Forum Post: They say we don't know what oppression is....
Posted 13 years ago on Nov. 13, 2011, 10:24 p.m. EST by libertyordeath87
(3)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I've heard a lot of talk about the fact that people in the US really don't have it that bad. So why protest? After all we're still doing better than the third world. True. But for how much longer? We aren't in this because we are truly at rock bottom. We're doing this because we know that if we don't fight now we will be there soon. Think about it. People are already losing their homes, their jobs, dying from lack of healthcare. How long till we're lining up to collect rations? Till people are begging in the streets? Freezing to death in the winter cold? Riddled with fear and disease? Just look in the history books. It wouldn't be the first time that greed in this country and many others has left the people in such a state. Do we really want to end up there again? We've all come so far. We've developed technologies and social standards that could not have ever been fathomed in the past. We are more united than we ever have been, here at home and around the world. We know what oppression is. It is the able man who watches bankers dine on caviar and champagne while his family starves. It is the sick who are turned away from hospitals they helped to build. It is the mother who tells her children bedtime stories at a homeless shelter while the CEOs sleep soundly in their mansions. We are better than that. And if we have to protest to prove it, so be it.
Call it what you like, I cannot afford to keep going to school and starting over from scratch. They create jobs for MBAs or they do not, but if they don't I am going to a country where education is far less expensive and subsidized by my tax dollars. I am not spending six figures getting an engineering degree or spending three hundred thousand dollars, getting a medical degree, so down the road I can be told we are now a dime a dozen.
Hire me or get lost. China will hire Chinese MBAs and India will hire Indian MBAs. If the USA can't create jobs then it is the USAs problem, not my problem. NY already has twice the engineering graduates, as there are engineering jobs, in NY. If the USA expects my generation to wait tables, while Indian MBAs make good money, screw the USA. I am not taking a working class, job so I can pay for CIA thugs, Predator drones and for prostitutes, to please Karsai. I have a life to live, too. If I have to start a small business, it isn't going to be in this parasitic society. Let ultra rich Americans mooch off of someone else.
I really can't understand this type of reasoning. One day I was cleaning toilets in private homes and the next day I had a BBA degree. That degree didn't say anything about NEVER having to clean toilets agains or even anything about a ticket to that job I wanted.
And NO, based on your resume as written above, I am sorry, I will NOT hire you.
You won't have to worry about this, since I am not reduced to needing you. I can afford to start my own business. I would not work for anyone, like you, in the first place. I live in Scarsdale, NY and I am not getting the career I want, so I am not working for anyone, but my own self. I don't need your attitude problem or your working class hero bull sh-t. Only the poor have to listen to you and even they will get up and move to a country, where they will make the most money and be treated well. You will NEVER hire me... for real?! [giggle]
At least we are in full agreement - it is a WIN-WIN situation for both of us.
Returning your resume.
It is true, this is a win- win. Some people are meant to work for others and some people are not meant to work for others. We would never get along, but good luck with your career Ronjj. I hope you do not end up scrubbing toilets again, but if you do, I am sure that my neighbors would sure like to hire you, since they do not clean their own toilets. I scrub my own toilets, so I do not need such labor.
MEANT, MEANT???
I would say CHOOSE to clean toilets or work for others. I am not really a social class type guy assuming that anyone is MEANT to do anything within the areas we are discussing here.
I am now in my fourth career. And yes, I still clean toilets - it will never be above by status to do so and if someone calls at 10:00 at night to report a toilet overflowing in my business, yes I will go stop the problem it is not above me or my position in life to do so.
Your reference to "end up scrubbing toilets again" seems, in my opinion, to sum up your outlook on life and your attitude towards other people and what they choose to do.
And yes, my present career does including "cleaning toilets". The person with the responsibility for that physical chore among a lot of chores is actually the highest paid among the -5- people that work with me including those in a management position.
So much for the great debate regarding cleaning toilets.
PS - Just a helpful hint. Don't spend your money on a toilet plunger unless you want a face full of crap. Try that toilet bowl brush you already have, plunge it into the toilet drain a few times and most problems will be solved. I got my master's degree too so I know about these things.
Ronjj, I have a high opinion of people. While I have had to perform working class jobs, such as moving furniture, landscaping and other working class tasks, as a teenager, I tend to believe that these working class tasks are not appropriate tasks for the highly educated; unless you are, in point of fact, performing such a task to better a property you have an ownership interest in or a business, you or a family member actually own. I think very highly of people, so I do believe in establishing symbolic rewards for attaining an education. Attaining an education expresses a commitment to a particular path of socialization. If you want to be in management, why do you want to work as a high school student? Perhaps a showing of humility?
Well, what about humility to the value of education, humility to the educated members of your community? My relatives, Russian Jews, left Russia, moved to China and then moved to the United States. Being elder and educated carries weight, in my culture. It is inappropriate to mistreat a highly educated or senior member of my community, by asking such a member to perform tasks appropriate for high school drop outs. I would not ask a Russian Jewish doctor to mop my floor, as there is perceived value in intellect and a reciprocal expectation that I will respond most favorably to a more highly educated, senior, member of my society. I would ask a high school student to mop a floor.
MBAs, in the USA, as in China, should be on management tracks, subordinate to superiors, used for modeling purposes, not working on toilet duty. If the USA cannot focus on value adding skills, then this country is hopeless. Humility is a value, not an outcome. A man may humbly sweep floors, all day long and not gain the related experience necessary, to add value, while using his professional background. You could ask a resident to sweep floors, in a hospital, but a resident needs to learn to be a doctor, not to be a janitor. Humility, through janitor duties, is not what a manager needs, a manager needs related managerial experience and a management role model to emulate, just as a fighter pilot needs to learn air combat, from an experienced fighter pilot, not pump gas into an F- 35.
While you value a working class work ethic, bare in mind that management is not a working class career. Working class ethics are not essential to perform most managerial careers and therefore, are you doing what is in the interest of your company, by insisting on you values or merely seeking to enforce your values, in place of the established norms of others? If I have a Muslim MBA and I am training this Muslin, why would I not allow my employee to take five breaks, during the day, so long as the job gets done? What is it to me?
My religion, my culture, is different, but my value, of working straight through the day, is not Universal. I have no reason not to make this accommodation, since Islam is a fact of life and imposing my view on this worker is not essential to getting things done, in a Global corporation. Working as a janitor is not essential to management of a Global corporation, so your personal values, while profound to you, have no place in making decisions about training employees, for future management roles and indicates a potential misuse of intangible assets, pure and simple.
You are being overly dramatic. Read, for example, the 2010 census data at http://tinyurl.com/CensusEconomicData and note it says 84.5% of Americans reported they have health insurance. Surprised ? Of course, because you and most others form opinions based on popular sentiment rather than researching the facts.
To everyone who is telling me to stop typing and start doing I would just like you to know that you should know the facts before you judge. I volunteer at my food bank, 2 different homeless shelters and a bone marrow donation organization. So before you start telling me that I am wasting my time typing know this: I am wasting my time volunteering. It doesn't matter how many hours I spend at the pantry or the shelter I can't stop more and more people from getting their wages cut and having to come to us for food. I can't stop people from getting laid off and loosing their homes. These people are not drug addicts and deadbeats. They are businessmen, salesmen, educational workers, construction workers you name it. You should also know that I work in human resources. Over the last five years I have watched as my company liquidated the 401Ks of employees that had spent more than 20 years with the company, decreased our health coverage, decreased working hours and increased job responsibility. Meanwhile my job has been reduced to practically nothing because my ability to stand up for the rights of employees has been severely diminished for fear of losing my own job. Now. If you still want to attack my statement go ahead. It's your own right to make yourself look like a fool.
Don't listen to the haters.
Maybe you are volunteering at the wrong point of the problem with a victim attitude.
There was, what I consider, an excellent post on Yahoo yesterday from a financial advisor in Las Vegas-Salt Lake City who will have a book out in January about his real life experience in all of this. Watch for that book - it will explain in detail why SOME of the people appear at your pantry, shelter, etc for assistance, and how their own greed put them there.
I do LOOK like a fool, thank you, I am just trying to not ACT like one.
If you cannot distinguish between who you should be serving and who is merely a victim - you probably should not be volunteering where you are.
I am sorry about your job situation and your victimization by your company. It was not my intent or purpose to attack your statement. You may very well be accurate in all that you state, but you didn't state it all - you simply stated what happened- you gave no causes, no intrepretations as you see it. etc. You WANT me to be the fool by taking your view of the situation as the only view possible and the full view at that.
Easy way to tell when we're about to hit bottom, watch Europe. Some of those nations are in worse shape then we are.
Good post.
Good for exactly WHAT?? Anyone can post - not everyone can produce.
Is "PRODUCTION" the only virtue now?
Unless you plan on someone else taking care of your problems as outlined in the Forum Post.
If you can only POST then post - but post what is, not what is preceived to be in all situations.
What a bullshit pity party crock. People "dying in the streets"... freezing.."please sir..may I have a crumb".
funny how your username says liberty yet you have no fucking clue what it means.
There will always be rich people , get the fuck over it.
Oh! How sweet! You don't know how to formulate an actual argument so you attack my username. Gosh! The only thing more endearingly pathetic is that your vocabulary is so poor you've had to resort to profanity.
I am getting pretty pissed about this business of grand statements that are repeats of something someone else said. This business of dying from the lack of healthcare is a lot of crap if you want to apply it to the area where i live. Anyone can walk into the emergency room or our hospital and get the same medical care that I would pay under my insurance plan and they wouldn't even have to met the co-pay or deductible.
It is mother who tells the story, while one of the fathers lays in a bed at the shelter having been there all day, not seeking work, not doing anything at all (been there, seen that, and I am personally funding a program that will take at least the children out of that situation for a period of time to show them, and teach them that they can have a life outside the shelter and that the American dream is alive and well and is part of their future.
What the hell have you done other than round up a lot of partial facts. There is no unity among the people that are in the fields of this nation fighting all the evils you speak of on a daily basis AND those like you who spout off a bunch of garbage for the sole purpose of justifying your purpose in life, whatever that may be.
What are you doing while all these people are freezing to death, dying from the lack of healthcare, those children whos' whole future is tied to some homeless shelter.
If you have time to sit and write this garbage, you could be passing out blankets, taking people to get healthcare, hock your computer and feed someone besides yourself.
I am sorry for the rudeness but I have run out of patience with you and yours. If you cannot put your foot to the street - at least get out of the way of those who are doing so. And STOP demeaning what we are doing through every word that you can type into some computer somewhere.
If you have time to sit and write this garbage, you could be passing out blankets, taking people to get healthcare, hock your computer and feed someone besides yourself. I am sorry for the rudeness but I have run out of patience with you and yours. If you cannot put your foot to the street - at least get out of the way of those who are doing so. And STOP demeaning what we are doing through every word that you can type into some computer somewhere
take your own advice ronjj
Took it, did it.
Thanks for the advice - same to you.
I work 50 hours a week "fighting the evils" you were talking about for the last 10 years. Just try to remember the mom's and dad's are the grown up version of the children. By and large kids love their parents. You won't help the kids by denigrating their parents. And It will just burn you out and make you mean.
There was no intent to denigrate any parent - just stating an observation in one case - HOWEVER - I do not think that the parent HAS to be seen as the "grown up version of the children". This is simply admitting that the children have no choice to become anything but a carbon copy of their parents to be written off in the efforts of this culture to promote a better life for all. Some choose to work through the parents, some choose to work through the parents and some choose to work through both
I simply do not accept your premise that the children have no choice but to be like their grown up versions. You are simply creating a class of people with no hope, no chance of participating in a world of their choice - not that confined to that of their parents.
Karai2, I do not doubt your 50 hours a week efforts to fight evils, but sometimes just fighting IN the situation does not change the situation.
I could give you hundreds of examples from my past, of individuals who have totally overcome proverty and a way of life that would have kept them trapped there forever if the people around them had not said you have a choice and you can be what you want to be AND this in no way denigrated their parents who were a vital part in this process - the child knowing that they had every option in their life to remain, go a little ways, or go all the way.
You evidently are doing a commendable work - but if that work simply is temporary and leaves the people you work with in the same situation subject to the same "evils" when you leave, what have you accomplished during your 50 hours for 10 years?? If you have lifted even one person (young or old) or one family out of their situation into the life that they want - you are a success in my opinion.
I have one success story to share with you. A young girl from what you and many others would consider a proverty area, is now a noted doctor on the West Coast. Her mother simply hugged me and said "thank you ,you told her that she could be anything that she wanted to be" and the smile on her face and the tear in her eye was my reward - a reward not asked for.
I am glad you have been able help hundreds of kids out of poverty. If your program was in my area I would love to have a resource like that for the families I work with.
It is not really a program - it is an individual who will make a committment to have a purpose in life and to share that purpose with others. And all done, not in the attitude of the victimization of people but the hope that they can become what they want to be.
This does not mean that you sacrifice your total being for the benefit of others, it simply means that you do what you can where you are to help at least one other person.
"Anyone can walk into the emergency room or our hospital and get the same medical care that I would pay under my insurance plan and they wouldn't even have to met the co-pay or deductible."
That is bunk.
All you can get in the emergency room is emergency care and possibly some medication. You cannot get treatment for chronic illnesses in the ER.
They will give you pain relief and referrals that is all.
That is YOUR hospital. Can't you make the distinction between YOUR hospital and MY hospital. You got a problem with your hospital - it is your responsibility to take care of it.
Don't "bunk" my statements about my situation unless you know what it is.
EMTALA does not cover treatment for chronic illlnesses.
This guy's post is about general conditions in the US, not about one hospital you "claim" to know of that provides charity care above and beyond what is required by law.
Every sick person in the US can go to "your" town and visit "your" hospital and get treatment, therefore the op's statement is "a lot of crap" as you called it.
Is "your" one hospital ready to treat every uninsured person in the USA?
Probably not, right?
Don't "crap" on other people's statements based on YOUR very limited anecdotal evidence.
I did not generalize my statment.
Feed on this for a minute - any of 100,000 people can walk into the other hospital in our area and get totally free healthcare for all but the most specialized medical conditions in which case they would be referred to another hospital for that care (fully paid).
I appreciate the music, but get rid of the violins, they are driving me nuts.
Where do you live?
There is no free health care here, when I was broke and had to use the Federally funded health care center I still had to pay something, and they only provide office visits. Lab testing is available at reduced cost but it isn't cheap if you have very little money.
Medicaid is available, not everyone qualifies.
I didn't.
This is what EMTALA covers -
http://www.lawhelp.org/program/1610/showdocument.cfm?doctype=faq&ichannelprofileid=40215&iorganizationid=1610&isubtopicid=1&iproblemcodeid=1510100
Emergency treatment only.
Have you ever asked your hospital administrator how much they write off annually in "unable to collect" charges. It will probably floor you. And these are not written off to cover those who can pay, who have insurance, etc.
Just ask - please.
If chronic illnesses are not covered why can the same person be in the emergency every week and not be denied treatment.
Are they going to provide surgery to remove cancerous tumors or for other ailments?
How about a broken arm or a broken leg? Many emergency rooms won't set a broken bone for the uninsured.
Also, do you work in the hospital? How do you who goes there, how often and what treatment they get?
I am not in a position to publish my line of work but suffice it to say that I have daily work contact with doctors and nurses who work in both of the hospitals that I have made reference to and many of these work in the ER.
Yeah, break a bone, go to our emergency room and we will just tell you to DRIVE home and take care of it yourself.
Let me ask your first. If you are familiar with an emergency room that will not set a broken bone (say a multiple fracture of one or both ankles) - what do you do with that person.
Not sure about the homeless statement, but in my town too anyone can get free healthcare. And they don't have to wait six months to get an MRI as in countries with socialized medicine. Yes, there's suffering here, but this violins playing in the background stuff is bullshit and typical spoiled American drivel.
Only referring to one homeless shelter that I am familiar with. My son and his wife teach these kids, they visit the shelter and they will be the ones working the program (I will only fund their work as I am able). Way too many mouths not enough feet (specifically referring to the author of this forum - unless he can show more that his ability to type)
I can only wonder how many of these problems would have been mediated to a great degree a lot sooner if the "thousands upon thousands" of people who can be freed from their earthly tasks to protest had actually decided to do something about the problem rather than become a flash in the pan of history.
People, you are protesting in New York City of all places. Your little safe haven in Liberty Park should be at least half full of the homeless from just around where you are. Are you providing them shelter, food, medical care or are you the reason they will be freezing to death, going hungry, etc. If you will not or can not take care of your neighbors in your own area - don't even start to point fingers at problems in my area.
Protest for the people really starving and homeless in Somalia. Send them your tents, food and money.
You do that, while we tend to our own backyards first.