Life as a poor American is a life of slavery

[GHook93]

Back in undergrad, I took a required survey class and the one I choose was on the US Civil War.

This leftist radical tried to make the point that there was Black slavery in the South for big business and there was WHITE slavery in the North to the industrialized Big Corporations! His premise (which many of his students including me fell for) was WHITES in the North were just as much of slaves to Big Business as Blacks in the South.

He left out the fact that they white workers in the North were doing it by choice and were getting paid. The Blacks in the South were not doing it by choice, were not getting paid and could have their children sold like cattle!

The OWS movement is a cancerous tumor of these leftist professors. They believe that society owes them EVERYTHING, including a job and that hard work, personal responsibility and bettering oneself is a thing for chumps.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Not slavery, southern slave owners were obligated to supply their slaves with adequate food and shelter to keep them healthy enough to do a day's work. Minimum wage will not even buy you that.

Of course, your manager at McDonald's doesn't get to string you up and whip you when you burn the fries, so I guess it evens out, huh?

 

[Cecilie1200]

Get educated and get a trade. Without a trade you're doomed in this World. I keep telling young people this. Without an education you'll end up begging for scraps at awful Corporate hell-holes like WalMart and MacDonalds. Now that is slavery. For an American anyway. You can bet they're gonna make your life miserable for that lousy $7.00 an hr. So get educated people or you will end up a slave at Walmart and MacDonalds.

If it matters Wall Mart and MacDonalds jobs are supposed to be for teenagers and the elderly who have a lot of time on their hands not careers...

Slavery is not a choice - these imbeciles have choices...

Yup. Minimum and near-minimum wage jobs are supposed to be a place you get hired when you're starting out in the job market, places that'll take you with no experience and let you gain that experience so you can move on to better things. They're not supposed to be careers.

 

[Cecilie1200]

The OP demostrates the precise atmosphere that Obama has brought to this country since his election. Class division, and a defeatest mentality.

Most notably the defeatest mentality that unless you already "have it" you don't stand a chance.
What a bunch of horse shit.

SO Obama made conservatives say that black families were better off under slavery?

Really not the point.

I would rather be dirt poor and free..then a rich slave.

Slavery is an abomination.

Yeah, but people who have always been free and never had to work and fight for it never appreciate how important it really is. It's called "being spoiled".

And sadly, there are some people in the world who actually prefer being mindless property to the rigors of independence.

 

[Ava]

Are you a poor American or do you just write senseless trip on their behalf?

Yeah, he's so poor he's no doubt on a library computer.

 

[Cecilie1200]

The OWS are born to be slaves. They are willing to work, if the can do as little as possible, preferably a job smoking dope and banging a pot they call a drum.

They would be happiest in a life of slavery where every facet of their lives was the responsibility of the master. As long as it was a generous master.

He'd have to be generous. You don't think any of those lazy fucks is capable of working hard enough to earn his keep, do you? I haven't seen a one of them that I'd deign to own if you paid me to take him.

 

[Cecilie1200]

I'll bet you $1.00 that the first slaves were volunteers.

You'd probably lose. Most slaves initially were people captured during warfare.

I'll bet that same dollar that slavery is older than war. It doesn't stretch the imagination too far to see family groups taking in orphans, feeding and sheltering them in exchange for work - You don't expect those little bastards to get any of the family inheritance do you? How unfair is that?

That's not slavery, Sparky.

Furthermore, human nature being what it is, very little predates war. I don't doubt for a second that THIS caveman family bashed THAT caveman family over the head for something they both wanted, which is really all war is.

 

[Katzndogz]

The OWS are born to be slaves. They are willing to work, if the can do as little as possible, preferably a job smoking dope and banging a pot they call a drum.

They would be happiest in a life of slavery where every facet of their lives was the responsibility of the master. As long as it was a generous master.

He'd have to be generous. You don't think any of those lazy fucks is capable of working hard enough to earn his keep, do you? I haven't seen a one of them that I'd deign to own if you paid me to take him.

That's why the whole movement will fail isn't it. None of them are willing to put forth an effort to even protest. Their protest is occupying space, shitting in the street and asking for handouts.

 

[Cecilie1200]

There has been a lot of talk in this country for years about the erosion of the middle class, however when I look at the income distribution in this country today I see that the income of the upper 50% of citizens is 87.3% of all the money earned in the country, and the income of the lower 50% is only 12.7%. There is in fact no middle class in America today; there is only us and them.

There are those who call this country is the land of opportunity, but as I live and breathe today I know without a doubt that this is a lie, it may have been true in the year 1900, but not having lived then I cannot say if it was just as much a lie in those days. The reality is there’s a glass ceiling in this nation at the 50% mark, if one is born above that line, one can have any opportunity under the sun and go as far as ones individual capabilities allow, but if one is born below that line ones only purpose in living so far as American society is concerned, is to work. And furthermore to work always for the benefit and profit of someone born above that 50% line.

Want your kids to go to college? Better be prepared to pay. Contrary to what the upper-class would have you believe federal student aid is of little use, the maximum a person of the lower class may receive is just over 30,000. This may sound like a significant amount to some, however in reality it will not even pay for an education at a state level university, to say nothing of the ivy league. Think your kids smart enough to earn a scholarship? Keep dreaming, the vast majority of scholarships offered are given to children from families who are already above that 50% line. Said scholarships are just given out as free benefits to coax kids with “the right breeding” in, or in some cases to help schools meet their minimum standards under affirmative action. Said scholarships will never go to a child from the lower 50% simply because of the kids own intellect. And as for that federal student aid money you can get, it will just about pay for community college, a degree that will get one nothing except a low level office job at best.

So in what other ways might the lower 50% “pull themselves up by the bootstraps” as republicans like to claim they should?
[snip ....]

Want to start any kind of business? Go give it a shot. While we have all heard the “success stories”, the reality is that such a small percentage of such ventures succeed as to make the real number of success’s insignificant. Of course good luck getting backing from the banks. The reality is if your born to the upper 50% like that idiot James O’Keefe, the banks will extend you a 50,000 dollar line of credit at the drop of a hat no matter how stupid your business model is, just like it did for him. But if you’re born to the lower 50%, good luck with the banks, No matter how good your business model is! Unlike the studios you will get the chance to be laughed out of every bank in town.

In the end it’s all a lie. If you’re born to the lower class, your sole purpose in this society is to work your ass off for the benefit of the upper class. Frankly I’m at the point where I would love nothing more than for a REAL class war to break out, because as far as I’m concerned that upper 50% can just kiss my fucking ass.

What is this OP... a farce? If not a farce you are, with all due respect, full of crap. My own case is a good example of that. I was born into a family which could not be called middle class. Except for managing to own our own home, we fit none of the parameters of the middle class. Neither of my parents went beyond the eighth grade. They raised 6 children during the depression, and all but one of us kids graduated from high school, and none went to college. I was the exception; by being the one who did NOT graduate high school, only getting a GED while in the military.

Getting a job straight out of the USMC in 1964 I declined drawing any unemployment compensation and went seventy miles outside my hometown to find and take a job as a junior engineer for $500 a month. Within seven months I was able to, without benefit of a co-signer, buy a half acre parcel on contract and use it, along with sweat-equity, to then build a brand new home for my fiancé and myself before we were married. It was ready to move into on our wedding day in August, 1965, one year and two weeks after I was discharged from the Marine Corps. I had moved back to the hometown to take a manufacturing job 36 miles from home at $100 more a month.

We were able, on our very small combined salaries (added together they were about $900 a month) to make advanced payments as a savings tool and sell it in four years and build another home four times the value, using the equity from the first one to leverage it the construction and mortgage loan. Three years later we repeated that, doubling the value of our second home with our third new one in a row. I had been helping people build their new homes, using a hammer the first time when I added a carport on my first one. By 72, in partnership with my brother we built his new house, and got a job to build another for one of the guys in my engineering office. (In 1969 I had left the manufacturing job applying to Westinghouse Electric Corporation as a junior industrial engineer) Then together we found a four acre tract for sale by an old land-baron in the area, who liked to sell on contract – if the contract defaulted he would give the defaulter all the principle back, but take the land back too for resale to another buyer - and we developed it into 7 residential lots, on which we built houses for the next couple of years.

In the meantime I left my engineering job as a full engineer to build homes and develop land into residential subdivisions separate from my brother. My next project was a ninety acre tract I developed into 30 estate sized lots suitable for luxury homes. During that time I had a half million dollar line of credit, and to get my business a new bank in our city (Chase) offered to and gave me a signature line of credit for $50K, based solely on my financial statement. This was pre-Fannie and Freddie, in the days of the 80% loan to principle ratio, and for specs and land development 60% loan to principle ratio.

At that time my financial statement showed a net worth of about a half million (assets minus liabilities) but that included my rolling stock, so I expected it would be drawn down as the stock (lots and spec houses) sold off. When my last lot sold the money from that my home, and twenty lots in partnership with my brother were about all we had, but I bought more land sans partner and started the process again, this time liquidating my lots and raw land so as to retire with a large part of my net worth in the bank instead of being drawn down for regular income.

My older brother (unlike me he was a high school graduate) followed about the same path ( after leaving a failed masonry business in Chicago in 1969) but after a few years of seeing how the net worth was spent down he decided he could accrue wealth better by building and renting the units, retaining ownership and retaining ownership of them; all duplexes. He is a multiple-millionaire and has, after selling the first few hundred off as condominiums a few at time, bought, loan free another three-quarter-million of old housing in separate (individual) older homes scattered in the two county area.

My own son, like I didn't go to college, probably because, (again like me) he wasn't college material. But he has a sound business in the HVAC business, and his daughter did get a scholarship to I.U. under the guidance of her high school admin.

I don't want to write a novel; I couldn't. I don't want to be a famous actor, I proved I didn't have talent for acting when I forgot my lines my first time on stage in the Christmas play while in the third grade. As for an inheritance, we six kids each got six thousand from the sale of our parent’s home in 1973 when they both passed away.

I would say that at the time I built up my own family's wealth, that I know of six or seven more of my peers who did about the same thing; some better, some not as well. But the main difference between them and me is that I didn't even graduate from high school, leaving in the middle of my senior year. That has to prove something even if it is only anecdotal.

Coming out of the depression my daddy had a more constructive view of banks and lending. He was loaned $500 by his sister to build a home for his family, sold and bought on land contract, and at 14 years he introduced me to financing through local merchants the things I wanted but didn’t have enough of my own funds for ready purchase. There is utility in borrowing money one doesn’t have if it can put it to use earning a return on investment. I have and always have had the top credit rating. I accomplished what I did by never giving up, and working as many hours as it took to get the job done, even though at times I felt that I couldn’t make it – like in the bad years of 79 and 80.

While you have a interesting story it is a typical description of the world we live in. People under 30 have a very different reality then people over 30. Most doors of opportunity are now closed, or are clearly closing fast.

Horse crap. Why are you standing around, waiting for the door to open for you? Grow a pair, grasp the fucking doorknob, and open that sucker yourself.

Unless the world is a perfect place - and I'm pretty sure it's not - there are still items that need to be invented, jobs that need to be done, and changes that need to be made. Get off your dead, whining ass and go find them, for Christ's sake!

 

[Cecilie1200]

The OWS are born to be slaves. They are willing to work, if the can do as little as possible, preferably a job smoking dope and banging a pot they call a drum.

They would be happiest in a life of slavery where every facet of their lives was the responsibility of the master. As long as it was a generous master.

He'd have to be generous. You don't think any of those lazy fucks is capable of working hard enough to earn his keep, do you? I haven't seen a one of them that I'd deign to own if you paid me to take him.

That's why the whole movement will fail isn't it. None of them are willing to put forth an effort to even protest. Their protest is occupying space, shitting in the street and asking for handouts.

You got it. And every time one of them pops up to try to articulate what the hell it is they're crowding the streets and parks over, the rest of them shout him down and say that's not what they're about. THEN they wonder why the rest of America is saying, "Then what the hell is the POINT?"

 

[Photonic]

Why only single out America? I'm pretty sure that's the case all over the World no? And i bet it's much much worse being poor in most other nations. Our poor Citizens certainly don't have it the worst. In fact the definition of the term poor should probably be in question. What is poor in America? What is poor in most other nations around the World? Something to chew on i guess.

A better question for you.

Why should citizens of the wealthiest country on Earth be anywhere near something considered poor?

 

[Unkotare]

That question reveals your...limitations...

 

[deepthunk]

What an insult to those who lived through actual slavery.

Ya right, do feel free to be offended on behalf of black people we all know republicans are good at that.
Well I said it and I’ll say it again, I am a slave in this country, in fact slave isn’t a strong enough word. You rich pieces of shit have the entire country aligned to serving your best interests to the detriment of all else. And the whole time I have a choice between doing the hardest possible labor in the most hellish conditions, all for a paycheck that doesn’t even allow me the ability to afford a place to live. That’s when there’s even enough hellish labor to go around.
So while I freeze my ass off without a penny to my name, you just sit there in your nice comfortable home with god knows what expensive luxuries and tell me I don’t have a right to bitch. You can all go fuck yourselves.

 

[deepthunk]

god i hate you all

 

[kwc57]

god i hate you all

Fuck you!

 

[kwc57]

There has been a lot of talk in this country for years about the erosion of the middle class, however when I look at the income distribution in this country today I see that the income of the upper 50% of citizens is 87.3% of all the money earned in the country, and the income of the lower 50% is only 12.7%. There is in fact no middle class in America today; there is only us and them.

There are those who call this country is the land of opportunity, but as I live and breathe today I know without a doubt that this is a lie, it may have been true in the year 1900, but not having lived then I cannot say if it was just as much a lie in those days. The reality is there’s a glass ceiling in this nation at the 50% mark, if one is born above that line, one can have any opportunity under the sun and go as far as ones individual capabilities allow, but if one is born below that line ones only purpose in living so far as American society is concerned, is to work. And furthermore to work always for the benefit and profit of someone born above that 50% line.

Want your kids to go to college? Better be prepared to pay. Contrary to what the upper-class would have you believe federal student aid is of little use, the maximum a person of the lower class may receive is just over 30,000. This may sound like a significant amount to some, however in reality it will not even pay for an education at a state level university, to say nothing of the ivy league. Think your kids smart enough to earn a scholarship? Keep dreaming, the vast majority of scholarships offered are given to children from families who are already above that 50% line. Said scholarships are just given out as free benefits to coax kids with “the right breeding” in, or in some cases to help schools meet their minimum standards under affirmative action. Said scholarships will never go to a child from the lower 50% simply because of the kids own intellect. And as for that federal student aid money you can get, it will just about pay for community college, a degree that will get one nothing except a low level office job at best.

So in what other ways might the lower 50% “pull themselves up by the bootstraps” as republicans like to claim they should?

Want to be a movie star? Better be prepared to pay. The only way to get ones foot “in the door” of Hollywood is to pay an agent, an incredible expense that a performer just entering the field can’t hope to pay unless they are already members of the upper class, already born to that upper 50%. Without an agent, you won’t get laughed out of every studio in town, because you’ll never set foot in one.

Want to write a great movie? Same thing, better get an agent, and don’t think you can afford one unless you make over 100 grand a year already. Without an agent you will never sell a script in Hollywood, but take it from me, if your movies good enough you will darn well get it plagiarized in Hollywood, in fact you can get that in no time flat.

Want to write the great American novel? Better pay out the nose for an agent because without one no legitimate publisher in the country will look at your manuscript, unless it’s to allow an established writer from the upper 50% plagiarize you. Think you’re going to self-publish it? Dream on. The volume of material available for sale on amazon, kindle, and similar sites and services dictates that unless you pay out the nose for advertising, you will have zero sales.

Want to start any kind of business? Go give it a shot. While we have all heard the “success stories”, the reality is that such a small percentage of such ventures succeed as to make the real number of success’s insignificant. Of course good luck getting backing from the banks. The reality is if your born to the upper 50% like that idiot James O’Keefe, the banks will extend you a 50,000 dollar line of credit at the drop of a hat no matter how stupid your business model is, just like it did for him. But if you’re born to the lower 50%, good luck with the banks, No matter how good your business model is! Unlike the studios you will get the chance to be laughed out of every bank in town.

In the end it’s all a lie. If you’re born to the lower class, your sole purpose in this society is to work your ass off for the benefit of the upper class. Frankly I’m at the point where I would love nothing more than for a REAL class war to break out, because as far as I’m concerned that upper 50% can just kiss my fucking ass.

I'm guessing that you wear a stupid looking little knit cap and play guitar in coffee shops for pocket change don't you? Finding out that the world owes you absolutely nothing and that you have to make it on your own is a rather rude awakening. Welcome to life.

 

[Flopper]

I think describing poverty as slavery is a bit extreme, however it is far more difficult for a child raised in poverty to attain anything even close to the American dream. The chance of a child raised in poverty dropping out of school is 5 times as great as a member of upper middle class. Only 1 in 17 students from poor homes with income under $35K can expect to earn a college degree. 1 out of ever 2 kids from families with incomes over $85K, graduate from college. Once in the work force the poor is likely to never make it pass the lower middle class and fall in and out of poverty throughout their lives.

The one trait that most of those living poverty share is a feeling hopelessness. Thinking of oneself as a slave to the system is pretty common.

Poor kids hear over and over in school that no matter how poor you are, you have a chance of making it but they soon they learn that chance is very small.

USATODAY.com - Reality weighs down dreams of college
11 Facts about Education and Poverty in America | Do Something

 

[AVG-JOE]

If a fair and simple tax code, balanced budget and transparency in politics are the foundation for building an economy that can be driven to the stars, education is the fuel.

It IS the responsibility of We, The People to bring educational opportunities to all citizens.

It is NOT the responsibility of We, The People to feed those who don't take advantage of the educational opportunities presented. That said, We're doing a piss poor job of creating an opportunity rich environment, especially for those who need help with opportunities.

 

[M14 Shooter]

In the end it’s all a lie. If you’re born to the lower class, your sole purpose in this society is to work your ass off for the benefit of the upper class. Frankly I’m at the point where I would love nothing more than for a REAL class war to break out, because as far as I’m concerned that upper 50% can just kiss my fucking ass.

Dont worry, son - when you get into the real world, you'll see the light.

 

[M14 Shooter]

I think describing poverty as slavery is a bit extreme, however it is far more difficult for a child raised in poverty to attain anything even close to the American dream.

Your life is what YOU make of your talents, abilities and the gifts that God gave you.
If you fail to live up to your potential, you have no one to blame but you.
:shrug: