I like The Epic of Gilgamesh.
Shame it came about before the invention of copyright.
Because if copyright had existed, then the Hebrews couldn’ t have outright stolen it and plagiarized into existence their genocidal slaver religion-culture, and its daemonic world ravaging, culture raping derivatives of Christianity and Islam.
So, on a political but less immediate topic, what do you all think your retirement situations will be like when you get up there in years?
I think Social Security will still be around, but it already barely pays for a pretty destitute life and is only going to get worse on that front. Meanwhile, the trajectory of increasing medical costs is kind of stunning.
Google, book, doesn’t matter, point is you tell us what you mean we, aren’t here to play guessing games at how you interpret a quote.
Hoo boy I seem to have got your knickers all bunched up. You ever hear someone say “Fools give full vent to their rage, but the wise bring calm in the end.”. You should look it up.
I give this country 10 years at most, on its current trajectory, before the unseemly, seeming cracks become apparent, irreparable chasms.
Will you be moving to Canada?
Why would I deign to tell you?
You sound like a fortune cookie.
I don’t think this country is going away anywhere near that soon, but even the best case scenario is pretty rough for average people once the bulk of Gen X starts dipping into the retirement years. Gen X being that first generation with no pensions, and less than half of whom has been able to put tax deferred savings to practical use.
It by no means hurts to start hedging bets with a plan B. But aside from just personal plans, it’s starting to weird me out a little that there’s very little public discourse about the effects of having such a large number of people suddenly go from middle class to poverty.
Most of those, ahem, middle class re: higher paid working poor, are the nickel millionaires whom Steinbeck lamented.
And by many, I do mean the majority.
Re: the driving Miss Daisy force behind our Republican overlords.
They will eat their own children before they betray their “values” i.e. they will defend unto the end, their bankster masters.
For greater Jesus, sundered gays, with lip-service to justice for all.
Poverty will simply make them more rabid in their unfounded beliefs.
And their beliefs are manifest in their actions, much less their votes.
Freedom of belief needs another look.
Belief begets actions.
Freeform ignorance is a bad thing.
The true working poor already know they’re poor though. I’m wondering what happens when that next bracket goes from working not-poor to unemployed poverty.
And I don’t mean their psychological culture shock. I mean there’s only so much affordable housing to go around, Medicare doesn’t kick in until 65 while most people end up in a position where they have to retire by 62, and there’s usually zero political will in this country to increase funding to assistance programs.
Genocide or successful revolution.
But, once again, it depends on the mindset of the majority of said social echelon.
How big of a part of it will continue to run interference against itself?
Can our undereducated military transform itself into a new Praetorian Guard, and rid the Republic of their own Cal1%gula?
Or shall they continue to defend the 1% unto their own loved ones’ end?
Regardless, I do not see any Philosopher King rising out of the military.
And I shall maintain that almost all if not all of the 99% are the working poor, even if they don’t know it yet.
Lose their job, and any one of them most likely shall.
But hey, it is their own fault that bootstraps and unicorns went extinct.
While I understand your usage of the term, working poor to me are those who are currently living in poverty despite holding down significant employment as a percentage of their time. Usually as one or more part-time jobs without meaningful benefits. As opposed to those whose employment affords a standard of living above poverty, but only for so long as they can maintain that employment. I could use a better term for that group, but it is approximately the bottom half of the middle class.
And while I do think there’s a potential crisis there, I don’t know that it’s a revolution sparking crisis- mostly because the group in crisis will have aged out of being effective revolutionaries. Probably going to be more like a protracted economic disaster, basically an economic depression that disproportionately targets a specific age bracket.
What would the appropriate term be?
Houseworkers?
If losing your job reduces you to poverty, then you ARE the working poor.
I swear, the 1% just keeps shifting the goal post whilst lowering the bar for the definition of what that means.
Not you - just sayin’.
No worries, I get where you’re coming from. But for purposes of this discussion, there is a meaningful difference between the people who need assistance today, and the people who won’t start to go hungry for 15-30 years. At least in the sense of how much help there will be to go around.
I see the poorly educated rednecks of Brazil have elected their own Trump/Duterte.
Of course lol
Is this finally a point where people finally empathize with LGBT people for fearing for their lives when the President is friendly and supportive of a guy who has openly stated that he feels homosexuals are brainwashing children to become their sex slaves and that, should his son turn out to be gay, he’d rather he die?
This video is about the asymmetrical polarization of politics (particularly with the Republicans).