New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="K Galt" data-source="post: 956009" data-attributes="member: 4468">Anabasis, good post....but context is key. Much of what you write about appears true on it's face, but increasingly is not. 40 years ago, almost your whole post would be absolutely true, but what we have now is this illusion that things are still this way, but increasingly, they are not. This is what "red pill" on the interwebz is all about - recognizing all the lies and delusions we are all force fed to maintain the appearance of prosperity and freedom, when both are being rapidly eroded at an exponential pace.If you live in America and can't take care of yourself you don't deserve to be alive.We are approaching 50% of the populace who are all receiving some form of Government assistance - WIC, Section 8, SNAP, Student Loans, etc., i.e. more and more Americans are not taking care of themselves.In the rest of the world, there is no social mobility. In Africa, if you're born middle class you'll die middle class. If you're born poor you'll die poor and no matter how much you fuck up ... if you're lucky enough to be born to the upper class you'll always be on top. Choose to believe it or not, but this is largely true in the US as well. Most poor born into poverty in the US either end up dead, in jail, on welfare and/or stuck in poor communities their whole lives. The occasional great story of one who beat the odds and escaped the cycle makes for great press for the country....but most poor people in the 21st century USA usually stay poor their whole lives.Most of the "middle class" are actually serfs working to pay off all the debt to the usurious banking system to acquire the "materialistic" consumerist "middle class" lifestyle. And of course, like most places in the world, the rich upper classes usually stay their.But yes, your larger point does stand - compared to other places in the world, the US does seem to have socio-economic mobility that most other places do not...thing is, this is increasingly becoming less and less possible.Note all the folks now graduating from college with worthless degrees and 6 figure student debt having to move back home and work as baristas and waiters to pay off their loans...In America, it normal for broke college frat boys working side jobs @ Denny's to spend $30-50 a night on drinks @ clubs. That's because either they are going to school on their parents dime, or they are taking out massive student loans to pay for tuition and housing, and they don't make any payments on those loans until after graduation. Thus, they get to spend their minimum wage earnings on luxuries like overpriced drinks at bars.In America ... the son of a mailman (John Kasich) or Cuban immigrant bartender (Marco Rubio) can become a Presidential candidate. If you're smart, work hard and obey the law ... there are no limits to your success. That's what it looks like on the outside...but the reality is far different. Millions of us have all believed what you just wrote as a basic truth of being American, only to find out later just how it is all an illusion to keep us happily enslaved and working. In America, you don't get to run for President unless you get connected to the political party machine and rise through those ranks. Only self-made millionaires and billionaires like Trump and Perot appear to be able to self-finance their candidacies.Take Obama, for instance. He had wealthy Grandparents that paid for him to attend the most prestigious and expensive Prep-school in Hawaii (tuition at Punahou is more than most State colleges in the US), then he moved to Chicago and got connected (many of those connections made at Punahou) with the political establishment to work his way in the party machine to become President. Whatever one wants to say about Obama, he definitely had economic privilege growing up in Hawaii amongst the wealthy class. Citing his Father's birth has exactly zero relevance to how he became President.As for working hard and obeying the law to stay out of trouble...Many a man did exactly that, only to find out his cheating wife got to divorce him, take away all his property, keep the children and he gets to pay for it all in a form of indentured servitude, thanks to the family court system of the "freest country on the planet."Or how about a young man working hard, obeying the law and playing by the rules suddenly losing it all because of a false rape accusation? The examples are legion, but all I'm really trying to say is that while the picture of prosperity of the American Dream looks great, the reality is it's not it's all cracked up to be.Unless you guys have lived it 3rd world countries it's very hard to explain.While I haven't lived in the 3rd world, I have visited some of those countries and I do have an idea of what you're talking about.But compare a man in poverty in the third world who at least has a family and means of self-sustenance versus the divorced American man with a car and an iphone and air conditioning, but no custody and paying child support to a hostile ex-wife that turned his kids against him...ask him if he'd give it all up to just have his kids with him on a daily basis, you'd be surprised at just how much he really alues all these material things you think of as indicators of America being a great country.Things in America are not as they seem, and as time goes on, more and more people are waking up to it....and there's far more to achieving "happiness" and experiencing freedom then economic prosperity and material wealth.That's all I'm trying to say.</blockquote>

Verification