tiredOur critical social problems demand both individual and structural solutions. To rely on volunteer efforts is to duck the basic issue of common responsibility, and to ignore the fact that individual crises often result from collective forces.
That is, the disaster of American economy becomes personal when it costs you your house, your pension, your job ... or maybe just that there are several empty houses on your street now, and that's undercutting the value of the house you're still lucky enough to have. The disaster of American medical industry becomes personal when you can't afford care ... or when a friend can't, and you wonder if a half-treated ailment that's gone on for weeks maybe contributed to their lack of patience that blew up into an argument. The disaster of American politics becomes personal when your rights are ignored because of the color of your skin, or your perceived sexual orientation, or your religion ... or when someone you need a favor from is too exhausted from dealing with that stress to have any energy left to help you.
Remember, it's not just you. It's not just your friends, your neighbors, your relatives. There are patterns out there impacting vast numbers of people in ways that make life a little or a lot more miserable for everyone. No matter how lucky you are personally, and how safe you seem right now, those patterns do affect you because you're living in the same society with those who are directly crushed by them. The wider and worse those patterns get, the more they will cost you and the harder they will be to fix. So look for the sources of the problems, not just the victims. Think about how problems can be prevented, not just cleaned up after.
May 4 2010, 09:56:02 UTC 11 years ago
Well...
May 4 2010, 14:45:58 UTC 11 years ago
That said, unemployed people do need jobs. Those need to be good enough to pay for basic life needs; fewer and fewer such jobs are available. If a person is scraping by on government assistance and takes a minimum-wage job, it's possible to lose money because now they have to pay for transportation and they won't qualify for assistance anymore. If you're already floundering, the prospect of working harder for less is not feasible. In my area, we have a fair number of people who are unemployed because they can't afford to drive to work for the wages of the available jobs.
A large part of that is because the "trickle-down" theory actually works in reverse. Money doesn't start at the top of the economy and trickle down; it starts and the bottom and gets sucked upward ... and there it stays.
Re: Well...
May 4 2010, 15:14:28 UTC 11 years ago
This is so very true.
Fortunately she already had a standing offer from a concern in SF, but most people don't have that luxury these days.
May 4 2010, 13:27:26 UTC 11 years ago
So, indeed, those little ventures of cleaning up roads and lakes are awesome, but how about programs that teach kids and adults to have more respect for our resources?
Great point. Truly good point. Thanks for sharing!
Thoughts
May 4 2010, 14:56:44 UTC 11 years ago
Such programs are good for protecting resources. That makes them extremely unattractive to people who wish to get rich(er) by exploiting resources. Healthy, educated citizens can accomplish great things, but they are also harder to fool.
Plus the broken ones are an effective distraction. Want to make people quit ragging you about your stupid war or your giant bonus? Bring up the crime wave, ethnic unrest, "illegal aliens," unwed mothers, or some other dispossessed group/issue that people don't like. Well ... the individuals at the distal end may be manifesting that problem, but they sure didn't cause it because they don't have that much power. Who maintains the existence of ghettos? Who puts a majority of black males into the penal system so they aren't available as husbands/fathers? Who hires foreign workers at illegally low rates in ghastly conditions? Trace a problem back to the money and the power behind it, and you'll find the real source.
May 7 2010, 00:49:21 UTC 11 years ago
The American economy has been floating for a good many years on the specious benefit of privatizing everything, and removing leisure from everyone but the exceedingly rich. Think about it. 50 years ago, 1 person per family was employed, and got (in theory) a "family wage". Now, for that same standard of living, at least 2 people have to be employed. The time they spend on working for money is NOT time they can spend raising children, caring for the elderly, being ill, etc.; these costs have been privatized, rather than in effect supported by the 1-salary-per-family ideal that was true previously.
And what- these jobs "aren't really working"??? I challenge anyone who says that to spend a few months DOING them. No working, my ass. Not productive, my ass. Not UTTERLY AND COMPLETELY NECESSARY, my ass!
This means that we don't have time for ourselves, our families, our friends, our community. We can't help each other- we can't afford to. Hell, most of us can't even cook, and we're wrecking our health by eating crap as a result! Expensive crap, I might add.
And this is totally systematic; it's not the fault of anyone's choices, it's because the system itself is perverse... for everything except enriching the already-wealthy.
Yes...
May 7 2010, 01:32:42 UTC 11 years ago
I agree.
>>Think about it. 50 years ago, 1 person per family was employed, and got (in theory) a "family wage". Now, for that same standard of living, at least 2 people have to be employed. <<
It takes 2-5 jobs to support a household now. Many individuals work multiple jobs because no one job makes enough money. That tends to overwork people so badly they suffer health problems because of it. And those fragmentary jobs mean that a person can legally be worked 60 or 80 hours a week with no overtime pay, because it's not for a single employer.
>>This means that we don't have time for ourselves, our families, our friends, our community. We can't help each other- we can't afford to. Hell, most of us can't even cook, and we're wrecking our health by eating crap as a result! Expensive crap, I might add.<<
Yes, that's true too. Less time for gardening, even.
>>And this is totally systematic; it's not the fault of anyone's choices, it's because the system itself is perverse... for everything except enriching the already-wealthy.<<
Oh, there are people making choices in this direction, all right, and it by gods IS their fault. Those would be the upper 20% or so of wealth holders, the people locking up over 80% of America's wealth and leaving the remaining 80% to scrabble for crumbs. They did everything they could to push the system in this direction and now they are doing everything they can to keep it here and to block efforts at reform. They are to blame for the housing bubble. They are to blame for the fact that working doesn't mean being able to support a family. They are to blame for the shrinking job benefit packages and the tatters of a social safety net. They consciously chose, individually and collectively, to suck the value out of America and Americans and discard the shriveled husks. There are other contributing factors, but let's not overlook these.
Re: Yes...
May 7 2010, 01:59:00 UTC 11 years ago
It is not the fault of the individual workers who are doing their very, very best to optimize their own work and choices.
It is absolutely the fault of the ownership class who keeps stealing from everyone else to enrich themselves past the point of it even improving their lives any.
Re: Yes...
May 7 2010, 02:35:23 UTC 11 years ago