( – promoted by buhdydharma )
Crossposted from the WWL
Americans are like the retarded offspring growing at the edge of a lush and healthy European field. You know, the row of corn too close to the road commission’s weed kill spray to flourish, but not close enough to die out completely.
We just don’t get it, but think all corn should look like us. USA! USA!
When I used to speak daily with people in Sweden, Germany, and Belgium working as an Atlas Copco distributor (tooling for auto plants) they were amused and disgusted by our working conditions.
You don’t have a year off paid with your new baby? 9 weeks, unpaid? Your husband has no time off with his baby either? You don’t get a month paid Holiday in the summer? No free health care? No free College? The option for a 4 day work week?
You Americans let them treat you like slaves.
I was STUNNED, had no idea how good they had it.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I, Vermont) recently spoke about this on Bill Maher. Worth the 5 and a half minutes of clips:
The top 1 percent earns more than the bottom 50 percent in America.
The top 1 percent has more WEALTH than the bottom 90 percent.
As Bill Maher said in reply, we tend to vote like we are that rich person in our imaginary lives. We vote against someone taking what we don’t have as we drive to work in our beat up Honda Civics.
We are watching the GM/Chrysler merger slash bankruptcy closely.
Have you noticed every commercial is slated towards uber-rich people buying Luxury cars these days?
A sexy perfectly coiffed woman murmurs huskily, “When you turn on your car, does it return the favor?”
My husband always answers, “Only since they added the heated dildo to the heated seats, huh lady?”
Gee willakers, I coulda saved the auto industry by telling them a couple things.
Market inexpensive cars that get good milage and maybe more than 1% of the population could afford them…. or quit sending jobs overseas and people could afford better ones.
The 250/1 ratio of exec pay to the pay of the people that actually produce the product sunk your asses.
Detroit… actually all of Michigan is dying due to that corporate greed.
Henry Ford had wished to use mass production to lower the price of his automobiles which in turn increased the market size at which is automobiles would be sold. Ford chose this method of selling a large quantity of cars over increasing the maximum profit made per car.
Duh.
But he also said, “Money doesn’t change men, it merely unmasks them. If a man is naturally selfish or arrogant or greedy, the money brings that out, that’s all.” and I have to wonder if he had any insight at all, for time has proven the rich have become ever more greedy.
Socialism as done in European countries has made them happy, relatively wealthy, healthy and educated.
The rich don’t want us to be any of those things.
We live in a serfdom where we all believe we will be masters one day by some imaginary American Lottery.
Redistribute baby!!!!!
It IS Patriotic, and should be the American way. America is not the 1%ers, its us! We should not be wage slaves!
Worker Party 2012!
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for the rather hasty & sloppier written piece, but wrote before work…. it still needs to be said and discussed methinks.
the so called news last night I must have heard ‘redistribution of wealth’ spoken in horrified voice about 50 times. I say Redistribute, Baby, Redistribute. The only horror in socialism is for the really rich. Even they would do better as this free market craziness is both unsustainable and obviously doesn’t yield much more then funny money.
I used to think in the 80’s when Nike started selling slave labor shoes for big bucks who’s going to be left to buy these shoes if were nothing but consumers with no jobs or jobs that pay horrible so that the corps can ‘compete’. Compete for what higher profit margins for the uber rich? So who is going to be able to afford this stuff? Even toxic Chinese imports from China sold at Wal Mart are unaffordable when the money is all off shore or gambled away in the market, and we the labor force are expendable.
Author
(scenes cut from Sicko!)
…is a necessity. But we may simply lack the capacity to imagine it.
I like many laissez-faire aspects of American life, which are impossible to find in Europe. Yo! Register this! But I also liked, in Europe, the feeling that I could actually be…into…being a citizen. That it meant something positive.
And it isn’t just the money part–the fact that we Americans permit ourselves to be paid like serfs. We also permit ourselves to be treated like serfs. When my sister and brother-in-law were last in France or Switzerland, they were about to embark on a flight in an airport and automatically began to take off their shoes and socks and prepare for god knows what other indignities. With a sad, experienced smile, the hostess assured them, “You don’t have to do that here–this isn’t the United States.”
So many of us now have forgotten what it is simply to be treated decently–or were born too late ever to have known.
Workers of the U.S., unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!
is the fervent concern that people might end up liking it. Thus why FOX and like minded people are bleating like sheep on meth.
Bring back income tax levels to what they were under Eisenhower (R-War Hero).
If the rich don’t like it, they can buy ranches and move to Paraguay.
Author
great comments, all.
This spun me into a philosophical ramble…. I will cross post it in a bit.
Its not only the US that needs this awakening, it is the world.
Diane W, it’s good and straight to the point.
I can’t help but to feel, having worked all my life, that the workplace has a great deal to do with the seeming “laissez faire” attitude of most Americans. Dare you to raise your voice as to policy, etc. and, mostly, you’re out. Americans, because they have literally no security other than a job, are afraid to speak up and just follow suit. It is this deeply imbedded sense of insecurity in this country that silences so many voices, so contrary to that of Europeans, who voice their opinions, on the streets, or anywhere, without fear of losing their jobs. Hence, the general seeming apathy of Americans could well lead us into a third world country “configuration.”
Yes, socialism should be the order — capitalism would and should have it’s end, as it has no moral or ethical codes attached to it and, unfortunately, there are so, so many willing to sell their souls and, thus, moral decay ensues!
It is no accident that the so-called “middle-class” are being “marginalized” in my view. Look at what has been happening in these past eight years. Yes, the rich want to put the “middle-class” in the category with the “poor-class.” The logic of this is to CONTROL the people. Keep them poor and uneducated. Sounds like some of the Middle Eastern countries, doesn’t it? (I swear these F..kers in our Adm. have been hanging around the Saudi Arabis for way too long.) I keep thinking about how this great effort to rid our country of aliens has come about and what it means. Does it mean that once we get those people out, we, Americans, will be taking on the jobs of the migrant workers, landscapers, dishwashers, etc.?
Without Impeachment of the criminal scum that brought this America to its worst in all history, how much can or will a well-meaning presidential nominee do? Assuming, we will, in fact, be rid of the current scum in our government, we all must realize that their wealth and power will continue to push buttons in the “shadows.”
Yes I lived in Germany for a year.
Yes it sucked coming back here but it was the beginning of my quest for Knight of the Fifth Veil.
True life is “better” in Europe with the vacations and getting real multiple genuine benefits for you tax dollars. Why? Well because the corruption can only date back from 1945 right.
What is less in Europe though is upward social mobility. Everybody rents and will most definitely rent their entire lives unless they are well paid professionals. Instead they enjoy culture, people and the things that make me spit on the ground in disgust if I tried to emulate it here.
I see the American middle class in the crosshairs.
3M6B and it is your energy use that is going to be redirected. Corporate can just make far more profit out of building factories anywhere else but the US. Very soon they are not even going to need our markets anymore and that will be a wealth redistribution.
If I hear these repugs repeat that nonsense one more time …
Yeah it’s a redistribution of wealth; it’s us working class folks getting to keep some of the wealth we are creating. So instead of it being hoovered to the upper crust, we get to enjoy the fruits of our labor.
The leisure class doesn’t work; ergo all the new wealth that is created is by the working class. I say, stop stealing from us!
Love the Kleptocracy tag!
In a conversation the other day I was told, “But our government can’t afford universal health care!” Bullshit!
Redistribute
France is a cross section of Socialism and Democracy. They have all that you describe in your fine (btw) diary, and the best Health Care system in the world. Funny how the Rethuglicans never bring up France when they are trashing ‘Socialized Health Care’. Just Britain and Canada (both of which have pretty good systems themselves, or so citizens of both countries tell me).
Jesus…since when did Socialism become such a terrible word. All it really means is taking care of the people. What’s wrong with that?
It started with the Haymarket protests in the 1890s in Chicago for an eight hour work day (see May Day). The Europeans kept at it. We got brainwashed. No one to blame but us for buying the consumerism dream as the key to happiness. Quality of life was advertised out of consideration and into oblivion for the Uhmerican masses.
A country club McMansion with an SUV and a Mercedes convertible, heated inground pool, designer clothes, best private schools for the kids, a summer home, a ski chalet, large boat at the yacht club, trophy wife and a mistress. And don’t forget the enormous LCD screens in every room. Life is good.
But then one day you die. Oops. ;-);-);-)
Author
For the fabulous discussion!
We spoke of this much at my husband’s surprise 60th bday party Saturday, and after watching Maher… it burned in my soul to be brought into full light and discussion.
I would welcome many more essays (better ones!!) on this subject in the days before, and more importantly AFTER Obama is elected.
This is not something that should live and die with an ugly campaign meme by Neo-Cons….
It is something we should be telling our friends, neighbors, reminding eachother and bombarding whoever takes office with until we realize a new, better America.
For another most EXCELLENT essay on the subject, please read Gottlieb’s fucking BRILLIANT essay “For America” on our little WWL blog!
Sign up and give him some love so he won;t be too shy (he is shy) to cross-post here!