ATS, im calling you out! Are you Cop-Outs or All-Outs?

To live a happy, healthy, and secure life in today’s modern world an individual must posses the following:
-Reasonable Shelter
-Healthy food and drink
-A career, attainable retirement, and a proper education to achieve such
-A healthcare system that works for each individual
-The fuel, transportation, and energy needs to meet the requirements of the above

 In order to see if these things are being met for the average individual we must look at our present state in each area. Probably the first and biggest contributing factor that comes to most people’s minds when looking at the above list is our economy. The market crash has, intentionally or not (I’ll leave that to be determined by someone else in our tinfoil hat family!), had major impacts on everyone across the globe. Due to the crash, millions of people are still out of work, no longer receiving unemployment, and/or now homeless. Recent unemployment projections still put the US at an average of 9%-11% depending on the source. This figure alone is misleading to begin with, because as many of you know, all this figure includes is those that are currently filing for unemployment. Anyone who has received unemployment and no longer qualifies, in addition to those that simply just did not/could not apply are not considered in the figure presented to us by our media. Now think that over for a moment. It has been almost 4 years now since the market crash, and unemployment only lasts for 6 months. Without even having the exact numbers one can easily see that that number is astronomically much higher. A recent post here discussed a journalist investigating the above and found through credible US agencies that in addition to the reported unemployment figure, another 33% of the workforce has simply given up on finding jobs and stepped out of the workforce all together. Those figures alone total around 44%, or almost half of the US workforce that is no longer working! That’s just off the numbers we are being given. As all this continues to unfold, even more and more jobs continue to be outsourced to random third world countries, while families here can no longer survive. That alone should infuriate everyone, and it is only the start… 

Now lets take a look at the recent foreclosures due to the collapse. Not the foreclosures when the bubble burst, but the ones continuing to ramp up in speed after the recent lawsuit our kind government did for us after the scandal involving thousands of homes being illegally taken away from families who never missed a payment. The slap on the wrist (if you can even call it that) for the banks literally stealing the homes of thousands of families…$1,000 to each victim to say “So sorry we took your home! Let us pay for your Motel 6 for a few weeks.” What’s even more outrageous…they didn’t even have to give back the profits they made illegally off the homes. In other words, they stole thousands of homes from American families they had already made millions off through their mortgages for years. They then turned around and sold those homes for even more profit…and our government felt $1,000 for each was substantial enough of a penalty for doing so. Keep in mind, an average individual would not need to steal even a portion of the amount they made to spend the rest of their lives in prison and our government not only let them off the hook, but is allowing it to continue unmonitored in it’s current condition! While more and more foreclosures continue to happen every day! Are you starting to get a little ticked off yet? You should be, and we’re not even close to being done here! 

So right off the bat, Reasonable Shelter can be crossed off the list for the majority of people. Those stuck in the rent trap do not count as reasonable shelter because at any given time, for any reason it can be taken from them. But what is reasonable shelter you might ask? Many would say a roof with four walls is adequate enough for survival. To an extent I would agree, but there is a difference between surviving and living a happy, healthy, and secure life. To illustrate this, I will give you and example from my personal life. I have a little dog, which was an apartment dog/ small home dog his whole life. He got to go out on his leash whenever he wanted, but with the exception of an occasional trip to the dog park, he never really had a yard he could simply run freely in. Very shortly on in his life with our family, I made myself a promise that some day he would at the very least have his own little area to run. Recently we were fortunate enough to be able to move to a place that though it isn’t huge, it has his yard that was promised. Now this got me to thinking…here’s this little dog that’s usually content with a simple pat on the head, that now visibly has never been happier just to be able to run around on his own. That is the difference between surviving and living a happy, healthy, secure life. Sure he was surviving with what he had, but a major piece of his home life was missing. The same goes for you and me. Sure we can survive with four walls and a roof. Sure we can make do struggling through the rent trap every year. But are you living a happy, healthy, secure life knowing the home you worked so hard for can be taken without notice at any time? Are you living a happy, healthy, secure life knowing most of you will be renting one roach infested biohazard to the next? We’re not talking about one of the third world countries our jobs are heading to, this is America! There is no excuse for an American citizen to have to settle for roach infested biohazards with four walls and a roof. There really should be no reason for it in any country, but especially here.  

-Continued-

Anyways, back on track!

So, unemployment rates are still skyrocketing, most people that even have jobs can barely survive in their present condition, and no sight seen in the distant future of anything getting any better. First argument most have to the work problem is “its your own fault if you don’t have a decent career, not the governments!” Well lets examine that for a moment. For even a reasonably decent job in today’s market one must have at the very least a bachelor’s degree. Sure, if you want to spend the rest of your life flipping burgers and living paycheck to paycheck you can make due with a high school diploma. However, doing so will guarantee you no chance at the truly happy, healthy, secure lifestyle everyone should be entitled to. Now the national average drop out rate for high school students in the US is notoriously hard to pin down, but as of 2006 the estimated average was around 1 in 3 students and continuing to rise. That's 33% of our children that are already checked off the list of any chance at success. 33% of the next generations work force that will more than likely never amount to more than a minimum wage job. We can argue curriculum, teachers, parenting skills, and the like all we want, but the fact remains this is still a huge problem. MSNBC reported: "56% of students attending a 4 year college will not have their degrees after six years." That means of the 67% of the remaining children that make it into college, less than half of them will make it out with a degree. So around 70% of our next generations working class will lost to the same minimum wage gutter(33% + [67%/56%]). That means the majority of our next generation will be under-educated, and unfit for modern day work. As of 2011, many universities published annual tuition and fees of approximately $9,000 on average. So in addition to all the above, that 56% of students that for one reason or another could not complete college will still have an average of $36,000 in tuition and fees, not including interest, that they will be expected to pay back on that minimum wage job. Now before the market crash one could make the argument that if they couldn't cut it in college then that's their own fault and should be held responsible. In a perfect society this would be true, but when the economic disaster plays a major part in the reason a lot of these students can not afford to complete due to work, money, living conditions, we can not hold them to what was expected of the generation before since it is a completely different economic situation. So 70% of our next generations work force has already been committed to a life of minimum wage, and a huge portion of them will be entering the workforce already thousands of dollars in dept! Add in all those who lost all their savings, belongings, and retirements to the economic crash and you can see how seriously volatile are current state is reaching. Please realize, countries have rioted in the streets for less serious issues than the examples I've provided above thus far, and I'm still only getting started!

 How about we take a short look and our current health and well being. First off, in order to have a truly proper personal health then we must first look at environmental health. Anyone following the recent posts here would have heard by now about the gulf coast scrimping/fishing industry being shut down. For those of you that have not followed the story, allegedly (but still not officially unconfirmed) due to the BP oil spill, scientists are now finding sea life with deformations well beyond those normally found in nature. The deformations have triggered such fear that they have now shut down the industry indefinitely, or at least until scientists can correct the problem (when ever that may be). First off, that's a major part of our seafood industry that is now completely gone. That's not even considering the fact that its been this many years now that they are just now finding this out! How many of us have been exposed up to this point with tainted seafood by now? Not to mention those relying on that food to survive on along the coast. Not only has their work now been taken away, but the main staple to their food supply as well! This isn't even addressing all the additives we find in our food already. At least every other month we find out about something new we've consumed for years that the FDA has just determined may cause cancer or hosts of other diseases. Artificial sweeteners, colored dyes, preservatives, sometimes even the packaging itself. Almost everything we consume now is more artificial than real food! All while our government pays our farmers...get this: TO NOT FARM! They are paid more in subsidies to not work, than they make growing the crops.

-Continued-

Let me get this straight...

You're blaming ATS for everything going wrong in this country?

I can't tell if you're talking to the forums, the users, the mods, or whatever...

But you're blaming someone here on this site for everything wrong in this nation. How is that justified?

So not only is the majority of our food not even food anymore, but the little that is we are paying extra to import because we no longer have any real agriculture ourselves! All this without even taking into account the massive amount of pollution being dumped by companies into the little remaining fresh water we have! We've seen recent articles of how government officials are trying to take over the little remaining water rights of Native American tribes in Arizona...for the sole purpose of allowing companies to dump waste into them! The promise to the tribes if they sign over their rights...fresh water!!! In limited amounts to a small handful of reservations. More than likely from the same source they wish to pollute...All this while the little fresh water we have remaining continues to diminish. I'm originally from Ohio, and even years ago the beaches of Lake Erie, that were major swimming/fishing destinations in the area for years in the past, were already being closed due to extensive amounts of pollution. Even the little remaining areas you can still fish are so emendated with zebra muscles and such that the fish that manage to survive half the time don't even resemble their healthy counterparts. This was YEARS ago, and very little if anything has changed since. Now we hear of companies like Pepsi and Coca-Cola coming into rural cities and literally draining their municipal water supplies to bottle it up and sell it back to the community it came from for in some cases over 1000% profits. Now a gallon of fresh water in many grocery stores costs more than a gallon of gas! All while were hearing new reports of reactors still melting down at the nuclear facility in Japan. More fuel rods that our scientist even know what to do with, so much so that if fully melted could trigger an extinction level event, and they're just dumping the overflow into the ocean like its no big deal! If this is a reflection of where public health ranks on our country's priority list then we are in some major trouble! Keep in mind, this not even addressing our current healthcare fiasco we've been dealing with for years now. The majority of Americans still go without healthcare, the government healthcare program is just as much a joke, and pharmaceutical companies get away with pumping garbage into us without ever curing a single condition. Lets think about that for a moment! Here we are paying millions of dollars in healthcare funds to companies that haven't cured a single major disease probably in decades by now, yet they put out thousands of medications that cause more side effects than the initial problem your taking the medication for! Restless leg syndrome meds that cause restlessness, depression meds that cause suicidal thoughts (and sometimes death, HA!), the list of ridiculousness could fill its own article entirely! This is if your one of the "lucky" ones to have decent insurance. So healthcare is a joke, real food anymore is so expensive the average individual can no longer afford it, the food stuffs that we can afford are more additive than food, and we're stuck hoping the industries that have made us so sick to begin with will one day magically wake up and change their ways. I'm not even going to try an address fast-food, or the amounts of fake fats added to our fake foods that have made obesity an epidemic in our country. So lets just check healthy food and drink, and a healthcare system that works for each individual off our list as well.

-Continued-

What eva


EDIT PS I blame Starchild it's all his fault

Now all that remains is fuel/energy/transportation. Its no secret here that oil crises being shoved in our faces is nothing more than a joke. Though oil can probably never be completely replaced, there is no excuse for the dependency we have now. Technology continues to advance at an increasingly rapid pace. The biggest argument when clean energy first came to the forefront was cost. The technology worked, but the costs were to unrealistic when first brought to the market. The fact is, that is no longer the case. As more and more tech hits the market, the further the prices drop, and the more efficient the technology becomes after each passing generation. To those that are on the clean energy fence, here's a little thought for you... not counting wind, solar, tidal, or even most recently the cold fusion advancements, lets just look at geothermal alone. How can one make the argument we can tap into an unlimited energy source to heat our homes...yet no one can convert that heat into usable energy? Even to someone not very knowledgeable of the subject, does that even sound plausible? I'm not much of an electrician, but last I checked a steam engine can easily turn an alternator to charge a battery. All a steam engine is doing is converting heat into usable energy. As gas prices top over $4.00 per average gallon, with no site of it stopping any time soon...shouldn't that be more than enough of a reason to start actively pursuing these alternatives? As stated before, certainly oil will never be completely replaced, but we can do a heck of allot better than we are doing now. So for the average individual, reasonable transportation is already, if not rapidly approaching to being put out of our reach.  

With my previous analysis, we are nowhere close for an average individual to live a happy, healthy, secure life...and rapidly degenerating to an even worse state. And this has barely scratched the surface of our true current global condition! Economically, we continue to spiral, and experts are now expecting it to get much worse than it is now before any sign of improvement. The average individual is already struggling greatly! We cannot afford it getting any worse. Just one of these issues addressed above should be enough to infuriate the average individual. When taken collectively its amazing we aren't already taking to the streets! We already may have very well gone well beyond our breaking point, and yet we sit and allow things to rapidly get worse! These aren't past issues...these are things happening right now to our own brothers and sisters! Its at the point, that is seems it would take our own downfall before we finally wise up and say something.

Any one of these things should have you out of your seats, ripping your computers out of the wall!  So what will it take? Part of our continent to fall off into the ocean? Meteors smashing into us? Mass animal die offs?(oh wait, that is happening now too!) Was all that above not enough to get you just a little hot under the collar, or a little red in the face?  

Should we continue to wait any longer for our problems to just magically disappear, we will no longer have a planet left to fight for! Wake up people, for it may be our last opportunity to do so!

So this is it ATS, I'm calling you out:

Will you be Cop-Outs, brush off this post and continue to hope our problems will just go away?

Or

Will you be All-Outs, making your every last breath an opportunity to open someones eyes?

The choice is up to you, the ball is in your court. I've seen thousands of people coming to this site daily for years. That's thousands of people daily that have the choice to speak up and make a difference, the fires already been lit for us!

Originally posted by Starchild23
Let me get this straight...

You're blaming ATS for everything going wrong in this country?

I can't tell if you're talking to the forums, the users, the mods, or whatever...

But you're blaming someone here on this site for everything wrong in this nation. How is that justified?

edit on CFridaypm333359f59America/Chicago04 by Starchild23 because: (no reason given)

How about reading the whole post before responding next time...thanks for your input though

Originally posted by artistpoet
What eva

EDIT PS I blame Starchild it's all his fault

edit on 4-5-2012 by artistpoet because: (no reason given)

Come on now, I've been on threads with you before. You can do much better than that...thanks for the comment though

And yes, I gave you both stars...I appreciate the input, even if it didn't further the discussion

reply to post by mutatismutandis

Hang on I will get back to you once I have fully read rant

Now a gallon of fresh water in many grocery stores costs more than a gallon of gas

Wow, think you should shop around abit more, thats outlandish, i have never seen such prices.

Sorry to be slightly off - topic, you do make some points but i think you need to re-direct the aim of your frustrations.

I think it all starts with oneself and the choices you make
You speak of a broad range of problems that afflict the world yet what are Your answers to these problems?
You can not mold the World to your suiting - if you think so then the next step is a goose step and you should grow a little black mustache.
Every day we all have choices - what we give our energy to and what we buy into
I can not feed the world but I can give some of the food I grow to others if they are hungry
Or better still teach them how to grow food
Generally people are dependent on others for their needs
I believe we should be more self reliant and less dependent on the Matrix we are caught up in.
An action is worth a thousand words

To live a happy, healthy, and secure life in today’s modern world an individual must posses the following:
-Reasonable Shelter
-Healthy food and drink
-A career, attainable retirement, and a proper education to achieve such
-A healthcare system that works for each individual
-The fuel, transportation, and energy needs to meet the requirements of the above

"-Reasonable Shelter", I 'll give you that. We all need somewhere to lay our head at night though nobody should expect me to build them a house for free so that they have shelter. We are responsible for our own shelter.

"-Healthy food and drink", That's an obvious one. Can't argue there except maybe who decides what is healthy? Me for myself or "experts" deciding for me?

"-A career, attainable retirement, and a proper education to achieve such ", Starting to diverge with you a bit. What is a "proper education?" Why does somebody need a career to be happy and if one can find self sufficiency can they not spend their entire lives "retired"?

"-A healthcare system that works for each individual", your loosing me again here. what does a healthcare system that works for each individual even look like? How could such a thing exist? Individuals have vastly different opinions, how can one extreme get what they want while the opposite extreme gets what they want as well?

"-The fuel, transportation, and energy needs to meet the requirements of the above", I suppose, though honestly they don't "need" these things but only access to these things and to not be unjustly prohibited from acquiring them if they like"

I would change the list to

To live a happy, healthy, and secure life in today’s modern world an individual must posses the following:
-Freedom to travel
-Right to own and acquire property
-Freedom to contract
-Liberty to run their life as they see fit

That pretty much covers everything you listed and anything else the future may conceive.

Sorry if you addressed my comments but I just could not read your giant blocks of text. I want to but it is incredibly hard to read such large blocks of text in that formatting.

Could you please edit it and put aspace every 3 or 4 sentences? It would be much easier to read then. I would appreciate it as I would really like to read what you have to say but can't bring myself to read such large blocks of text on a computer screen. Too hard on the eyes.

reply to post by The 5th


Smiths: arrowhead gallons were $3.89...may have been like the "20% more free" oversized gallon. And yes, it was the most expensive there, but used to prove a point.

And just for clarification, I'm not trying to say we here aren't already doing what we can...I'm just saying ATS has such a large and diverse population that if each of us spoke up we'd be massive mouthpeice for the people's voice. This site is a great tool to reaching a huge base of the population. I do feel if used properly we could have a much bigger impact that we are now, however.

I can see that your post seems specific to ATS, but I will infer you mean everyone in general. . am I wrong?

Personally I think everyone can make a possitive input into our collective lives given the chance. Some and most just take time and experience to make a leap to living it out daily.

Reading from a few members I am sure there are dozens if not hundreds living the possitive change you speak of and for decades now. Welcome to the "waiting for the rest of humanity to catch on group".

Cheers.

and the lord said 'let there be paragraph's!'.

Originally posted by artistpoet
I think it all starts with oneself and the choices you make
You speak of a broad range of problems that afflict the world yet what are Your answers to these problems?
You can not mold the World to your suiting - if you think so then the next step is a goose step and you should grow a little black mustache.
Every day we all have choices - what we give our energy to and what we buy into
I can not feed the world but I can give some of the food I grow to others if they are hungry
Or better still teach them how to grow food
Generally people are dependent on others for their needs
I believe we should be more self reliant and less dependent on the Matrix we are caught up in.
An action is worth a thousand words

I do agree, and admit that no, I do not have the solutions to our problems... I do feel the answers are here within our community. All I can do is make the little changes I can affect in my own life, and keep pushing the message out there.

My soul reason for this post is every day I see one issue blown up as the talking point for the day. The problem is no one sees the bigger picture that way. When addressed individually, any one of these issues could easily shrugged off with a decent arguement...but when all the issues are brought together as a whole, the big picture is we're much worse off than we'd like to admit.

We are a very intelligent community...probably one of the most intelligent ones I've had the pleasure to be a part of. I truly belive we have the solutions right here, its a matter of drawing attention to the right areas. I've seen even the most complex conspiracy be ripped apart by our contributors...let's take that same passion and find some real solutions, that's all.

Originally posted by lacrimosa
and the lord said 'let there be paragraph's!'.

Yeah well...not too edumicated in the grammarfication department

To all: yes I know the text sucks...its best I could do with a cellphone. My sincere apologies!

reply to post by mutatismutandis


You are correct of course - Alas the answers are not so easily found
But by discussing them we all get smarter or should
I understand your frustration - I am sure we all feel the same at times
So Hats off to you for having the tenacity and balls to post your rant