Feliz Cinco de Mayo
A gorgeous spring/summer day today, and the affianced and I spent a good part of the morning skiving off and talking about life, the universe, and everything (i.e. the plight of the left-wing in America) on the plinth* of the Widener Library. I had an iced coffee. It was most delicious.
Springy and Boomy have now made the same point to me in different words: that the Left is so fragmented it can't get anything done, while the Right has banded together in an unholy alliance and is buggering us up the arse while we bicker about veganism or whatever. I said we needed something really potent to rally around, something that combines feminism/poverty/human rights, etc. Springy proposed child poverty as an issue that encompasses all of those various issues, and which no one could fail to get behind (without looking like assholes). The problem with attacking poverty in general is that there is a dearth of sympathy (by which of course I also mean empathy) for adults who are poor, and by extension dirty and lazy and stupid and undeserving. The dark underbelly of the American dream is that if you're poor it's your own damn fault, and why shoudl I pay for your mistakes? But who can blame a poor child for being poor? Then we can tackle healthcare and childcare and education as well. Rally round, troops! Because something needs to be done here. The bad guys are winning and we are putting our heads in our hands.
The American middle class has no visceral sense of how close to the edge it is walking until it drops off. I reckon that every middle class person in this country is a maximum of two horrible things away from destitution. Think about it. Financial crisis + deadly disease. Debt + natural disaster. Death of family member + crippling mental illness. Pregnancy + job loss. However comfortable you think you are, if there are not social support systems, and two bad things happen to you, you are fucked. You, who favor the free market and hold yourself to be superior to the poor dirty stupid people who didn't stockpile clean water - if you are not Donald Trump and two bolts of lightening strike you (from the vengeful God of Job or from the great uncaring void), you'll be living in your car or the basement of your brother's house before the year is out.
Remember Trading Places?
Anyway, that's all of that for now. I'm in a happy mood. Sun is shining, weather is sweet, and I spent four hours in the dark of the confocal room yesterday so I have buckets of data ripe for analysis. Huzzah!
*"Plinth" is probably not the word I am looking for, but I just really wanted to say "plinth", as it is a great word. Say it, you'll see. Go ahead, right now: "plinth". Doesn't your tongue feel like it's had a good workout? "Plinth, plinth, plinth." Don't worry if people give you funny looks. There was a woman sitting behind me on the bus yesterday who was muttering to herself the whole way home. All I could hear were the sibilant sounds bouncing off the window. So you saying "plinth" a few times is actually not even so weird, considering.
Springy and Boomy have now made the same point to me in different words: that the Left is so fragmented it can't get anything done, while the Right has banded together in an unholy alliance and is buggering us up the arse while we bicker about veganism or whatever. I said we needed something really potent to rally around, something that combines feminism/poverty/human rights, etc. Springy proposed child poverty as an issue that encompasses all of those various issues, and which no one could fail to get behind (without looking like assholes). The problem with attacking poverty in general is that there is a dearth of sympathy (by which of course I also mean empathy) for adults who are poor, and by extension dirty and lazy and stupid and undeserving. The dark underbelly of the American dream is that if you're poor it's your own damn fault, and why shoudl I pay for your mistakes? But who can blame a poor child for being poor? Then we can tackle healthcare and childcare and education as well. Rally round, troops! Because something needs to be done here. The bad guys are winning and we are putting our heads in our hands.
The American middle class has no visceral sense of how close to the edge it is walking until it drops off. I reckon that every middle class person in this country is a maximum of two horrible things away from destitution. Think about it. Financial crisis + deadly disease. Debt + natural disaster. Death of family member + crippling mental illness. Pregnancy + job loss. However comfortable you think you are, if there are not social support systems, and two bad things happen to you, you are fucked. You, who favor the free market and hold yourself to be superior to the poor dirty stupid people who didn't stockpile clean water - if you are not Donald Trump and two bolts of lightening strike you (from the vengeful God of Job or from the great uncaring void), you'll be living in your car or the basement of your brother's house before the year is out.
Remember Trading Places?
Anyway, that's all of that for now. I'm in a happy mood. Sun is shining, weather is sweet, and I spent four hours in the dark of the confocal room yesterday so I have buckets of data ripe for analysis. Huzzah!
*"Plinth" is probably not the word I am looking for, but I just really wanted to say "plinth", as it is a great word. Say it, you'll see. Go ahead, right now: "plinth". Doesn't your tongue feel like it's had a good workout? "Plinth, plinth, plinth." Don't worry if people give you funny looks. There was a woman sitting behind me on the bus yesterday who was muttering to herself the whole way home. All I could hear were the sibilant sounds bouncing off the window. So you saying "plinth" a few times is actually not even so weird, considering.
posted by Joolya at
11:54 AM
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