- Joined
- Mar 20, 2012
- Messages
- 22,704
- Reaction score
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- Location
- okla-freakin-homa
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Progressive
Expectations. It's all about expectations. If you've ever listened to those who grew up during the depression, you know some real poverty stories. My mom used to eat lard-and-bread sandwiches. They ate dandelion greens. They couldn't afford chickens because they didn't have any money to buy feed for them. Couldn't have pigs for the same reason. They had a cow because she could graze on the land, so they had milk and butter. They ate lots of fish they caught in the river . . . a 6-mile walk from home . . . the boys would stay overnight.
Mom had one dress. One. That was for Sundays. They had no car . . . walked everywhere. Did they know they were poor? That answer would be, "No, they didn't." That was life.
And now we have politicians telling us that we're poor . . . that the middle class is dwindling . . . that we're entitled to have the wealth spread around. And we pine.
Maggie- I was with you til the last sentence. We live in a consumer driven capitalist society that is summed up with 'new and improved'. NO politician is driving the Apple phone frenzy. NO politician is demands 12 cup holders in a mommy mobile. What politician ran on a platform of 52" plasma or bust?
Our system runs on consumers wanting past the basic need to excess, be it electricity, gas guzzlers, new Iphones... the biggest flaw in the system is money is being concentrated out of the reach of the consumers until the system can no longer support itself.
It isn't political, it is economic.