Friday, September 16, 2011

Would you like me to tell you what's wrong with America? I can, in one simple sentence:

America no longer values work.

I'm not talking about work like Republicans are, when they talk about "hard work" in their speeches, almost always to groups of actual working people, those who work in factories owned by Republicans, who've not had a real raise in several decades, even as executive compensation at those same companies have multiplied to astronomical levels.

I'm saying that if you are a person in America who does real, actual work - be it assembly or teaching or ditch-digging - your labor is considered nowhere near as important as the "direction" given you by those who "manage" you. This attitude is often true even of those who are doing the labor. This lack of importance is reflected both in the pay (or lack thereof) and in the contemptuous manner which our "representatives" treat almost all policy and programs which directly affect working Americans.
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3 comments:

Pryme said...

I would change "America" to "politicians," only because while it's true that some workers have sipped the Kool-Aid and think they deserve there lot in life, the majority still believe in the Classic American Dream of "hard work = future reward." It's that belief that keeps them from rioting. They just don't know that politicians changed the definition a long time ago.

9/16/2011 8:21 AM
daveawayfromhome said...

Hard work = hard work. That's about it. Everything else is connections and luck.

9/16/2011 5:03 PM
daveawayfromhome said...

Also, there's a huge disconnect between the American Dream and the actual achieving of said dream. Massive wealth, the kind which we now dream of, is available only through exploitation of something, be it resources, ideas or people. No one is content anymore with making a living, the dream now is to make a killing, and that isnt achieved through hard work, it's achieved through building something (the work part), then finding someone to pay you a ridiculous sum of money for it (the part that almost feels like a con or something similarly unethical).

9/16/2011 5:48 PM

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