One day, you wake up and realize a couple of truths. One, odds are you aren't going to hit the lottery, and you'd better get used to the idea that you aregoing to have to work for a living...And two, you aren't going to start as the CEO.
So you do what they tell you has to be done. You stay in school until you graduate. You enlist and pull a term or two in the military, both because you need something on your resume, and because, well, you are supposed to. That's what the coach told you, that's what your folks told you, and you know it's a family tradition.
So you pull your hitch, and you work on your job skills. Maybe you're a mechanic, maybe an electrician. Whatever. So you get out, and you get yourself an entry level position doing whatever trade it is that you trained for. Hell, you might start out driving a forklift...but it's good, honest work, and it has been explained to you that honest work is honorable, an honest day's work leads to an honest day's pay. ABout this time, you probably get married and pop out a kid or two. Life isn't easy, but life is good...
...Until.
One day they tell you that your job has been "offshored". Your whole division is being sent to Singapore, where slaves can do your job cheaper. Forget about severance or warning...this isn't your dad's generation. "Cripes", you think, "Well, at least I'm still young. I'm only 30 something. I'll find something." And you do. You find a gas station, you sap, because all the skilled jobs that haven't been sent to Asia are held down tooth and nail by those lucky enough to still be employed, and the waiting list is like 4 years long. You have no money to relocate, and even if you could, you know damn well that the same thing is happening everywhere.
Well, shit. So much or college for the kids. They'll have to do the same thing you did. So they do...but then your boy comes home in a wheelchair, because that dumbass president insists on having unnecessary wars he doesn't know how to run. You always knew that was a risk, but damn! This war is so STUPID, and your kid is crippled for NOTHING. But now you find out there isn't any VA for your kid, because rich people wanted a tax cut AND a couple of wars. YOU can't afford physical therapy for your kid, because there still aren't any decent jobs...there's JOBS, but they don't pay shit, and if you don't like it, they'll send what you have to Mexico. Hell, they might do that anyway.
The only reason you don't eat a gun or drink yourself to death is that your kid needs you. But now you start to get MAD. You get MAD AS HELL at the liars and thieves and pimps that did all of this to you, after you did everything you were supposed to do. You never read Locke, but you have a intuitive understanding of the social contract, and it's pretty fucking obvious that the rich bastards didn't hold their end up. So you get pissed off.
But you're 45 years old and all alone in your anger. Just one man. What the hell can YOU do? You're full of hate and rage, but you can't DO anything, at least nothing that would MATTER, and you start to think that this bottle up rage is maybe an inkling - just a touch - of what Malcolm X was talking about all those years ago, and you start thinking about what the hell happened to you, and who the hell is responsible for it. Sure, it was the president and that greedy bastard CEO and some retarded asshole secretary of defense. It was even a lot of people you knew, maybe even YOU, who voted for all this shit because, hell, it looked good at the time.
Then you realize the truth. It's YOUR fault, Joe. Yeah, you. You believed their lies about how hard work would see you through. You believed all the stupid shit about duty and honor and country and then you found out the hard way that their word is shit, and the deal is rigged, and the American Dream is actually a nightmare from which you can't seem to wake.
And you realize that they are laughing at you. All the assholes with their MBAs are laughing their asses off, because they fooled the fuck out of you. They USED you, and then they threw you and your kid in the dumpster.
So you tell me, Joe...what the hell are you gonna do about it?
:mittens:
Powerful stuff.
That reminds me, did I ask you about editing your flyers for a UK audience? Of course, usual stuff (name on the flyers etc) will be done, but I wanna make sure I asked before handing over the file to Syn.
Syn?
:potd:
:mittens:
I always said doing what you're 'supposed' to do, because you're 'supposed' to do it is the dumbest fkin life choice you can make.
I joined the rat race because a piece of pussy asked me to. Even when I had explained to her that tax was an option and banks and utilities actually give out cash and services for free. So I said 'fuck it' and sold out.
Never been so fucking skint in my life. Only crime actually pays. Legit is nothing more than an assfuck.
Another problem in this equation is the world of credit and credit cards. So while people are swallowing hole the "work hard" meme from society, which is paying them little. They are also gladly eating up the BS of living in a festering pool of debt, and that it is just "part of the norm" to be so in debt. So, even if you don't have the perfect job, you still need to find a way to get the techno-bling so you don't look like the poor slob you actually are.
Days like this I wish I had a good printer.
:mittens:
I got out of debt last year. Man, that was a weight I never really knew was there until it was gone.
Granted, I have a mortgage, but that's actually sort of paying for something.
I've gotta printer but I've got too many people who could fire me hanging around it right now.
Copy & paste into Word, and be patient.
Quote from: Cain on March 01, 2007, 04:04:54 PM
Powerful stuff.
That reminds me, did I ask you about editing your flyers for a UK audience?  Of course, usual stuff (name on the flyers etc) will be done, but I wanna make sure I asked before handing over the file to Syn.
Go ahead. If you're gonna change the text, though, I'd like to see the finished product.
Just saying.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 01, 2007, 04:39:00 PM
Quote from: Cain on March 01, 2007, 04:04:54 PM
Powerful stuff.
That reminds me, did I ask you about editing your flyers for a UK audience? Of course, usual stuff (name on the flyers etc) will be done, but I wanna make sure I asked before handing over the file to Syn.
Go ahead. If you're gonna change the text, though, I'd like to see the finished product.
Just saying.
Alright. It was going to be minor reference changes, so a UK audience would not automatically think "American", but Ill run it by you regardless.
Quote from: Cain on March 01, 2007, 04:40:54 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 01, 2007, 04:39:00 PM
Quote from: Cain on March 01, 2007, 04:04:54 PM
Powerful stuff.
That reminds me, did I ask you about editing your flyers for a UK audience?  Of course, usual stuff (name on the flyers etc) will be done, but I wanna make sure I asked before handing over the file to Syn.
Go ahead.  If you're gonna change the text, though, I'd like to see the finished product.
Just saying.
Alright.  It was going to be minor reference changes, so a UK audience would not automatically think "American", but Ill run it by you regardless.
No prob.
:mittens:
Though something cynical deep inside me thinks that when the intended audience reads this, they'll feel like you called them stupid, get defensive, and go "goddamn hippies" and walk off completely unchanged.
Quote from: The Littlest Ubermensch on March 01, 2007, 11:48:01 PM
:mittens:
Though something cynical deep inside me thinks that when the intended audience reads this, they'll feel like you called them stupid, get defensive, and go "goddamn hippies" and walk off completely unchanged.
That's okay, little one. I will refer you to the TITLE of this rant.  There really isn't anything we can do for most of them anyway.  Well... not unless you can pull a mountain-sized nickel-iron meteor out of the sky...
Speaking of which, when is that asteroid going to hit?  2034 or some shit?
If it does, then yes. Around then.
I think it'll miss though.
Good shit, Rog.
Quote from: East Coast Hustle on March 04, 2007, 09:46:29 PM
Good shit, Rog.
Thanks. That's the first burp in a really big barf that's been working it's way up my throat.
Quote from: The Littlest Ubermensch on March 01, 2007, 11:48:01 PM
:mittens:
Though something cynical deep inside me thinks that when the intended audience reads this, they'll feel like you called them stupid, get defensive, and go "goddamn hippies" and walk off completely unchanged.
They will.
Until about 3AM the following morning.