Random Darkling wrote:
Oh wow, I wouldn't have expected it to reach Vancouver! That's pretty cool, actually.

I hesitate to blame people, though, for being unable to distinguish between "useless crap" and necessities. After all, our whole culture is aimed toward thesearethethingsyoushouldBUY BUYthesethings. Even if the need is artificial, I think it's felt to be real.
Plus, you have to think about things in context. People don't really need phones, internet, or heck, even electricity. But now that our whole society is structured around such things, it does become a need. Does everyone need a smartphone? Probably not. But does everyone need a cell phone? I would argue that you would be at a severe disadvantage if you don't have one. If you don't have a computer with internet access, now, you're at a severe disadvantage as well.

So I think part of the problem is there are these real social needs, but there are more and more of them. Then there are fewer and fewer jobs. People go to school, and expect to be able to get a job afterwards and be able to afford living a certain way. But there are no jobs. There simply aren't enough, and most of the ones there are don't pay enough.

I dunno. I am not sure if protesting is a good way to approach things, but I am glad that they are at least making people think, and because they're getting so much media attention I wonder if, eventually, the government will try to take a more active approach to solving the country's problems. One of my main problems with Obama is that he hasn't been aggressive enough trying to find solutions, probably because he doesn't want to risk a decrease in popularity. But risking his popularity is something that might have to be done to make real change.
Mel, I could not agree with you more in your first two paragraphs.  We are, indeed, a highly materialistic society.  And along with that comes a huge sense of entitlement, and it seems that the more money you have, the more material wealth you deserve to possess.  And with that can come an attitude to the effect that, as long as I have mine, to hell with everyone else.  You see that not only in the "1 percent", but it also trickles down, as fish in a pond.  It's a food chain.  And various echelons in the "99 percent" are getting fed up with it.

But I'm not sure that protracted demonstrations will do much to ignite the sort of "seismic shift" that needs to occur in our culture; people need to start thinking more in important ways, such as collectively placing a higher priority on education than entertainment, for instance.  Why do professional athletes and coaches make exponentially more money than good professors?  At the end of the day, what do the former two produce?  Anything that our society really needs right now?  No.  But what can a professor produce if paid what he or she is worth, and made accessible to willing pupils?  The answer is obvious.  But our society's priorities are upside down.  Until that changes, elementally, we'll all be "p*ssing up the proverbial rope", I'm sorry to say.

TC




~ Friends I never met took my hand to steady themselves

with wisdom I thought life had primed me to imbue.
But in truth the privilege was theirs to confer,
young eyes, as pools, reflections of a me I never knew. ~

TC

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