Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to Well, *I* was insulted...

Counterpoint.
Bowser — (archived)

While your excellent post does describe many people in both large and small towns, and describe them well, I suspect that idyllic existence leaves out a significant percentage of people.

There are many small town folk who are disaffected, alienated and shut out of the "American Dream". I've just travelled through a sparsely settled section of the country and talked with quite a few of them. They are bitter, puzzled and hostile.

The local factories and jobs have moved overseas or south. The schools are in disrepair, medical facilities operate from poorly maintained temporary structures, and a job at the local convenience store is considered good.

Many of the people are on a lot of forms of public assistance, and have even been encouraged by their larger-city case workers to come to the areas because they could stretch their housing allowances farther.

Once again, there seems to be a disconnect between the lower and middle economic classes, with the latter considering it gauche to mention that not all may be well, declasse' to suggest there are people for whom this economic system doesn't work and people who know their kids will be destined to live lives just as have they only worse.

Empathy for them is for the "good" ones, the ones who keep a stiff upper lip and smile. The others, those who are discouraged, are scorned when they can't be ignored. The homeless are homeless because they want to be homeless is the way one person put it.

Obama simply recognized they exist, have emotions and are people, too. And not everyone has the wherewithal to work their way out of the mess they are in, especially competing against Chinese forced labor, illegal aliens and, soon, Columbians living on $1 a day. And they have emotional reactions to the situation in which they find themselves. After all, they were sold the "American Dream" also.

And look at the firestorm that acknowledgement of that simple reality has brought Obama. Better politicians who tell you how great it is, how great you are, and how grateful everyone should be because they are American? What a wonderful country, the place of unending opportunity, filled with freedom and simply rife with democracy. A model for the entire world. The kind of third-world politicians who cut taxes for the wealthy so that they may hire more servants, thereby spreading it around?

I believe the world you described exists. And the world I described, does also, as does the world Obama described.

Arf

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