$2500.. good lawd, that'd only keep stoney98 in drink for a long weekend.I have. For a couple years at the end of uni and right after. I think the year I got out of college I made something like $2500....
Be a victim: Claim disability and sell drugs...
- Thread starter manimal
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richest 5% in the WORLD, sure. 5% in usa != 5% in world.
Cost of living, Standard of living...
you don't think your standard of living is in the top 5% in the world?
He did repeat that a lot has changed in the WC.you don't think your standard of living is in the top 5% in the world?
I don't think it's fair to judge my "privlaged" life to that of a blue collar chinese worker.you don't think your standard of living is in the top 5% in the world?
Well, that's true. You have it unimaginably better, and you're still pissed off that maybe you could have a little bit more if poor people would die.
All because you were born into it...dude, you are Presidential material, do you know that?
no, poor people are fine. Drug addicts using the welfare system are not.
So........ you're OK with the welfare system if it's only "deserving" poor people getting the help?
Not all poor people use the welfare system. I said I was fine with poor people. I do not like welfare.
So how does that fit into your private schools only philosophy?
It's good we have poor people, we need them to do the jobs we don't want to do for a price we are willing to pay.
Private school Idea is flawed.
Private school Idea is flawed.
Well, you make good sense there. I was reading about a visit from Mayor Bloomberg to a city in Mexico concerning their anti-poverty program.
I know it sounds patronizing, but teaching personal and family responsibility is the first answer to getting people off welfare.
I see nothing wrong with that in principle - it's only the practise of defining who is deserving that is pretty much impossible. I know at least one person who is happy to live on welfare and does not want to get a job to increase his income or standard of living. There will always be abuse of the system (in all aspects), but that is the cost of helping the deserving. The question is whether that is a cost worth bearing.So........ you're OK with the welfare system if it's only "deserving" poor people getting the help?
Bingo.
You know, I thought I did too, until I took an urban anthropology and the Mid-south class. There is a lot of history in the south that allows this mentality to play out constantly (and now I am not talking about slavery). I'll go into more detail later if you are interested but it is a really compelling phenomenon that explains a lot about the culture down here.
would i be the first person to suggest welfare not be a cash-based system, but use something like chuckie-cheese coupons? maybe something a little less transferable, like a bar-encoded (credit card?) account card. idea being something more definitively linking services to a particular receiver.
i'll do a rose model on this during lunch.
i'll do a rose model on this during lunch.
please do go into more detail
I'd think that a credit card type thing with a photo ID on it would be pretty decent. Hell - ski resorts do it around here with their discount 4-packs...
yes,please.
Get Ready, this one is a doozie............
And keep in mind folk, it's a theory. Go pokin' holes in it all you want, ain't my theory.
Ok, I don't have my notes with me so some of this might be sketchy at best.
Historically:
A lot of it has to do with the "Good ole Boy/ It's who you" know type attitude. Some of this will be specific to Memphis in general but a lot of it is applicable for the south as a whole.
First the overall prevailing attitude of the south because of the prevalence of plantations, and rural communities was a type of self governance. Very "wild west", very “mind your business and I'll mind mine”, good ole boy type ****.
Basically you start out with the south as a farming, agricultural region. After slavery ends, people have small farms or work on farms as share croppers; a few people have all of the money. The plantation owners with the money have the share croppers that they "take care of" Blah blah.
The rest of the country views the south as relatively backwards because of the emphasis on agriculture. Institutions like universities and governmental resources for development are not given to the south because of the attitude that it was just a bunch of uneducated farmers around here and little would come out of the south except crops.
Then the south starts moving away from plantations and farming and becomes more industrial. Farmers move into cities to take the factory jobs, factories are owned by plantation owners because they are the only ones in the south who had any money anyway. So plantation owners and old money have a handle on southern politics, banks, industry, and the people who know them land the decent jobs while everyone else lives off of poverty wages working in factories. (Patriarchy) A few have almost everything.
Around this time the depression comes along and with it progressivism and the New Deal. But the south didn't get progressivism, it got Southern Progressivism. Southern progressivism takes the ideals of progressivism but gives it that nice patriarchal slant that everything else thus far has had. Basically the government gets the resources and doles them out to the citizens because the government’s job is to take care of the people. (Patriarchy)
The overall political attitude of the south has been a "just sit back and let the politicians handle it" type attitude. In Memphis specifically, Boss Crump ran the government like a mafia, giving out jobs to people he owed favors to. Yadda yadda. Like most politicians sure, but this still continues heavily in the south today. Because of this attitude things like unions were squashed because if you were in a union then you were trying to take care of yourself and that was totally unnecessary because the government was doing that.
And Memphis didn't handle industrialization very well. Businesses moved in around the time of the Civil Rights movement, when political issues and patriarchal relationships seemed like they might actually change. We had a lot of factory work Then all the businesses moved back out. Closed up shop and left the inner city empty. Then people with money moved out as well and there was a great sense of abandonment by the people left in the city. Most of the south, in fact, has very little infrastructure to support the populations of people that need to work. In Memphis the only jobs available are very low paying service sector type jobs.
You have to take into account that African Americans have been majorly disadvantaged in the south up until about 40 years ago. Low wages, poor working conditions. Before the civil rights movement really took hold. this racism perpetuated patriarchal views of whites in power until the mid to late 70's. And its still a large issue down here.
So basically what you have is generations of people living in poverty, who are accustomed to the government taking care of them and more importantly, generations of people who do not question the government because they are used to just sitting back and letting the government take care of them.
There is still that prevailing "mind your business" attitude that keeps people from questioning issues of government directly related to quality of life etc. And until very recently, because of the emphasis on farming and then on factory work, there has been little attention given to getting an education around here. There are still quite hostile attitudes by some about people "getting uppity" when they get an education. Ridiculous I know.
So what we have is
-racism that perpetuates the patriarchal attitude
-generations of poor
-The loss of agriculture and industry
-Patriarchal government that is never questioned (and does a ****ty ****ing job to boot)
-Large populations of uneducated people
-Money moving out of the cities and into the suburbs
I realize that none of these things are excuses. It's just a theory as to why the south developed the way it did. (and is more specific to Memphis than to other regions of the south)
A lot of people just get used to living a certain way. When you are surrounded by people who live that way, and all you know is people who live that way, there doesn't seem to be too much point in changing. And change is hard and change is scary. A lot of people have the mentality that going out on a limb is just setting themselves up for failure so they don't try anything.
A lot of the work that I do with kids in North Memphis involves getting them ready for college, and dealing with the real world. These kids are finishing up middle school and when you talk to them about going to college they act like it is never even a possibility for them. They have no clue where to even start when it comes to trying to get out of their neighborhoods.
They don't get any help at schools, most of them viewed as lost causes. They get easily frustrated when things are difficult for them. They aren't used to leaving their neighborhoods at all. Some of them are 14 and have never left the city, never stayed in a hotel, never seen an airplane.
It is difficult to expect someone so removed from society to be able to understand application processes of universities, interview techniques for jobs. Some of these kids have a hard enough time just communicating with me the way they think they should, since I am white. They get fed up, and frustrated very easily as a defense mechanism.
They are embarrassed by the clothes they wear, the homes they live in and the cars (or lack of cars) that their guardians drive. They don't want to be anywhere where they are different so they are content to stay where they know.
I don't think that milking the system is even so much of a victim mentality thing any more. It's a survival mechanism. They aren't taught how to get into good schools and land well paying jobs, because that isn't what they are surrounded by. They are taught how to survive in their environments.
The problem is the system.
The problem is the people in it.
The problem is the people who stand on the outside of the system clucking their tongues and shaking their heads, all the time talking about "they" should be bettering themselves but never wanting to lift a hand to help. (and that was not a stab at anyone on the board)
Agreed!
good point and your analysis is in the right ballpark. not being from here originally i feel that i am able to take a more objective look at the situation than many of my "native" coworkers. there is this perpetual attitude that prevails in these communities that somehow they are not the recipients of "charity" or "good will" on the part of the people of this nation, but instead, are owed this debt because of our historical past.
i wish i knew how to fix the problem and make people take responsibility for themselves instead of relying COMPLETELY on handouts.
i probably fall into a loose definition of libertarian politically, but i am not naive enough to think that everyone has the ability to just "pull yourself up by the bootstraps." it's easy to say that if you're not at the bottom of the barrell and if you've never been there or visited those at the bottom then you have no right to boast the "bootstraps" doctrine. hardwork and diligence usually pay off eventually, but not always.
i claim to understand the dynamics of the south because i've been researching it a lot over the past few semesters. there is so much history that never makes the books or news here....like the only successful coup in american history was right here in NC, wilmington to be exact during a race riot where untold numbers of african americans were murdered and the local government was overthrown. the system is broken and a result is a generation of people that have been coddled to the point that they are unable to survive on their own w/out government assistance
excellent thoughts. thanks for posting.
an illustration of the second quoted bit from today: my mother and i went to an indian restaurant. nothing too upscale, having their usual weekday buffet. in addition to the usual worker bee patrons there were a handful of urban black kids, in full baggy regalia. they generally looked like fish out of water, didn't know how the buffet worked, and insisted on looking over all of the dishes before deciding to stay for it.
i'm not saying all this to make fun of them, and i'm actually pleased to note that they stuck around and ate. it's just an illustration of how provincial people can be, even in the middle of a large, urban, "progressive" place like seattle. (you can't go a block without seeing a white lady driving a prius around town... my mom drives a prius, for the record, but isn't white
)
I knew you would see my point.
So I Got the paper back about a week ago 97 percent.
"AS flawed as I personally believe your logic is, Your Ideas are clear & Well devolved. But Please... Learn a little human compassion in college."
Mr. Bremmer
"AS flawed as I personally believe your logic is, Your Ideas are clear & Well devolved. But Please... Learn a little human compassion in college."
Mr. Bremmer
Sounds like you've got a good teacher there, might do well to listen to him more. Well done on the grade.