycheck to paycheck with all that stress.

I wish that I could honestly tell children that they have much to which to look forward, especially that they can expect to see incremental improvements in their lives as they develop and hone marketable skills that support a good living, whether those are in labor by muscle or labor by intellect. To be honest, all that I can say is that unless one is born into the right family, one exists solely to make someone already filthy-rich even more filthy rich while those filthy-rich people consign one to unending poverty and fear. The costs of such basic things as housing, medical care, education, utilities, and transportation keep rising faster than workers' incomes. In essence, the common man exists to enrich or pamper the filthy-rich, and the plutocrat's horse has life better than the worker's child. 

Quote:And when people in "flyover" states die like this, no one cares or notices.  It's only when affluent or semi-affluent whites in metro areas do it that it becomes a National Emergency.  But it's not the RIGHT emergency.  It's lies.  People are not dying from opiates because they fell asleep and passed away from accidentally using the prescription not as prescribed.  I believe there IS an epidemic where a huge portion of America has given up.  And I kinda don't blame them.

Mass poverty seemed not to be a big problem in America in the 1920s until the speculative bubble burst in 1929, and people in the middle class suddenly became poor. As in other countries, America was forced to choose between fascism (a choice that Germany took), Bolshevism (which Russia had taken), and major reforms.  What would we do now?

It is not the poor who cause poverty. They did not choose poverty; poverty chose them. Our current way is wonderful for 2% of Americans, about 3% would be successful anywhere, and the rest of us are stuck. The rest of us know that the most powerful people have decided that we are expendable. It is not a lack of technology or resources. We have those in plenty -- maybe even in excess.

Maybe the concept from the generational theory of the Great Devaluation meets a basic rule of human nature that none can escape. Uncomfortable as it is to say, the toiler has nothing to sell but his toil -- just as said Karl Marx. With Continental currency, Confederate banknotes, and the overpriced stocks of the 1920s, the  people who owned them could often easily turn to tried-and-true means of making a living. When jobs disappear or pay only starvation wages, then what can the prole do?

Quote:a short story:

A friend of mine was a self-made business man.  He opened a business and worked it for 25 years.  During that time, he bought a home in which to retire.  When he sold the business and moved to that home, his loans crashed in (as did thousands in the late 00s and beyond) and he ended up losing that home.  He then left the state he was born in and lived in his entire life to move somewhere with his family where they thought they could afford to rent.  Being retired and no other skilled AND DISABLED, he and his family were not able to afford the rent even in a state with much less rent values as where he moved from.  IN THEIR 70s, they moved in with family in a god-forsaken wilderness, sold just about everything they owned, lost ALL the value and savings they had set up to retire on.  My friend died in 2011 from a heart attack which physicians say was due to massive stress.  Not being able to care for his family or pass anything on to his children.

That story above could be told again and again I think.  He did not kill himself, but as far as I am concerned HE WAS KILLED. 

Capitalism without mercy is an abomination.

Quote:Another friend owned property and rented out most of it while living in one unit.  He eventually bought a home in which to retire.  When he was no longer able to afford his mortgage, they took his home.  His parents had passed down the property to him, it was all they had to give him, it was ALL HE HAD, and then he had nothing.  One day, he moved away and I have not seen him since.

How many ppl have been exiled from the lives they knew?

This time we have been told that first we rescue the elites. Then the elites use their rescue as a means of recovery into buying the political system. We end up with politicians who believe as do their financial backers and the lobbyists who pull the strings upon them, that no human suffering is ever in excess so long as it creates the wealth, indulges the wealth-holders, or enforces the will of the wealth-holders. Except for the Southern racists, we have never had such scummy politicians before.

One political dabbler has chosen to scapegoat people because he has nothing else to offer. He is now President.

Quote:How many Americans lost everything in this New Depression?

And we are being lied to about Americans DYING with prescription meds.  I truly believe ppl have lost everything and simply gave up.  They had some pills, they sat back with a bottle of wine and checked out.  Honestly, some of them faced THAT or becoming the filthy panhandler at the freeway trying to survive one more day.  In that situation, I cannot really blame ppl who would make that decision.

I admit that in these times I often contemplate what it would take for me to put an end to it all. If I were forty years younger I would consider emigration. At my age that is out of the question. Elderhood has been fine for those who have the means; for those who lack those means, life is misery. Everything has a price tag, and the price tags keep getting bigger numbers while wages are frozen.

Quote:I have not even spoken here about lost jobs and the "new economy" there are just so many reasons for people to be giving up.  Our lives are really being stolen.  Wealth sucked away, then jobs sucked away, families ruined, people working 7 jobs just to pay monthly bills.... and now the rise of machines doing the work of humans and things like amazon running slave labor while not paying tax (i digress) but jobs are being removed at such a rapid rate............... I believed Americans as a whole are willing to work to maintain their lives......

It's a revival of an old economy -- the economy of sharecropping.

Quote:however, WHO in their right mind accepts the idea that you cannot work ONE job as an average person and simply survive?

ONE JOB to survive.  40 hours a week and you can EXIST.  That isn't America anymore.  if you work on a salary, you are OWNED.  You are compelled to work 80 hours because if you dont SOMEONE ELSE WILL.  And the rent/mortgage is out of control, no one can even afford to PURCHASE property anymore and rents are too expensive...... what is America now except Oligarchs and the 1%?

Truly, there is only the SERVED and the SERVANTS.  Which are you?  The servants will huddle up 10 to a room while the served wander a mansion.

A hint -- the royal families in France in 1789 and in Russia in 1917 had no clue of how bad things were getting, and how precarious their hold on power was.

[TheNomad]

pbrower2a I appreciate all you had said. I don't need to respond to it. Sometimes we ALL need to just listen to each other.