Your poor it must be your fault

Hm. Seems to me that so many posts and responses on here are just so much crap. Im sorry, but saying that we are born into this tough world, and you just have to decide to make the best of it, is the same as one slave saying that to another in american colonial times. The people in our country are economically abused. They are coerced to work for a pittance. That pittance is growing smaller. If minimum wage (which we fought for) had increased at the same rate as inflation (true inflation), it would be about 20/hour now. However, those in power use that power to force the increase of their wealth, which means it has to be taken from someone, and that someone is the poor and middle class.
We have 40 million people on foodstamps...thats the most ever. And we have 40% of our nation making $10 an hour or less. When you see a large portion of the population expressing a specific attribute, that is not an anomoly or personality defect, its a product of that society. Poverty, hopeless, addiction, are the large end products of american society on one side, while a small, priveleged elite few are the products on the other side. I refuse to believe that an accurate reflection of humanity is that a few kindly people want to work hard and be nice enough to make all the decisions for us, while a large plurality want nothing more than to sit around and be lazy. This is a direct creation of the system of manipulation and exploitation that controls this country.
The OP didnt place his post to whine, he was railing at the injustice of the system we live in. It IS unjust. Anyone who doubts that is a fool. Furthermore, to say that a few made it, so its about choice is crap. Im sure a few jews survived in nazi germany too. Im sure a few palestinians have some wealth in jerusalem as well. To use these minority examples as a presentation that the system is not stacked against them is ludicrous.
We really have little concept of how many americans make it against the grain, because all the statistics have been so manipulated and skewed that we have little real idea of how many are truly in poverty, and how many truly achieve the dream, but what i can tell you is that for the last five years, REAL income has fallen drastically. I work in hospitals, which are the only growth sector in our economy now, and there have been no raises in the multiple hospitals i have worked in for the last 5 years. This is on top of the fact that real income had been gradually falling since the 70's.
If you want to take the shoe soup they feed you and call it lobster bisque, fine for you, but dont try to convince us that we're eating anything but gruel, or that they dont plan to come next year to steal the sugar and salt from it. The year after it will be the butter. Then the grain, and all we'll be left with is hot water, which you'll try to convince us is wine.

I would also like to add, for those of you coming from third world nations, and wondering at our use of the term "poor".... When we say poor, its not exactly a reflection of the material possession we have at the moment. Its a state of being where the most likely foreseable future is a declining standard of living, where the limited choices available to us are most likely to lead to steadily increasing debt, locking us into a state of peonage. Our system is rapidly pushing more and more people into a state of debt slavery. Yes, as others have pointed out, it is possible to work 3 or 4 of the non-value added jobs that we have been creating to replace our outsourced professional positions, and keep ourselves above water. However, our fathers and our father's fathers did not fight for 40 hour work weeks, safe working conditions, benefits, retirement, and an honest days pay for an honest days work, all so that we could relinquish these things that ALL MEN DESERVE in just a few generations of corporate mastery. To blithely sit by and square our shoulders, and let them take all this away, as we tell each other "This is the system, you just have to work harder", is to spit on all they fought for. Im sure there are people in china, making 2 dollars a day, saying "you just have to suck it up and work harder"....but thats not what i accept for myself.

I have never understood how all my teen years i heard people saying, "oh, a girl who sleeps with anyone has no self respect", and yet as an adult we are told that whatever measly ass pay we get offered for a job is all that we deserve. I think its the same thing situation. A person who is doing a hard or difficult job, and accepting minimum wage has no self respect. Our time and true effort is worth more than that. When i was a kid, my first job was 4.25 an hour and i could get....four gallons of gas. Now, above the median income (which is 27k/year, or 13.50/hr), my pay as a psyche tech is about 16/hr....and i can get....four gallons of gas. And i can say, at my pay there is a good return on working overtime, but this is a diminishing return as you go lower in pay. At the minimum wage of 7.40 or so, the return is negligable, and at the same time, working those overtime shifts makes a BIG difference in how tired and strung out you feel at the end of the week. At what point will people say, "oh, yeah, working for 4 hours to buy an apple is silly"? What amount do you think our hard labor is worth? Does it even matter to you folk, who say "just work harder or longer to improve your situation, its all in your hands", that an immigrant coming to our nation may be offered (and ive heard this direct from a vietnamese immigrant) 8 hours of work and then paid at the end of it with a sandwhich and some juice? When he has a family to feed? When is it bad enough for you to stop your "well, you just have to work harder" crap, and just admit, yeah, its not a fair system, and if most people arent making it, then maybe we need to address why, instead of just pointing the fingers at the losers and the victims?

One more comment to make here, then im off my soapbox. To all those saying, "well, I did it, and it was all me, and i congratulate myself, and if i did it alone, you can too"... You did NOT do it alone. You did it with the help of the fair wage act that our forefathers fought for. You did it with the help of the safety in labor laws that our forefathers fought for. With the help of the forty hour work week, mandatory breaks, anti-child labor laws. If you are a woman, you did it with the help of women's sufferage and womens rights that our fore(mothers) fought for. You did it with the help of our educational system, with the help of your support base, whether it be family or friends, and with the help of co-workers, managers, and clients that have all been there along the way.

You did it with the help of anti descrimination laws, and laws against predatory lending, and regulations against predatory work practices. No man is an island, no man born and working today "Did it himself". It started with the peoples rebellion against the heirarchy in old europe, and your success has been aided by all the efforts of the societies since.

My point being, all those things, that were fought for, and that helped make a man able to thrive or sink on their own (or woman).....those liberties are being eroded and de-regulated out of existance. It seems to me that one group is saying "well, i could still do it, so you can just bear it too"...however, less and less people are "doing" it, and that means something. The people who post stories of hopelessness and lack of opportunity, they are trying to draw attention to something. That something we once had, and something we value, safety from corporate predations, protection from bankers greed, opportunity to succeed, this something is diminishing. This is a trajedy, not something to be mocked, not something to be poo-poo'ed. Not something to ignore.

Originally posted by Xtrozero

Originally posted by crazyewok
Secound point: What this crap about the American Dream? I hear American sprout it all the time and what they describe is not unique in the USA. Guess what! Here in the UK its the same! Work hard at school do a couple of really crappy jobs as a teenager/ young adult (working in mcdonalds is as part of growing up as getting spotts) and then chances are you will end up in a comfortable well paid job were you can buy a house, own two cars and have 2 holidays a year. Dont work hard and you end up in a council estate (our version of a ghetto) easting procesed foods and watching reality TV all day while next door cooks meth. So its not the American dream, its just called life in the westen world.

The American Dream is to start your own business...not work for someone else...so you got it all wrong with what you think it is.

I can do that here in uk. Piss easy to get a buisness loan and start a buisness if you have something to sell. Hell some of the richest guys in the would started as poor Brits, eg Richard branson and Alan Suger. So again no diffrent than anywere else really.

Originally posted by crazyewok

I can do that here in uk. Piss easy to get a buisness loan and start a buisness if you have something to sell. Hell some of the richest guys in the would started as poor Brits, eg Richard branson and Alan Suger. So again no diffrent than anywere else really.

Then why are you not rich owning your own business if it is so piss easy....hehe

I'm not going to argue whether it is an American Dream or a British one, but in the vast majority of the world there is no middle class and so there is no way for anyone not in the extremely small top percentage to get anywhere in life at all. The American Dream was not coined by Brits, but by poor immigrants coming from these other countries where they have zero chance to achieve. To have a middle class allows stepping stones to move up as in poor, lower middle, middle, upper middle, wealthy, extremely rich. That is the American Dream's formula where in their old country they have extreme poor, poor, rich, extreme rich....

BTW my post was to point out your error in assuming what the American Dream was all about and I just corrected it...

Originally posted by Xtrozero

Originally posted by crazyewok

I can do that here in uk. Piss easy to get a buisness loan and start a buisness if you have something to sell. Hell some of the richest guys in the would started as poor Brits, eg Richard branson and Alan Suger. So again no diffrent than anywere else really.

Then why are you not rich owning your own business if it is so piss easy....hehe

I'm not going to argue whether it is an American Dream or a British one, but in the vast majority of the world there is no middle class and so there is no way for anyone not in the extremely small top percentage to get anywhere in life at all. The American Dream was not coined by Brits, but by poor immigrants coming from these other countries where they have zero chance to achieve. To have a middle class allows stepping stones to move up as in poor, lower middle, middle, upper middle, wealthy, extremely rich. That is the American Dream's formula where in their old country they have extreme poor, poor, rich, extreme rich....

BTW my post was to point out your error in assuming what the American Dream was all about and I just corrected it...

No fair do's but it not a dream confined to just the USA anymore, it should be called the westen dream. I would say im center in middle class and to be honnest happy there. The reason I have not got a buissness is just I have not got a head for buisness. I could get a loan but I would likely skrew my business up Im a Biologist and happy being a lab rat but thats just me.

reply to post by wantsome


I get what you are saying yes many do not have equal opportunity. However many have come from similar circumstances and risen above it. You have access to a computer and a world of opportunity... Perception and belief is everything. If you believe you have no chance and no opportunity then you don't because you will not be seeking any. If you believe you do and persevere you will find your opportunity.

Originally posted by hawkiye
I get what you are saying yes many do not have equal opportunity. However many have come from similar circumstances and risen above it. You have access to a computer and a world of opportunity... Perception and belief is everything. If you believe you have no chance and no opportunity then you don't because you will not be seeking any. If you believe you do and persevere you will find your opportunity.

Look at how many rich kids fail in life..... The bottom line is whether your rich or poor it is all up to the individual as to whether they make it in life or not. Yes, there are a few kids that spend their lives living off their inheritance, but even though the news wants to follow them all the time they are the few.

A person that is reliable, does a good job, and demonstrates they are better than the masses around them will succeed, but then that takes time and perseverance that is severely lacking in today's society. Look at the 99%ers who leave college with some degree that is no better than a degree in basket weaving , and they say "where is my high paying job!" "I paid my 50k and did four years, now give me my JOB!". Life just doesn't work that way...even though the education system been telling them otherwise their whole lives.

Everyone sees that crappy degree as their golden ring and we have an all time low in apprenticeships out there, but then who would want to make 100k as a plumber...hehe

Originally posted by Xtrozero

. Look at the 99%ers who leave college with some degree that is no better than a degree in basket weaving , and they say "where is my high paying job!" "I paid my 50k and did four years, now give me my JOB!". Life just doesn't work that way...even though the education system been telling them otherwise their whole lives.

Everyone sees that crappy degree as their golden ring and we have an all time low in apprenticeships out there, but then who would want to make 100k as a plumber...hehe

That exactly the same in the UK ! You can do degree in travel an tourism or football? Yet skilled jobs there is a shortage. It nice to know the UK isnt the only country handing out dumass degrees.

Sorry, but i find these arguments to be so much dross. The problem is that in the US, and im not sure about western culture in general, people do not grow up. Our adults are all a bunch of children. Part of growing up is gaining the maturity and wisdom to accept that we are not in control. It is the release of the need for control. All of your ideas are a reflection of the myth if individual exceptionalism, the american addiction to and need for belief in control.

We are NOT in control. Life has many random factors that impact us that we have absolutely no control over, and immaturity is the inability to accept this truth. This is why, in a nation like the US, an ignorant, greedy fool like George Bush can become president, due to family connections, financial backing, and corporate support. Meanwhile, humans with true nobility, such as Ron Paul, Dennis Kuccinich, or Mike Gravel, have no chance. In case most dont know it, statistically, the US has fallen far behind most western industrial nations when it comes to social mobility. If you are born rich, you are much more likely to remain rich, while if you are born poor, you are much more likely to remain so.

It is this same immaturity and childishness, this lack of wisdom due to a lack of meditative culture and a culture of addiction to stimulation and infotainment, ignorance, and belligerance, that makes most americans believe they have the ability to judge others worth, laziness, etc, based upon their income, class, or possessions. I see all the time where people are judging those on TV or in the news, when they have no clue the truth of that persons situation or reality. Judgement is a facet of ignorance and lack of wisdom, and even in the bible god claims "i keep judgement for my own". We have so much contradiction in our society that i see american "christians" wearing a crucifix as they go off to war to rob others in third world nations of their freedom, natural resources, life, and dignity.

reply to post by pexx421

All of your ideas are a reflection of the myth if individual exceptionalism, the american addiction to and need for belief in control.

Not at all you simply ignore the fact the many people have overcome all the circumstances you have described and more and gone on to be successful. These are facts not ideas. No one is saying that these circumstances are not a huge disadvantage making it very difficult to overcome and many fail because of that. However the fact remains many have proven they can be overcome and even from worse circumstances then you describe. If you chose to ignore those facts and truths then indeed it will all seem hopeless.

Well, i havent described circumstances. However, what i would like to point out is that the number of people overcoming these situations is shrinking with each generation. The number of rags to riches stories are getting fewer and fewer statistically, and i refuse to believe this is an expression of a truth that people are becoming more lazy and less willing to work. Rather I see it as a reflection of the product of our society, as i stated. The increase in opposition to working class welbeing and welfare, the decrease of regulations protecting workers and consumers from corporate predation, and the consolidation of control of money and opportunity in our society into the hands of the few. A strong healthy society, founded on values, is one that provides greater opportunity for the majority. I think it is quite obvious and demonstrable that this is no longer the case here. Now, it seems, the person who starts with little and makes his way to prosperity, and what we consider "success" is becoming a smaller and smaller exception with each passing decade.

It used to be the case that there were plenty of jobs available, blue and white collar, for the majority of people, where a single working parent could support a family. Our lives werent debt based, we didnt have to mortgage 1/3 of our lives to have a home, or a car, or an education. This is no longer the case. Now, even with both parents working, for the majority of americans it is a struggle. TPTB control our access to information, to the point where most americans dont understand what healthy diet is, or what is causing their diseases, or how to cure them, or what truly happened through history, or what news is true now. People are made to feel isolated and powerless by intent. Our ability to protest or work for true change is not only compromised, but actively worked against with threat of violence or imprisonment. Any who question status quo, or official political dogma, are made to feel ostracized. It is a system of control, and pitting those who have managed to succeed (for now) against those who have fallen through the cracks is part and parcel of that system of control.

Further, any who would defend said system, by saying things like "i know such and such who did well, so if you cant, its your fault" are a pillar in the support of this system of control, same as the people who espouse the jargon "if youre not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about" when they restrict our freedoms in the name of security. Its weak minded drivel to think that people should just suck up the fact that we live in a flawed system, where the needs of the many are falling further and further beneath the waves every day, as the priveleged elite grow richer and richer. That the poor should embrace the violence, abuse, and manipulation they are subjected to as their just due, because they didnt get the lucky break of having an ancestor who was a robber baron, like the rothschilds, rockefellers, morgans, carnegies, bushes and so on.

The idea that it is noble for corporations and shareholders to eat up more and more of the profits while the workers are forced to get by on less pay, less benefits, and less protections is a fallacy, as is the belief that banks deserve bailouts, and defense contractors deserve subsidies, but the working poor deserve derision and bile. I would put one step further and mention the deeply hidden belief that i believe many americans hold, which is that its justified that brown people around the world can be subject to theft, rape, and murder, in order that us americans can maintain our standard of living. All these ideas are the building blocks of a society that can ignore the pain and sorrow of other nations subject to our imperialism and our war mongering, and ignore the misery of our own poor and lower class, so long as we have all of our needs met, needs which are presented to us in commercials and advertising, and which bring a fulfilment as hollow as the stomachs of the third world, and as vain as the cover of a cosmo magazine.

Of course you are describing circumstances. I don't disagree with you that it is getting harder and harder for people and that greed corruption etc. is making it worse and that many circumstances people are born into or find themselves in are not their fault. I understand your frustration at the callousness of those who claim its all ones fault if they are poor etc..

However having said that the point is never give up and look to those who have overcome worse adversity and rose above all those obstacles for inspiration it proves it can be done. The Jews in the Warsaw ghetto against all odds finally turned and stood up to their oppressors when all seemed lost. there are many such acts in history and less known even in the present day of people overcoming seemingly overwhelming odds that we can draw inspiration and strength from.

I am struggling myself right now but I refuse to give up. Change the things you can don't worry about what you can't and keep pressing forward even when all seems lost. It is always darkest before the dawn. Better to light a candle rather then curse the darkness!

reply to post by wantsome


If you're gonna make big statements with big titles then please spell correctly.
Now I am not about pretentiousness at all however, impression last forever and the whole argument of 'what's right or wrong' drops a notch.

Bottom line: Don't like it? Don't like being classified then I recommend you hold your breath, get off the grid and stay under radar as long as you humanly can.
(and watch your spelling)

reply to post by wantsome


Hey dude, my mother was a schizophrenic, so pretty much daily I check my sanity. It's getting harder and harder when I hang around tin foilers all the time!

I just want you to know that I've felt the same, still do feel the same. It all seems so #ing pointless to me too; but it's websites like ATS that have given me some hope in the future. If we can all just connect and support each other we can make something out of this life and this world.

Never give up hope, search for something that you can really immerse yourself in. My advice is to exist for the people outside of you, to do things for the people of the world and not for yourself. It gives me a little comfort in my life to feel like I am not doing it for myself but for everyone else.

If I lived my life selfishly I would never ever do anything.

Peace.

I wrote a long long post, as my own past came pouring out. It was cathartic but I know no one else wants to read that.

There's a lot that can be said abotu the subject though. The Protestant ethics that our country was established on give the rich the image of the morally and ethically superior, and that was a protest against the Catholic ethics of poverty as the proof of moral and ethical superiority.

Neither is realistic.

But one provides a more fulfilling collective experience, the other provides a more fulfilling individual experience.
When you have started in hell and climbed out, you gain a wealth in self awareness and personal pride before your own conscience. More so than if you live in a society which protects children and provides a minimum of security and protection to start life from. In the US people have the freedom to raise their children as they wish.
This has a lot of good and bad results to it.

All I can say is that you can turn your challenges into opportunities.

I stayed out of this so far, because most people are really roped into ideologies that support the system.

Change, and I'm not revolution, just joy, happiness, abundance flowing out to all, has to start at the bottom, its the grass roots change that matters. Not that the middle class are not the good meat and potatoes and good group, with the slime floating to the top in the melting pot. But they're bought off somewhat, and the ones who are healthy and successful, don't realize that this is not the norm for the world, and even in their own country, not the conditions of all people, yet everyone counts. They tend to pride themselves for doing well as if virtous, when the real virtue is paying attention to everyone around them and ensuring all live with dignity, abundance, and no one is in trauma, poverty, despair, bad health, neglected. That their gifts they would have, when they came into the tests were "gifts' not "givens" and they should have helped where they could.

But then there is another problem, they can't really. If millions woke up all at once and wrote in to their leaders about how they see the corruption at the top, and its over, they are only supporting real people from now on, and withdrew support and money from this system, ie buying from each other but not monopolies, choosing their own people, to run for office. TPTB would arrange some very dangerous things to stop this awareness.

And middle class really are barely keeping above water themselves too.

So the change has to come from the bottom up. Grass roots solutions, joining together, starting small businesses, getting land going for eco farms, with community work so people begin to spread abundance around and pay attention to those in need and rescue those in slums, and bad neighborhoods so kids grow up working in greenhouses, instead of in gangs. Learning electronics, and woodworking. Building guitars, and energy devices.

People need to buy from each other, not from monopolies.

Thats what will change things, awareness and instead of feeling so much shame that they can't speak up, as the poor often do. They see but can't speak up.

Instead, they need to start networking and speaking up together and come up some business ideas, and find the way, either through donations or passing the hat, or local programs, to get some of the up and running and find the way, to secure good homes, yurts, fixed up fifth wheels, put two together, cover them in hempstone, or paper crete, or cob, inexpensive and attractive homes for everyone, food and gardens, greenhouses for everyone. Businesses for all.

If people are handicapped, they need to be a part of a good team, a family or a family of close friends who are trustable, who can share a business. Set up passive things for those very handicapped, with others managing them for them.

There are solutions, if people start to think, why buy into the scarsity into the GMO, into the monopolies and start to get true free enterprise going.

We should only be buying from those with integrity.

Michael Tsarion. Atlantis and the Druids. Jeff Rense Show 2005

I just finished listening to this the other day. And one of the things he mentions, I'll have to put into my own words here, how it struck me.

But he was talking about working with teens, or teenagers, and our judgements on others basically. Dsyfunctional behavior.

And it was all programming, or a response to trauma, and I might add. The normal human response to trauma and stress.

The dysfunction, the violence, despair, crappy behavior, crimes, lost children, all a normal response to lack, scarsity, depression, violence, abuse. Programmed by society in video games, movies, wars, religions, anti religioins, all of it, and also trauma and reaction to post traumatic stress syndrome.

They're good wonderful kids. People are good wonderful people. Think of 2 year olds, and 4 year olds, and kindergarden students. Delightful wonderful beings.

That is the unprogrammed and undamaged child.

That the real human.

We're living in a terrible system of scarsity and trauma, run deliberately that way by Orcs and Trolls PTB.

There is a difference between, self worth, the core of a person counting, and this elmination of selfhood, this being your function only crapola. And if you can't be the image, the role of worker, mom, this that, teacher, mechanic, scientists, chef, then die on the streets.

Its evil to think this way.

We ARE and must develop healthy strong cores, and value all people and begin to find grass roots solutions.

And see the innocent little child in all, dont judge anyone. All are wonderful.

reply to post by Unity_99



Nice posts, this may interest you:
Babies helping unlock the origins of morality
www.cbsnews.com...
www.cbsnews.com... (video version)

Babies definitely have some moral compass (although they seek similarities on a higher level).

reply to post by Unity_99


Two great posts Unity! Thanks. yes the answers is us we can change the world we need only change ourselves! This thread and the videos led me to a molecular biologist and he proves scientifically how we are programmed from the cell level even before birth by our parents and what ever programming they had up to the human level but also says we can change the program he says there are several energy modalities that can change this programming rather quickly like EFT, Body Talk, The Emotion code, Psyche K etc.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

These programs were instilled from before birth and until we are about 6 or 7 and we run on them about 95 to 99 percent of the time as adults and they are in the subconscious. That is why talking to them does nothing they are a program running they don't hear you it like trying to tell a tape recorder to stop talking to you. it won't you have to know the switch to turn it off and record over the tape. You have to change the program to make a change. Kids are not fully in the conscious mind until about 6 or 7 and it can be proven by their brain waves from about 2 to 7 they are still in the theta state. Which means they are being programmed directly into the subconscious mind during that period.