Comments on: Update and Photos from July 6th New Street Robbery

By: At Home in Decatur

At Home in Decatur — Sun, 21 Jul 2013 23:02:10 +0000

Darn, you are confirming my fears. I try not to be too pessimistic, especially since I have kids. It’s so refreshing to see how idealistic, generous, and open-minded kids can be. But I fear that our country is settling out into a class of haves and a class of have-nots, with both fearing and resenting the other. That puts at risk the civic pride, hope, opportunity, neighborliness, and community that can make this a great place to live. From my travel in countries with the extremes of wealth and poverty and not much in between, no one has a lot of fun in that system. The poor are without a lot of hope and have little to lose and the wealthy are scared of violent crime and of losing what they are accustomed to having. Everyone is limited.

On the other hand, I’ve read that most Americans consider themselves middle class no matter how little they earn. There’s something hopeful in that. Maybe I’m gullible, but I’ve always believed in the rhetoric that a robust, educated middle class is the secret to our democracy’s stability. I want our young people to aspire to be successful, satisfied members of a vast middle class. If they are lucky enough that their dreams happen to take them to the top, I want to them to still appreciate other levels of success and to share. Greed is unattractive and unsatisfying IMHO.

By: smalltowngal

smalltowngal — Sun, 21 Jul 2013 20:58:13 +0000

I agree that classism has become more prevalent and would go so far as to say it’s the worst of all nowadays. I disagree that we have not “gone far down the road of an entitled class that avoids sharing its privileges and advantages.” I think we have traveled farther in that direction than most want to acknowledge, and the farther we go, the worse things are going to be across the board.

By: Grrrrr

Grrrrr — Sun, 21 Jul 2013 11:35:56 +0000

Did you read the NYT article on how parole has changed over the decades and contributed to the inmate explosion? I can’t find it by searching. Might have been the New Yorker … Super interesting and sheds light on how minor infractions can land one back in jail. I also agree that we are failing our kids. We have one of the worst educational achievement rates of developed countries, one of the worst child well-being scores and so on. As a society, we seem to care more about goods than a good life. Thanks for writing your entries here.

By: At Home in Decatur

At Home in Decatur — Sat, 20 Jul 2013 21:53:22 +0000

IMHO, class-ism is replacing racism and sexism. It’s less offensive but still a threat to our survival as a dynamic and successful democracy. One of the reasons that Europe lost its cultural, scientific, and financial edge in the 20th Century was because the U.S. was a more hopeful place for those not born into the elite classes. So Europe lost a lot of skilled workers and talent to the more egalitarian U.S. I don’t think we’ve gone far down the road of an entitled class that avoids sharing its privileges and advantages but I do worry.

By: Rick Julian

Rick Julian — Sat, 20 Jul 2013 21:33:06 +0000

mind you this is not about the failure of a race of people–this is about how our country has failed its people.

if a car manufacturer had a defective component that led to failure rates like those i posted above, they would be required to spend what ever amount of money that was required to repair that problem–even if it cost billions of dollars (look up Toyota’s brake recall)–to make it right, and to retool the process to ensure it didn’t happen again.

yet, here we sit with our human capital–our nation’s treasure–and our process is broken, and is leading to abject failure. and what to we do? we don’t retool the system to correct the problem, no there’s no political and public will for that kind of proactive solution because it would cost lots of money. we just decide to spend billions of dollars to build more prisons to contain the growing problem.

this would be analogous to General Motors spending billions to build junkyards to hold their failured products rather than bringing them in and repairing them.

mind you personal, family and community responsibility also plays an equally big role here, and I don’t pretend to know the answer to this problem, but I damn sure know how not to fix it, and that’s to continue with the status quo.

and, no, i’ll never give it a rest.

#rantoff