Generation X: The Scapegoat Generation is Dying Young

Age 45-54 is now Generation X.

Generation X is dying young...The above study spoken about in the above videos makes it clear.

The death rates for our group are rising. Yesterday's "slackers" are kicking the bucket far faster then their parents.

Some articles blame the drugs, and AIDS.  These are window covering issues. The power that be outside a few alternative media outlets are hiding the real issue which is the dying economy and changed life-styles. NAFTA and other trade deals like it have changed life in America and are stripping things down.  Other races and minority groups have greatly suffered themselves with higher death rates for decades so this study concerns mostly white people. It's obvious the economy has kicked Generation X in the face. There's a reason that Baby Boomers have 47 times the wealth. 

Being 47 years old, I have noticed my friends have died far younger and been more sick, then my parent's generation. None of us expect to live as long. One friend died at 46, one man at 55, another in his 50s, my husband's best friend died at 39 and this doesn't include the people who are already disabled. Generation X is not living as long as the Baby Boom generation. Why not? Our parent's generation had a far more economically stable life. They had more access to medical care. They had more secure lives. They had stable families that stuck by them, who did not abandon them or constantly move away. My mother has never faced want or loneliness as an adult. She has never gone to a hospital fearing a resultant tens of thousands of dollar bill from lack of medical insurance. My mother's life has been nothing like my own. She has never seen the inside of a food pantry, she had stable employment that was 8 hours a day, which included retirement benefits and allowed for a life with vacations, a nice home, and expendable income. Many of her peers have shared in the same easier lives.

 I will be talking about generational trends.  So yes, there will be a broad brush applied to some of these issues. There are good and bad people in every generation so I post this with the caveat again, this does not apply to every individual and there are good and bad people in every generation.  The Baby Boomer generation being one of most selfish generations in human history in America, has thrown their own children--Generation X and millennials under the bus for their own benefit. Do any of the wealthy oldsters around here enjoying their retirements, giant bank accounts and new cars, notice the people my age, walking in the rain and snow from their low wage jobs?

While Generation X sunk further down and the millennials have not even been able to afford their own apartments or homes, the Baby Boom generation benefitted from this. The Baby Boomers were told they were special over and over, and boy they never let us forget it! Thus they did not care about what happened to their children after them. Most generations want things to improve for their children, the Baby Boomers, put up bumper stickers on their new Cadillac that said "Spending my children's inheritance"---and boy did they!

The narcissistic sabotage for Generation X, started when we were in our twenties. Don't you know there was a reason when they labeled us all lazy slackers? We couldn't do anything right and we just got out of college. Like narcissist parents do to the scapegoat, we were handed bags of hot air and false illusions that did not pan out. Baby Boomers got the full attention of the world's media, and intelligentsia, and still even as they age, this has not ended. Did you know the millennials are a bigger generation in numbers then Baby Boomers? Bet you didn't. Why? Because all of our lives we have been told how the Baby Boomers are the biggest and the best generation and others did not matter. 

We are reaching late adulthood and still hearing about Kennedy getting shot and the rest ad nauseum, while our youthful times get mere nods. No one's talking much about the 80s, sure the Germans got their show Deutschland 83 and there's been a few movies, and memes referring to movies like Back to the Future, but it's like the 60s never ended. I never expected to be this old, and still having it shoved down my throat.

Everytime it seems I read a book even, it's a Baby Boomer doing the talking. Even a recent book I'm reading from the library on education Mission High, featured a teacher who had been in the Weathermen as a youth and graduated in 1967. He was another old hippie pontificating to me the virtues in this case of Common Core. They couldn't get any younger teachers to interview? Generation X still remains invisible even as we ascend into late adulthood and middle age, behind the attention hogging Baby Boomers. 

  “Generation Xers are the forgotten middle child generation,” says Faith Popcorn, a trend consultant who advises companies on generational differences. “They’re worried about both the present and future. They understand more than millennials that they could be replaced by robots and a lot of them don’t think they’ll ever be able to afford kids or qualify for mortgages.”
Popcorn says “6 in 10 boomers and millennials think their generations are special but only one-third of Gen Xers do. You wouldn’t want to be a Gen Xer.”

We were gas-lighted and told we were "entitled" for having basic wants and needs like an actual full time job that paid the bills instead of pieced together temp work and part time jobs at the coffee shop counter. While Baby Boomers enjoyed the benefits of worker rights and unions, today many of them join the Tea Party and make sure to vote away any of the same breaks for the younger generations. Empathy must be gone, because aren't some of them seeing their adult children doing far worse, because of the cut-throat job market? Selfishness is winning out at the polls. None of the partying in Florida Baby Boomer set, seems to care that most of their adult children will be cooking a can of beans over a rusted metal trash can when they hit their old age, because retirements and pensions are a thing of the past. Even as we get older and sicker, they tell us we deserved it for "failing".

 A life time of being called a "loser" by your parents has taken an extreme emotional toll on Generation X. Broken homes, constant moving, lack of stability and then financial insecurity with huge loads of stigma for not measuring up to parental expectations has hurt many members of Generation X without measure. Our lives were destroyed via our parent's selfishness.  Narcissists to the end, they sabotaged their own children and competed with them and never let them in the door. Financial pressures that never ended where cash-starved twenties became still struggling forties and fifties took a massive mental and physical toll in Generation X. We never could relax. In too many of our lives, while our parents had fun and shopped while they dropped, the answer for us was always "No". The false dreams we were handed by a bunch of narcissists were crushed by the hard cold hand of reality.

The Baby Boom generation up rooted marriage with their constant divorces, and destruction of traditional values, with the counterculture and drugs leading the way, Baby Boomers led us to many of the rotten places we are today. The old Woodstock navel gazing hippies who only cared about themselves graduated to the career and money obsessed yuppies of the 1980s.  The "freedom fighters" became the world's biggest neo-liberal fascists or fascist Tea Partier/Republicans. They codified lack of mercy and the worship of monolithic power.  They told us "God is dead" and spat on natural human emotions like affection. Earlier generations were taught family cohesion, loyalty, and defending the weaker and young. Baby Boomers weren't interested in any of that. They were more interested in "finding themselves". Baby Boomers being the most godless narcissistic generation to ever exist, have paved a path of destruction through this country like no other generation before them.

Do the Baby Boomers have empathy for people younger then them? Surely there are some good souls among them, but empathy is lacking in many places. How many Generation X people were told they were "losers" and couldn't do anything right as the carpet was ripped from beneath them? How many were told by the often New Age believing Baby Boomers, that they didn't think positive thoughts? So many of us are told "thinking positive" will deliver the cash right to our door. Sorry it doesn't work. Our media expresses no empathy for the younger generations. They repeat over and over young people [and now middle aged people]  are selfish, and lazy.

The SAME exact thing happened to Generation X [this magazine is from the early 90s]

"Hard act to follow"? Anyone want to barf along with me? Maybe there's a reason we wore nothing but black in our twenties. We were already in mourning knowing what awaited us. I had three years in my life where I wore nothing but black. We were already told we were LOST and that it was ALL OUR FAULT, and had nothing to do with the horrible changes being wrought in the economy. There's a reason we went goth, grunge and had the depressed Kurt Cobain as a spokesman.

In other words, Generation X was SCAPEGOATED TO THE MAX.

and they are still doing it to younger people too. "It's your fault there's no job, it's because you are too immature!" is the subtext on this Baby-boomer insulting cover.

Two Thirds Of Gen X Households Have Less Wealth Than Their Parents Did At The Same Age

Let's not forget the gas-lighting is part of the Baby Boomer game too. The poorer generations have been gas lighted to death. Told they are not achievers or as "hard working". There is a reason that many wealthier Boomers have joined the Tea-Party and want to do away with welfare and help for the poor.  It's not about improving the country, it's about protecting their own money. How many of us younger people were told we were personally responsible for all of our economic troubles? My husband was blamed for his lay-offs and so was I. My family in my extreme case literally threw me away for my money problems, well before I went no contact. The insults never stopped coming. Lest some see this as just my personal experience, I see the same treatment all over in different degrees.

Young people and middle aged Generation X are called "bums", "losers" and more. They move home to angry older Baby Boomer parents who are outraged at their child's failures and don't let them forget it. How many Baby Boomers did I see complaining about their adult children living with them, who "couldn't get it together"?  One still sees in in the magazine articles complaining about the young people and middled aged living at home with their parents. Gas lighting here, covers the real situation which is the 1 percent busy destroying the economy and opportunities within it.

Baby Boomers as a whole are not a generation that is aging gracefully.  Since they have more money, life is easier, they seem younger then people my age, in a certain way. My husband took me to this 50's/60s music show where he got some free tickets. People 20-25 years older then me danced around, a few were on canes and sitting at tables who were less mobile. They flirted as much as high schoolers, the women shook their booties, some wearing tight jeans and halter tops and were all dressed "sexy". It was perverse display with some of them. The good times never ended for Grandma and Grandpa Baby Boomer! I felt like a peasant woman sitting there in my long dress and with my walker entering some kind of altered world where these people were experiencing reverse aging while I was growing older at an accelerated rate. Narcissists don't age like the rest of us. A predominantly narcissistic generation will cling on to youth with a death grip.  There seems to be little admittance of the passage of time or the normal introspection that should come with age, I've seen in people a generation ahead of them. 

When I was in my 30s, I liked to befriend older people. Most of my then elderly friends were from the SILENT generation. They were different, and more traditional.  They believed in self sacrifice, they didn't tell me "think positive" or that everything was the young person's fault, they told me younger people have it far worse today and that life changed for the worse. One lady who was a mother in the 1950s told me, "We were happy and had time to spend with our families, now you see these women, and it's nothing but "work, work, work". Another elderly friend who was around 80 was direct, "You younger people are getting sick and dying far faster. Young people are not as healthy, especially in your generation and younger. I think it is because life is far harder for you.

The above statistics in the videos speak for themselves.

Babyboomers Don't Care if Generations Below Them are Poorer

Materialism, Crushed by Bills and Baby Boomers

Generation Gap Discussion of Peep and Her Friends

 The generational warfare has been used by the elites forever. Archie who is a Baby Boomer cartoon character, had his own "generation gap". Money and financial differences weren't the difference then, but changing views in society. So yeah they were doing it even then. I was thinking more about the Baby Boomer discussion.

And I decided to talk about this issue with some friends on social media not using any names. How does one avoid the anger, resentment and envy but still talk about the realities of the economic collapse on one's self and its worsening for younger people? The constant money pressures for so long, are part of this picture. I know even as I write about the some of these economic realities, approaching this issue in a more fair way is needed. If I was a poor  or other baby boomer reading Generation X me railing about the "damn baby boomers", I may be annoyed too, so I took this discussion to friends. 

Here are snippets the discussion:

 ME: I have said some negative things about baby boomers. However I know there are poor baby boomers and baby boomers innocent of wrong doing. Do any baby boomers look at younger generations and think their lives are being destroyed? I hate what is being down to millennials and what has happened to Generation X. Why don't people protest what is being done to young people? Instead they are brainwashed by tales of "entitlement" and media stories saying the younger people deserved it. Generation X paid a high enough price and now millennials are getting it worse. I am disgusted.

 FRIEND: Me

 ME: I knew you were a boomer who knew and admitted younger generations were being destroyed.

 FRIEND: I am that baby boomer.

 ANOTHER FRIEND: As a sociology person who finds studies on tendencies to be interesting, I am never in favor of lumping an entire generation together and shaking one's finger at an entire population. It's like the study done that indicated that there is a huge issue of narcissism in the Generation X and Millennials population...I'm sure it doesn't speak for everyone in those groups.

FRIEND: We are are sorted by many things in society. Our peer group in this example is what I understood. Mine is babyboomer by virtue of when I was born. Their's may be Gen X or what ever the lable given to their peer group.

 FRIEND: Divided by generation or separated...

 ME: Yes the powers that be can use these divisions too.

 ANOTHER FRIEND: Don't forget when looking the studies on categories....Just because the sales of ice cream and the rate on crime both go up in the same month, doesn't mean that one causes the other.

THIRD FRIEND: We'll have to agree to disagree on the generation thing, but here's a quote from the article that sums it up: "But it is worth noting that plenty of older Americans share the same struggles as their younger peers. Many older people laid off in the recession were unable to regain good jobs. There are plenty of older people with few retirement savings, with their finances drained from paying for both elderly parents and jobless children. We need to acknowledge the way our struggles are intertwined, instead of allowing the media to stoke manufactured class and generational resentment."

ME: It's true they are out there too, and losing jobs and lay offs as well. LOL very true. Gen X and rest will be blamed one day. I wonder if some of the baby boomers got wore out protesting too.

THIRD FRIEND:There's also a saying, "be the change you want to see." GX & M need to stand up and fight if they want change. Stop being brainwashed. .... Just like race baiting, it's just another tool to keep the people divided and fighting each other, so those in charge (old and young) can continue to live off us like leeches.

Materialism, Crushed by Bills and Baby Boomers

{Caveat for this post I do not believe the above videos apply to EVERY Baby Boomer. There are good and bad people in every generation. I have friends who are Baby Boomers technically I do not apply the below to them or the good-minded people who were born during the years of the Baby Boomer generation.  In many ways the idea of the Baby Boomer generation as one commenter put it was created/manufactured by the powers that be--think Tavenstock. They got that right. For the 'conspiracy-minded" among you, the counter-culture had many of those roots where destruction of the economy, family and social networks was part of those plans.  }

We live in a society now where the monetary expectations are impossible. They are oppressing us with endless bills, in a society that never lets up. I drew a cartoon of me crushed under bills in my sketch book the other day, hey have to make myself laugh sometimes. One used to be able to choose more simple lives where life came cheap. I can see how people go Freegan,  squat and/or go to the streets with the endless lash of huge crushing bills to escape. Some may be able to live with others or perfect the art of mooching or the "underground economy" while others end up homeless.

Sometimes I worry I am driving my friends nuts, telling them I am always scared about money but I do really live in a jerry-built household. The years past by where 20 years of poverty have taken their toll. You take refuge in God, hobbies, books and friends, but the lost opportunities and pressures never seen to relent. Bankruptcy, car repairs, dirty rugs, dirty walls, everything bought used even the forks and metal pans you use to cook. Kind friends help me with food, and clothes. Churches step in, paying back more then your measly offerings made of whatever 1s or perhaps some 5s you find in your purse on a good day. My relationship with money has become one of love/hate.

The transmission could be failing on the car. Something that could send the Dominos spiraling down. Life when you are poor feels like one big emergency.  I'm not a good stoic. Aspies, well we can cry and whine too much, getting through the day to day of life takes too much processing to avoid melt-downs and a deer frozen in the headlights response.  Some people such on message boards or support boards get upset if you talk about your problems too much. A few years of poverty is different from a 20 year grind. Where can one go talk about being poor without being being told it's your fault? I wish there were support groups for poor people where we could commisserate with one another and trade services.  I'd start one if my health was better. I once had this idea that I and my husband should move to Appalachia so we'd be like everyone else around us, but then maybe we wouldn't fit into their world either. As I have written before, I would leave the grind far behind me if my bad health problems didn't keep me tethered to modern American life. 

 I watched the Intervention and the drug addicts and alcoholics aside from the homeless ones seem to be in better straits then me. People wonder why can't you get yourself together? Hey I tried. I thought even a some years ago, I would get my would be pituitary tumor out and I could go continue a new paralegal career, I never expected to find out what I did about the Lipedema.

I can be happy with little, if life remained stationary right now, I would be okay with access to what I have RIGHT AT THIS MOMENT, but the problem is how they threaten to take everything away. Greed rules and simple people can't even be left in peace anymore.  I think there are many good Baby Boomers, and some even got bit themselves by the economy but I understand what Ollie means in the videos posted above.  I wish he cursed less, but sometimes to convey points, one has to take the risk of a broad or generalized view.

 The moorings were pulled out from underneath so many people. Gen X and Millennials did get screwed. Why did it get so hard just to get a simple job to pay simple bills? And what is this doing to millions not only physically but emotionally and otherwise? Why was society changed in these insidious ways where the greedy ruled and just making a living became a WEEDING OUT instead of BRINGING IN process?

And for those with narcissistic parents who come out of my generation, there was a special kind of abuse. I've written about it a bit on here before, but I got to watch from my inner city rented rooms, and slumlord dwellings [my apt now is decent but they just raised my rent to a perhaps unsustainable amount] my mother spend money like it was water flowing in a never ending river. I can take rich people, I want no one in my fix, but why did all the blame and shame have to come with it? As I aged, and knew my life would be a whole other path, I could no longer bear the eyes of disgust she and the others had for me. That is one of the foundations of my "no contact" decision.

The world seems to back up that abuse, in a way, crushing people under impossible bills, offering no way to make a living, or one's where you are always looking over your shoulder. Many of us pray to God to meet our needs but we are worn out. Sometimes I think there should be more to life. I am not a materialist, this is not about being able to shop or have the newest or latest but feeling secure, and feeling I have a place in society. Everyone wants to be somebody to somebody. You do not want to be forever the taker instead of the giver. No one wants to be in that position. One insidious form of abuse I have noticed in my evil family, is how all of them talk about how hard they worked and they imply I never did, and that being disabled means I am a lazy bum. I heard it today from one I have limited contact with, "It would be nice laying around all day". My response was, "Want to trade?"

Why did the Baby Boomer generation or better yet their media controllers decide to call us Generation X? There seems to be a slew of projected blame and hate that started in the 1990s when they told us that we were all "slackers" and bums hanging on in record stores and coffee shops. Anyone here remember the movie Clerks? Yes I know I am dating myself with that one. Maybe the hatred between generations is part of the media controller's job just as they push hatred between races and other groups. Here's how the plan worked, allow this prosperous generation that got the bennies and build-up from WWII, take it all for granted and then hate the new debt and failure riddled generations. This way they could keep people fighting while they ran off with the money and created debt-slaves. It's not the bankers ripping us off, but your lazy, sad sack kid, who even though he has a bachelors degree can't get a job to save his life! It's his fault!

And that is what I was told even as I attempted to get teaching jobs circa 1990 and failed the MEDICAL TESTS to do so. "It's your fault!" This is why you hear some complain about entitled and lazy younger people. None of them think this out, that when your life is permanently on hold and you can't afford to buy that house, ,marry or support children that you may take refuge in things like music concerts or sadly for some like drugs and dead end life styles. Then consider the ones who have all those student loans, that cost something equal to mortgages! Who set this system up? Many Baby Boomers are suffering too but maybe the ones who blame their kids for being "losers" or feel hatred for their Boomerang kids who are entering their 30s or even their 40s, ought to think this one out a bit. I am not a liberal or conservative remember but when you watch Fox News and see the rhetoric about the poor, hey the powers that be know what they are doing. It's easier to blame the kids then admit the system is falling down around you while you still benefit.

I remember telling my mother once, that it was sickening they built this new casino in her town, and  who had that much money to basically burn? Religiously and otherwise I am against gambling though I have will admit I bought a few Lotto tickets in my time. She got angry at me and told me, "People have plenty of money!" Maybe in her world, though I suppose some desperate types may darken the doors of casinos with their last dollars. She told me she went to the casino.  Aunt "No Pictures for You" made a habit of casinos too. The idea of laying 20 bucks down on a slot table, to see it disappear, makes me nauseous.

 You always hear about some in the Baby Boomer generation, who say things like "I am spending my children's inheritance!". One thing I have noted in old books, is how generations used to have a different view of their children, they wanted them to succeed. They did not compete with them. They saw themselves as leaving a positive legacy for their children and grandchildren. They did not want them to suffer. It seems to me, that the powers that be have turned this thinking on it's head. Don't get me wrong here many GOOD people of all generations want their children to succeed, and this isn't everyone, but who got this attitude started out there? Where the old should spend til they drop and make sure their kids are left bereft?

In the case of those with narcissist parents, while they may give voice to desiring your success, they will do everything to make sure it does not happen. I was not allowed to study, and had to do housework which meant all school work had to be done at school. This put me at the 3.5 level when maybe I could have done better with study time and not having to write papers during other classes during the school day. I know my parents had and used connections to get other people middle class jobs, during my inner-city severe poverty years and later too. My father was the co-head of an organization where high school graduates were given office jobs with no college. When I and my brother asked, including me after my health care rejections, he turned us down. Years earlier he had gotten my non-college degreed business school drop out mother, a middle class job making $40,000 a year shuffling paper at the same place. She got to work there 26 years and receive a full pension. These weren't people relating to my household's job troubles.

In a society growing in wickedness, there are many who are selfishly affecting their children's futures in negative ways. What kind of people think it is okay to sell their children's futures on huge student loans they then expect them to pay for with McJobs? Why do so few question all this? Why all the projection instead of helping the young, they decide to malign them instead and if some young people are shallow, and "lazy", have they given up in some cases, or were they raised wrong in other cases? One thing I have said to my husband is, if the work world becomes nothing but low wage jobs that can be taken away on the whim, motivation levels are going to drop. The majority of people in life want to give and be part of something. Even being on disability, it has been rare that I have not been engaged in one volunteer enterprise.  I remember my insane 4 job schedules. All this talk hides the facts of what is happening and how America is becoming a third world nation, blaming the young who are under circumstances some can't even imagine, isn't going to fix anything. It makes me sick hearing Gen Y called lazy or seeing magazines like Time call them "bums" when there the economy has been ravished. This magazine cover is a classic case of narcissistic projection.

The prices are insane now, the jobs limited and unable to build decent lives, the outcomes of this stuff is going to be a 100 years in the making. I agree with Ollie on the swathe of destruction.

I don't advocate class or generational warfare. Remember I warn the powers that be love that stuff, it's easier to turn people on each other. Too many have bought into the false rhetoric, the Baby Boomer narcissistic dream, told they were the biggest and best generation ever and the only one that "counted".  Is anyone sick of hearing about Kennedy and Vietnam? I sure am. Too many embraced the throwing away and blaming of youth and ignored the bigger picture. Maybe some of the decent Baby-Boomers should speak out next time they hear millennials called lazy or some who prosper making excuses for the endless rip-offs, and corruptions that have been accepted in our society today.  One thing about my life, is that my viewpoint of this world is completely different from that of my parents. Maybe that is one good positive that came out of. I wasn't blinded by shopping at the mall or Keeping up with the Joneses or conforming to what was sold. I refuse to be an "X" no matter how poor I ended up.

Money, Snobs and Narcissists

I've been pondering many things about life lately. Life in America now is all about status and appearances. It took me too long to learn how the real world worked, and in an attempt not to sound too cynical-- it has worsened. Life seems to have changed, where now there seems to be endless numbers of people kicked to the curb and unless you fit a certain criteria you are not wanted. It's like high school rewound again, with the snobs and mean girls taking over. How much human talent and potential is being wasted in a system like this?

 I made the decision years ago, though while I am very sick, often bedbound, that I will do things that mean something to me, and make use of my talents, even though they are not income producers. This isn't me but another lady that was in the news for being housebound. Even if I am stuck in this apartment or worse this body, I can still do a few things.

 
This includes various volunteer projects, making art work, writing and more. In other words while many disabled people become very isolated and shut off from the world, especially us housebound types, I made the decision that I would have a voice elsewhere and do something that impacted the world, even if so many doors were being shut in my face or in facing the limitations of the health problems.


One friend said to me direct and these were words, that were well taken and the kind of thing that you turn to during low moments and said to me regarding the family I went "no contact" with, "Fivehundredpoundpeep, your life is far richer then theirs in many, many ways!"

Young people are given very false expectations and not prepared for the world as it really is. No one is telling America's young about the collapse of the US economy unless they are the smart and independent sort who have the time and resources to find snippets of the "alternative" media that may tell them.

Oddly I have encountered some well-off Baby Boomers who seem to ignore how the world has changed and because they have the means where it simply has not touched them, they deny the reality of many others. One stat I read is that over 65 year old Baby Boomers are 47 times richer then their children and grandchildren. This doesn't mean every Baby Boomer has done well or has these attitudes, but that is an awe-inspiring statistic. Generation X and Y have done far less well.

Just today, I wrote to an acquaintance on a social website how I had been raised in an upper middle class home and fell down the ladder very badly and how the chasm grew so wide, between me and my family. I saw them living in another world clueless about how I even had to live and survive. She seemed angry at me for these words, and oddly during the same post, I thought she was speaking out AGAINST slum tourism but I suppose was more in favor of it. Poor people as pets and to be patronized? Is this the latest thing among some circles?

 I felt like I was on my own opposite tour when I would go visit them. There were times I would enter my family's 6 figure suburban enclaves, and one sunny Saturday morning, as the lawnmowers buzzed and the large brick homes with their clean windows and flowers shined, I wondered to myself "What would it be like to live in this world, to feel safe and like everything is okay?" Add to that inner musings, about what life as a "normal" person would have been about.

But hey since the 50s, we have heard about the suburban milieu that goes on behind the pretty scenery and green lawns and I have my own memories of family life where keeping up with the Joneses was top priority and happiness was not.

 When I think about the depth of rejection I encountered from my family from all levels and for so long, how did someone like me even manage to get out in the world? Those who had been given the job to protect, care and nurture me, seemed more involved in kicking me when I was down and enjoying my failures. Years ago after I was not helped, there was a little help but a pound of flesh accompanied all of it. My sister's attitude that the poor are to be avoided and rejected, relations or not, was taught! My brother told me being subservient to richer family members was the way of the world and I needed to get back in line, instead of daring to walk away! What does this do to someone to be told this stuff for years? I couldn't take it anymore so I walked.

If one does not have decent furniture--the decor is garage sale a la mode or the "right" clothes, or has to wear the same outfit over and over, one can suffer for this. These are pressures that go way beyond the weight. The looks of disgust from my family have intertwined with those who reject me in the world. Imagine how I felt inside to overhear gossip in my old town even, "I've been to her apartment, she doesn't own anything!" with various socio-economic related comments. This is why my sister with her clean new dark wood floors, a new car every other year, who pays the same I do in rent on property taxes decided long ago, on my lower status in her life. 

One thing I noticed about the most malignant narcissists in my family is they never faced any job lay-offs, never any failures or ones they let be known. Raised by people who believe in never showing any weakness or vulnerability how could one even deal with the hardships of life that come to most?  How did they acquire wealth or comfortable jobs so easily? The narcissism if anything seemed to guarantee them MORE success. Was this connections I did not know about behind the scenes or something else? The story of my life among my family includes not being invited to a wedding because a cousin happens to be marrying a multi-millionaire, and I guess they didn't want me "messing" up the pictures again just like with my sister's wedding! The day after this dis-invite, my aunt called to brag about the silver set my mother had purchased for the bride.

My own family rejected me because I became poor as an adult but that was just one thing among many others, and sadly the problems I faced in my own jobs mostly due to my physical health--I was a good classroom teacher even with the mild Aspergers [people ask me to volunteer teach today even] and husbands later job lay-offs, it was like the movie Groundhog day being told that I was unworthy by my family and then by the world. I've overcome this in some ways in that I am astonished by what I managed with so many health and other challenges. To be frank, a dirt poor but loving family would have been far better. Sigh.  The path of self forgiveness and happiness has been with getting free and clear of those with these evil messages.

I had this discussion with another friend online, that American society has skewed in a very abrupt way to a place where now everything is about selling yourself. This seems to be a system that rewards the narcissistic, where networking that is shallow, arrogance, hiding all mistakes, and showing no emotions and having no problems in throwing others under the bus in a King or Queen of the Mountain frenzy. In other words, it's the meanest sharks in the pool getting the biggest cut! Often times, I do wish I had been born into a more sane place and culture. There are worse certainly of course.

Children from elementary school are told to think of themselves as special and to compete to the extreme now, so what does that form but narcissism? It seems there are two choices one can make in this system, be left behind, and down and out, or be one of the arrogant alpha sharks. That is what we are seeing. The universities especially in a business school setting, they would be stressing all the criterias of success, that so few are questioning that are leading to the higher rates of sociopathy and narcissism among the most successful. The sociopath rate in Wall Street is 10%. What does this mean for a society as a whole?

I was raised with a dog eat dog ethos. How did I abandon it? Reading the Bible when I was 9? Kind nuns wearing habits who were my teachers? Even though I left the Catholic religion and became a born again Christian, many were sincere and preached a strong moral code. The books I read? Surely I am not saying I was the epitome of perfection, the bible says none are good and that includes me but lately I have examined how my values from an early age did not match that of my family. Any idealism was to be squashed and I still remember one conversation with my father when he sneered, "You are too much of an idealist!" Odd for some that would be a compliment but in my family it was an insult. Altruism was seen as the domain of dummies. In fact my propensity for volunteer work and desire to be an art teacher was mocked among family members.  

Money and materialism became the focus especially in the 1980s. Business "success" became all about the cash. Years ago there was this notion among the business community, they were to build up a community, they wanted a LEGACY in their town or community, but with the breaking up of our social connections and social contract---think about the book BOWLING ALONE. The idea of legacy and giving to one's community or philanthropy. Where are the Carnegie libraries of today?

Is their attachment to community anymore? I had people upset with me not understanding that in leaving my last small rural town, it brought me endless grief.

Why has the world become so cut throat? Too many people are disposable today. Sadly it seems narcissism in some circles equals social intelligence. Why are narcissists today seen as popular and more even if the connections and attachment are not the same. Narcissists can appear as the most socially intelligent. Many of these big cheeses don't rule by fear either, but with a smile on their face and by covert intimidation and gifts. They can make themselves in a business or company situation look like they are all giving and build an "image" of themselves that is just a façade. With our educational and work system focusing on image so much and social success being defined as "getting over on others", it is advancing the narcissists like never before. 

I believe in earlier times, and years ago, narcissists were held somewhat in check by stronger social networks and life long communities. People knew who the betrayers were and who could not be trusted when push came to shove and who were focused on self advancement.  All the focus on certain types of achievement in our society has had this inverse affect of promoting the very narcissism they pretend to condemn on one hand. I know being who I am, this fat, this different, I am outside "the system" so to speak, while I have found a few niches, there is a reason I had "do it yourself' art shows. They didn't make big money but were satisfying and had many that appreciated my art work and it was fun to share it. I had to find my own way in a system that basically cast me out.

A major part of my narcissistic abuse centered around being called a "loser" especially as I entered adulthood and did not enter into a large amount of money or high paying job. What scares me is I had a bachelors degree in art education and was even studying to become a paralegal and was later married to a small town newspaper reporter and assistant editor though my husband later faced job-layoffs.  I still got this backlash, it's not like I was lying back and doing nothing with my life at that point. Why so many false judgments and pressures?

 For narcissists, a grown child is to be a source of narcissistic supply, a mirror reflecting back "their awesomeness" and I suppose that when an adult child does not become a source of this supply where a narcissist can brag of their achievements, and how beautiful they are, or of the grandchildren, then one becomes useless to them. They are shunted away as a "family embarrassments". It was scary to see the other "throwaways" in my family while the Eagle Scouts and straight A students and the THIN were elevated. Even there I saw the total lack of love and care for ALL parties concerned.

 I have or had this great hang-up with money, I often thought that if I had come into money or somehow "made it" such as when I was attempting to publish a book in the last 90s, that maybe one day I would be deemed acceptable and loved. Today I know that was a futile pursuit among narcissists, and even if I had won the Lotto or hit the big times in some venture, that it wouldn't be enough. Of course there one wonders why do people have to "prove" themselves this way now? Isn't that sick. Why can't we just be people? Well that is the better world and one I chose to join as a Christian, let the others be entranced with the dollar signs and worldly success where everyone is over-awed with the baubles of this world that do not last.

There were times my mother would even have parties for family and sometimes would invite her friends too, and some years ago, she would keep these parties secret from me especially ones where both friends and family were invited. Can you imagine? Yes it hurt.

There was one time I showed up at one of her parties, I found out about it by accident, she ignored me the whole time I was there, but I walked around saying hello to various relatives and others. Strangely there was this fat woman there, she was a coworker of my mother, maybe in the mid 300s and I got into a conversation with her and she told me she was diagnosed with Cushings and I told her about my then new pseudo-Cushings diagnosis.  One thing I figured out about my mother fat people were okay to have around as friends and coworkers and even husbands, but not as daughters.

My mother due to her money, [upper middle class] deemed herself totally superior to me. There was no notion of the family being in it together to help one another. Any help of years ago came with a price and behind the scenes any relative in need of help or facing failure and illness was vilified and condemned as lacking in every possible way. Maybe I will tell you the story of how one aunt was left in poverty even worse then my own, and how she was treated too, but this idea that dollars make some people "better" then others, really is disturbing.

This was a code that if I had not chosen to abandon it via religious and other moral means, that would have led to my destruction. Who was I in a system where money and worldly success meant everything? I was nothing and that is exactly how they treated me!

 My adult life has fluctuated between destitution and years of a stable working class position via my husbands efforts. Years ago, even the working class was respected as salt of the earth, but today  they aren't seen on our TVs. I even think about how in the days of Laverne and Shirley, two women were shown with normal working class jobs, though they had a far bigger apt then many would have ended up with. The community they were surrounded by was working class too and everyone was treated like a human being. Add in celebrity culture where everything is about gathering attention and selling yourself it is turning more people into narcissists from an early age.

  One thing too with the narcissism and the college set and more in the professional class, they are training people to express LESS emotions. While I can understand people not wanting their pilots or surgeon boo-hooing at the controls or at the surgery table, I could write a whole essay on that and why it is happening. SOFT emotions are seen as weakness. This is how narcissists view emotion, many are cold, and emotions are SHOWTIME if shown at all. I even have noticed in the movies of the 50s they show men, strong men crying. Today that does not happen in our media. I was taught not to express emotions and while some have said this was another generation's outlook, I think it went far deeper then that. Is that related to the growing narcissism in society? 

I've discussed already the obsession with appearances what about with suppression of emotion? There is more cruelty growing out there, such as throwing people out of the job running for not having the right credit rating, how do you improve it if you can't get a job? Cutting the presently unemployed out of the job running. The system seems to be getting harder and crueler, and I haven't even mention our lists of insane laws.  While news pundits will go on about the haves and have nots, there is something far more insidious going on in American culture then the just going without the money, there is the destruction of relationships, of family, of connections of community happening among all the false messages. I see some who subscribe to this whole system, saying "Ah you losers, go whine!, I'm a winner!" and you see the impact on the fat and weight loss world. Fat people as I have written elsewhere have greater numbers among the poor. There is a class marker of thinness and wealth being developed. There too how much human talent and potential is being wasted?

The other day I said to my husband, "why are all these authors on the backs of books now thin and beautiful"? I don't think that was the criteria years ago! Ever notice how appearance based rules count for everything now while character does not? The same code that renders fat people silent, in a system also renders many other groups silent. Money is the biggest taboo topic in American society.

Thank God I've met many nice people along the way, who see me as a person first and where humanity and other things count for far more then the shallow snobs who see people as a numbers game. I do think there is definite growing narcissism out there and more rewards for narcissism, that concerns me. Let them have their money, there are more important things in life.

The Baby Boomers Won't Let Go

The Baby Boomers won't let go of power, and will torture us into their 80s and 90s. I guess while Gen X heats up the can of dog food over the trashcan fire, we can be dressed stylishly.

Generation X: The Scapegoat Generation is Dying Young

The Last Gasp of the American Taliban?

                                     [source]

The other day I was on Facebook and it's getting scary when it comes to America. I didn't expect to be living under a religious right resurgence at this late age. Some of us fear Christian fundamentalists turning militant. My status as an ex-Christian may make things even more sticky for me. It's funny in all my IFB churches, they talked about the persecution of Christians, now I fear persecution from another angle.

I had this Republican friend dissing Native American Heritage Month and Black History month. He is married to another friend. His mostly conservative friends all cheered this. What could I say? I asked them "How come celebration of different cultures is bad to you folks?" They got angry. One lady who looked and acted just like Betty Bowers got strident. I wrote, "So celebrating other cultures is evil now?" and she wrote to me, "Political correctness must die!" and "It's a waste of time to argue with your ilk!" 

 I wrote an article, I regret now on this blog: Putting Down One Group Won't Elevate Another.

While I retained some liberal views during my sojourn into fundamentalist Christianity, their viewpoints affected me too. I was seeped into the alt-right world and fundamentalist churches. How can I even explain how right wing news and even alt-right conspiracy crap affects people's minds? The constant fear-mongering is extreme. They do train people to be afraid of everything including other races. It puts out this world view that is really pretty sickening. Even if I rejected the Republican party and some of it's extremes, it affected me even as I fought with myself inside. By the way because I was in the bible prophecy, fundie Christian world, I believe I have lost some of my old Christian and conservative readership even here since the deconversion. Many have left since I left the faith.   I have to go where life and my own mind has taken me. Watching Trumpsters shout against cultural celebrations tells me the racism is alive and well and Trump has given it permission to come out in full force.

Breaking away from fundamentalist religion has cleared my head a lot. Other people who deconvert from Christianity often deconvert from it's poisonous politics. I am one of them. What is weird is as all these Republican people on Facebook dissed Native American Heritage month, is that people have asked me if I am part Indian or Native American. I don't know what I am until I get the 23 and me or Ancestry.com money together. I don't want to claim I am an ethnic group I am not, but it makes me wonder. If people are going to reject even the celebration of a culture so important to America, with it's dances, art, pow-wows and more, what am I to think? They are just mean. They want life to to be this narrow world. I have noticed that most people with these views are all self-avowed Christians especially of the evangelical and fundamentalist variety.

The racism is definitely coming out.

 My views have since changed I wrote the "Why Do Some Liberals Think All White People are Rich? .  While I still understand that neo-liberalism in the Democratic party has made it more akin to the center-right in other nations and there is elitist support of the oligarchy. I didn't understand what exactly the term "white privilege" meant in both articles. I still worry about division between races being made worse , but it is obvious since Trump has brought out racism that laid dormant that those who warn about "white privilege" definitely have good points to make and I started listening. If anything all the racism pushed by the right, will serve to keep everyone economically oppressed. It's all intertwined, the racism, the prison system of mass incarceration, that gives almost free labor to endless corporations, the sexism and the endless authoritarianism.

[source]

 One thing that woke me up, is on Facebook, while I held these attitudes, I was openly protesting police brutality against black suspects on Facebook. One case that really got to me is when they strangled a man with asthma whose only crime was selling cigarettes without tax stamps. The cruelty was astounding. His name was Eric Garner. What frightened me as I filled my then wall protesting deaths of black suspects via police brutality, is I noticed only my liberal friends seemed to care. The Christian friends weren't answering. Some even posted things in defense of police, and memes that seemed to infer that the people who died "deserved" what they got. This growing cruelty really upset me. It is one of those many puzzle pieces that built up to my deconversion. Conscience took me out. I couldn't follow a cruel god of a cruel religion anymore.

And it still goes on today, this line between people with no empathy. The American Taliban is inherently racist.  I wrote about the growing meanness in my old small rural town. Why is there so much contempt for the poor in a community full of poor people? One reason I did not move back there, is I feared going back no longer being working class but more poor. It looks like my instincts were correct.

Sometimes I feel like some conservative, fundamentalist, right wing/Tea Party Baby Boomers [yes there are liberal Baby-Boomers too], want to burn this place down as they shuffle off this mortal coil. I have hope in young people who may finally stand up. I hope they do. Generation X has been too silent in the face of too much nonsense. Maybe our hope will be in millennials or Generation Y. They are far less religious. I hope they realize a better world is possible instead of giving up for the dystopian world so many of the Christians seem to picture that is based in fear and control.

Have you ever wondered about that? When I was young, one still imagined the future as having flying cars, and cured diseases and hope. Today especially in right wing circles, it's like all darkness. Like getting old isn't hard enough, I have to be marched off at gunpoint to the FEMA camp to be guillotined for not taking the mark of the beast? But even for the non-bible prophecy extremists, on the right, hopeful futures are wiped away, it's all about the money masters and their control of you. Young people are all "entitled snowflakes" who don't deserve everything certainly no liveable wages and no happiness. The politics of resentment and no hope rule on the right and in the America. They are angry. Instead of wanting better for young people they want WORSE.

And here's one question too, What's wrong with social justice? I always see memes where they mock social justice warriors, so social injustice is something good? Sometimes I wonder if you see God ready to smash you with a fist from heaven ordering genocide after genocide in the Old Testament, that anyone who wants to stand up for humanity is seen as the enemy against God. This is about holding out for power and the status quo of society. If your God is cruel, mean, perfectionist and cold, you will demand more prisons then parks. That's why the religious right loves to lock everyone up. This is why they have no problem with mass incarceration or the new Jim Crow.

There's a reason that show: The Handmaiden's Tale got so popular. Some of us worry that is the future in America. When I started having doubts while still attending churches, I knew people who lived the Quiverful life, who didn't believe in birth control for women. One man at a Calvary Chapel I attended published an alternative magazine calling for Patriarchy and for men to rule and for women to stay at home barefoot and pregnant. There's a reason why so many people homeschooled and said public schools were evil. One strange thing that happened to me, is watching all these Christian girls at these churches train to be midwives, I kept thinking about that book, "The Handmaiden's Tale" which I read in the 1980s even before the Netflex series came out.

One thing that is scary for me, is when I was a Christian, I wrote against Dominionism on Christian websites, as an "antichrist" force and told other Christians not to trust the Republican party. I was a lone voice shouting against the wind and then hadn't questioned the very foundations of the religion yet. I have read books like "The Family" and know about groups like the Council For National Policy. Trump is in with all those Dominionists and they helped give him power. One book, I wish everyone could read is the book "The American Fascists: The Christian Right and It's War on America by Chris Hedges. 

With Trump's election, they have gone fascist on many aspects. Rolling back the ADA, giving tax cuts to their billionaire friends, the list goes on and on. Pence is even more overly uber-fundamentalist then Trump who can do no wrong in many evangelical Christian eyes even though he's been married three times and brags about grabbing women on their private parts. Chris Hedge's warnings are coming true. Hell my own warnings on Christian message boards and websites as I wrote against Dominionism are coming true. Trump wanted his militarized parade, I am not sure if that is still going to happen. They have become more authoritarian,and more crazy. So many in my old small rural town have fallen completely under their spell.

Racism, sexism, authoritarianism, militarism, police brutality and many things are growing to make their dystopian dreams a reality. Some believe the system will self correct, and this is the last gasp of people who are aging, and knowing their power is waning but one thing anyone who is a student of history knows even a dying group who is aging out and still holds the reigns of power, can do incredible damage. Even though the Moral Majority are entering their 60s and 70s, that still gives them time to do a lot of harm to people. Why are our states turning redder by the minute? My own is purple and ready to fall. They already passed laws destroying worker's rights.

[source]

My fellow liberals and many young people don't realize how backwards and theocratic some places have grown, they don't know this culture from the inside. I was inside it, lived it and I am scared.  They don't realize the true agendas that are desired and would be even more horrific for the poor, minority races and gay people. They have become more radicalized, I see the changes even in my old small town that are extreme. Even if young people are more secular by far by the numbers, many of our democratic institutions are in danger. Remember what I wrote regarding what Carl Sagan warned of and the growing antipathy against science in religious circles in America. Trump and his followers have made these things government policy. This is why the EPA was defunded.

I do fear a war or other disaster growing their influence. Worsening economic distress could be used to grow their insanity. All they need is a spark to set it off, and we could all be in big trouble. Just look at the history of Iran, read a graphic novel like Persepolis, religious groups take over nations all the time. We have Southern states while places implode passing laws requiring that "In God We Trust" be put on school buildings that just got shot up with dozens murdered.

Americans forget that one must be watchful of freedom. We are looking a power grab now that could turn into a potentially violent power grab to gain full control. Some of us dream of Trump being impeached. Groups like "Duty to Warn" and the resist movement have questioned his ability to be a fit president, but he has many followers who wouldn't like this. The pastors all praise Trump from the pulpit that makes him sound like the Second Coming. I know what is said about liberals in religious circles and the dehumanizing approach of religious right politics. Polarization is growing in this country and sadly it's leading to more extremism. I do hope that some sanity comes back. We need it.  I am seeing more extreme radicalization among old church members, my old town and just very poisonous and uncaring rhetoric. Lack of empathy is being advanced society wide with the narcissists and head sociopaths using these things for more power. This country needs a positive future, not a hellscape borne out of nationalism and extreme religions, that seeks to censor all but the most powerful and wealthy. It's scary, comparing today to the actual future I envisioned when young and disappointing too. Please vote and get involved as much as you can.

America is Becoming a Third World Nation

America is Regressing Into a Developing Nation for Most People

America is Regressing into a Developing Nation for Most People

By Lynn Parramore

APR 20, 2017 | INCOME & WEALTH | EMPLOYMENT & JOB STRUCTURE |HUMAN CAPITAL AND ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY | DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS | GOVERNANCE |INSTITUTIONS, POLICY & POLITICS

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A new book by economist Peter Temin finds that the U.S. is no longer one country, but dividing into two separate economic and political worlds

You’ve probably heard the news that the celebrated post-WW II beating heart of America known as the middle class has gone from “burdened,” to “squeezed” to “dying.”  But you might have heard less about what exactly is emerging in its place.

In a new book, The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy, Peter Temin, Professor
Emeritus of Economics at MIT, draws a portrait of the new reality in a way that is frighteningly, indelibly clear:  America is not one country anymore. It is becoming two, each with vastly different resources, expectations, and fates.

Two roads diverged

In one of these countries live members of what Temin calls the “FTE sector” (named for finance, technology, and electronics, the industries which largely support its growth). These are the 20 percent of Americans who enjoy college educations, have good jobs, and sleep soundly knowing that they have not only enough money to meet life’s challenges, but also social networks to bolster their success. They grow up with parents who read books to them, tutors to help with homework, and plenty of stimulating things to do and places to go. They travel in planes and drive new cars. The citizens of this country see economic growth all around them and exciting possibilities for the future. They make plans, influence policies, and count themselves as lucky to be Americans.

The FTE citizens rarely visit the country where the other 80 percent of Americans live: the low-wage sector. Here, the world of possibility is shrinking, often dramatically. People are burdened with debt and anxious about their insecure jobs if they have a job at all. Many of them are getting sicker and dying younger than they used to. They get around by crumbling public transport and cars they have trouble paying for. Family life is uncertain here; people often don’t partner for the long-term even when they have children. If they go to college, they finance it by going heavily into debt. They are not thinking about the future; they are focused on surviving the present. The world in which they reside is very different from the one they were taught to believe in. While members of the first country act, these people are acted upon.

The two sectors, notes Temin, have entirely distinct financial systems, residential situations, and educational opportunities. Quite different things happen when they get sick, or when they interact with the law. They move independently of each other. Only one path exists by which the citizens of the low-wage country can enter the affluent one, and that path is fraught with obstacles. Most have no way out.

I'm considering a photography project, for fun and maybe a social message. I like taking pictures of abandoned houses and old buildings. There's a lot of them around here. Maybe I will post some here, soon. I don't own a fancy camera but sometimes get some good ones out of my basic digital camera. We have an inner city neighborhood of once where once very beautiful Victorian mansions have gone to ruin. Artistically I could sum up a lot about changes in America, that go beyond the ever-present abandoned mall ruins. The shacks behind Aldis would make interesting pictures. I am concerned though for those who live in these areas, things are worsening for them. Poverty can be relative. If you got a roof over your head, there's many that don't. While I have kept a mostly decent apartment, many are living in very sub-standard housing. There's levels of poverty that can go pretty deep. I am growing alarmed at some what I am seeing happen to others, friends priced out of apartments living in towns where they want 1300 a month even for studios, facing near homelessness, people going without medical care, it has made me count some fortunes, and my own near misses in life.

My immediate neighborhood is middle class and one I could be priced out of very soon, but the abandoned houses that surrounded me in my old small rural town, are popping up like mushrooms all over this area now. It gives me a weird queasy feeling because watching your town die can be traumatizing and it already happened to me once. I keep track of news from my old home even 10 years later and many were forced out like us, heroin use and despair has skyrocketed along with the crime rate in a used to be peaceful rural town.

 America is definitely one place where economic and demographic separation has happened. Living on the rich side of town, "poor land" is only 2 miles and bridge crossing away. Since this is a smaller area, the rich here aren't isolated from the growing desolation that surrounds their neighborhoods but I have been in some richer places and suburbs, where you can almost imagine the 1980s are still in full swing with full bustling malls and big box stores, but those areas are getting smaller in number.

I was at the library yesterday, and took the bus there, I had to wait an hour and half for the Dial A Ride to show up. One can tell more people need the bus. We have kept our old car still running so for the way home, I had my husband just pick me up. I ran into someone I know and we talked about different issues of how in our town there is a huge class divide, between the rich and the poor and that there isn't much in the middle anymore. With my past faux family and with other people I have seen in "rich land", where they own new cars, go on vacations, and go shopping for fun, life is completely different. My brother when I was in contact with him, had no problem laying down hundreds or thousands of dollars on gambling over night hotel trips, Christmas presents and getting a new car every few years. With my mother, she had the vacation homes, trips and 50,000 dollar automobiles. I spoke of visiting "rich land" when discussing narcissists and money in this article. 

The suburban well-heeled people here eat out and have their fancy new cars. This world is a world I see everyday but it is not one I live in. I don't blame the nice ones, I would eat out too and get a nice car if I had money for one. Some wealthier friends have told me, they see some of these trends going on, they wonder why American cities seem to be crumbling so fast, and now many rural and smaller towns.  I live in the low-wage poverty world.  It operates differently. It has occurred to me the "out of touchness" of the some of the more wealthy, middle class and above has grown. Among the Republican wealthier set, their disgust for the poor has grown. Their churches have told them poverty is the result of immorality, lack of hard work, and lack of education. So even now as the numbers of the poor grow, I suppose the top 20% are still keeping the pastors in their new cars and nice homes, so no one is discussing what is going on.   They do not understand how we live or how we have to. In a far more technocratic society, many are being left behind.

 It is interesting to me that this economist, says the "rich side" of life is at or around 20 percent, because recently I told someone, I thought the rich vs poor ratio in America was 20 percent rich with 80 percent poor. We have this thin silver of very wealthy and then a "professional class" that has been able to hold on to some vestiges of wealth. In my local area, the divide between Baby Boomers with far more wealth, those around 60 and above, and the poverty of Gen X and millennials is extreme. That said, we have some very poor Baby Boomers and other elderly people. One thing I have noticed is the level of home ownership is far higher among older people while people of my age, it is far lower. I believe society is breaking apart. I have met others, where while they did not come from toxic abusive narcissistic families where economic chasms have formed within families.

My newer friend and I talked about this giant class divide yesterday. I told her, there is a wide chasm between both worlds, the understanding is breaking down, some assume and judge. She told me she has tired of some wealthier people telling her all the poor are at fault for their lot.  When Temin points out that the two live in two very different groups he is very correct. One thing I have noticed is how all news reports, and most articles are written for the 20 percent. I wonder what happens in a country where 80% of the population is written off and all policy and planning is done not even thinking of their needs?  It is good to see an economist addressing these matters. Yes, America is becoming a third world nation. 

A Trump Supporting Small Town with No Empathy

                                          [source]
so·cial Dar·win·ism
noun
the theory that individuals, groups, and peoples are subject to the same Darwinian laws of natural selection as plants and animals. Now largely discredited, social Darwinism was advocated by Herbert Spencer and others in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was used to justify political conservatism, imperialism, and racism and to discourage intervention and reform.

The Survival of the Fittest, social darwinism, that's the philosophy that runs this place. Only winners matter and losers are to be crushed. That's the narcissistic philosophy that is running America now.

Narcissism is a danger to America.

The head sociopathic Cheeto and his many followers lack empathy, and are destroying the bonds of civil society.

If there's no hope, no ideas of progress, or goodness or civility between people, what "glue" is going to keep society going? Social Darwinism isn't going to bring forth societal cooperation but societal hatred and infighting. 

With the destruction of the ADA, and other rules all meant to punish us, and not make life any better, life here is going to get harder, meaner and nastier. Hopefully during the mid-terms there will be some push-back and some hope of the system self-correcting but if that doesn't happen, this place after three more years of this probably won't resemble anything of what it used to.

More and more I see people discussing leaving America. I considered this. Sometimes I am not sure I want to stay in a place that is culturally and socially becoming such a sink-hole. Even this sick, I want to have my latter years to have some meaning and connection.

 Life seems to becoming just brutal and nasty. Social connection is so hard to get. People seem AFRAID of one another. That's one thing I noticed around here. While we had to sign another lease and I have so many medical needs to think of, this place still remains a social wasteland to me.  Hey I see it as someone with major differences. They smile and are friendly but if you are "too different", you are closed out. No one wants to be close. I live in the land of shut doors. I miss having in real life friends, it's hurting me. I have to fix this somehow.  It's like everyone is on the "mute" button, show too much passion, and it's like they want to shut you down.

Being disabled is a giant barrier to emigrating. I found  a loophole that could take us back to my husband's parent's original country because they never became US citizens. Problem is my husband is not fluent in German, he knows some but not enough to function. He was born here. We don't have money for travel, to the EU. I know nothing of the culture there. Canada sounds like a far better option but they shut their door to the disabled long ago. Of course the conservative set would scream, "Love it or leave it!". If you are older, and can't afford plane tickets and immigration lawyers, you are stuck. I have considered this though, if Republicans destroy Social Security or Medicare, to the point I cannot survive, I would write a plea to Canada for refugee status. Some of us dream of living in more sane places where social cooperation is considered an asset to society.

That said, we are probably here for the duration and should do what we can, to stop the growing insanity, cruelty and evil that is taking over this place. The soul of America has become rotten. Just look at the endless shootings. While guns are a problem--I am more moderate on gun control thinking they should do something about all the assault rifles that are taking over our streets and so easily attainable, the real problem is narcissism and sociopathy.

This place is producing sociopaths by the dozens, young people with no connection to others, who are breaking down, cracking up and then shooting the place up. Ever notice most of the school shooters were raised by indifferent or engulfing abusive parents or were the "outcasts" of the school?  They are crushed by constant bullying and by parents who only want to see them "achieve" and don't see them as people. What's happening there? They play violent video games, they are not taught sharing, caring or given connection to others. Then another sociopath teen goes on a killing spree.

Mental health care here is a joke, and being cut down to nothing. Most people can't even afford a therapist. Americans seem to be going crazy, everyone's on edge and shutting down. One thing the young people are under constant pressure too, with constant messages of "don't be a loser", the ones who face social censure, and rejection are cracking up, most turn in on themselves as the suicide rates skyrocket, but some are turning the anger and rage outward! So while the adults go fight, the kids are imploding and that's the elephant in the school room. The shooter and others like him made their choice for evil, so he is responsible, but this sick system helped form him. Again we see the ignorant and the delusional ignoring the endless warning signs until the next school shooting. His obvious severe mental conditions where he heard voices, was ignored. No one helped or intervened.

While taking away easy access to assault rifles may curb the increasing death rate, nothing is going to fix this until some inherent inner problems are dealt with. A society based on hyper-competitiveness, that advances narcissism and sociopathy is not going to become a peaceful society. A society with no care for it's severely mentally ill, who uses prisons for asylums, isn't going to protect innocent people from those who would harm others, and will only be there to clean up the mess afterwards. 

The civil order is breaking down. If kids can't even go to school without worrying about being blown away, how is that going to affect things? Already one sees the cracks forming in the civil order. People don't trust each other, your own class mate may be your future murderer.

I was on a board, where some people from my old town hang out. It's a politics board where they discuss local happenings. I don't go there that often, but just stop by on rare occasion, I moved away 11 years ago after all.  There's a few others who post there too who all moved away from the same small town, who I have contact with too. My old small town was very rural, extremely religious and conservative. What scares me is reading posts there, is you can see almost a micro-cosm of conservative religious right small town America now, and the picture is not pretty. It's sociopathic. The vast majority STILL all support Trump. Where I live is too conservative now but it's a good thing I never moved back there.

One post discussed the local senior and disabled building being taken over by bed bugs and with the heat not working in the dead of winter. This is a problem here too. If anything has delayed my own entrance into the subsidized housing world, bed bugs is it. From what I can tell it's a giant problem state wide and they have hit the inner city and now even subsidized housing in small towns. The local senior tower here got taken over by bed bugs. I knew someone who personally had to flee and give up her apartment.

What I noticed however was a weird attitude the "conservatives" had towards the freezing and bug-bitten people on that board. They asked, "Why don't those senior and disabled people stand up for themselves or form a building organization?"  I thought well, their leases may get ripped up. I posted on there, that their bad politics and people like Ben Carson are cutting so much funding that low income housing is being impacted. They got angry. When cracks form in a society, the vulnerable are the ones who feel it first. Republicans obviously have a hard-on now for destroying disabled people's lives. Otherwise why attack the ADA, 28 year old law that has withstood the test of time? They do it because they can. They go for the jugular of those they see as the weaker.

My old town was very poor, when we were working class there, and my husband was working in newspapers, there was a lot of people far poorer then us. It has something like a 30% poverty rate. That's rural America in many places. While poor for our state, our state had a few other even poorer counties.

 There were multiple homeless people and people living in houses that were more like shacks. We had a boarding house downtown, that rented rooms to poor people.  One woman called my old county and one north of it, the Appalachia of our state. She was accurate. That old co-op we volunteered for almost became a day and evening shelter for the homeless and very poor of our town. Many people had to leave when we did. I was back in the town in 2011 for a visit, and it looked even worse off.

I asked others, "did things improve?" after gaslighted people on this message board told me that things had improved since the Recession, and they told me, "No way, if anything things are worse".  One grocery-store manager wrote that "no one wanted to work hard" and "many wouldn't pass drug tests". Sadly the hatred of the poor had grown. It was like almost the whole town had read J.D. Vance's book Hillbilly Elegy and taken it to heart. It was bad enough while I lived there, but the attitudes had grown more cold and judgmental.  Years ago I wanted to move back, I missed having community, friends and people I could talk to. While some nice people remain there among those with the horrible outlooks, today the town would not be a good fit for me. This community it's far harder to talk to people, but I worried about the growing meanness to the poor. We had slid down a few notches economically, did I want to bear the brunt of those attitudes? The answer was no. The fact doctors had left town and medical care was dubious there, made that decision for me, not to go back.

What scares me about that old conservative town, that is even worse, is how they decry young people. With narcissistic elders like this offering no help, and only sabotage, and glee over suffering, hopefully the flood of the young even for their own protection will leave small towns like this who have only judgment to offer. Sometimes I get sick of conservative Baby Boomers, who go on about the "snowflakes" and the "entitled", they seem almost pleased that young people are poorer now and failing to get lives. I know people have gotten mad at me for supposedly adding to the generational strife, and yes there are good Baby Boomers out there, but there's some adding to that sociopathic reputation.  It troubles me. I never had children, but I certainly don't want anyone younger then me to have a shitty life. Look what happened to me, I know poverty in one's 20s can lead to permanent poverty. With some of them it's almost like they are happy over their own children's failing. Well a sick society that pushes competition to the extreme, I guess the constant comparison for some, are applied to even their own children.

Social Darwinism is even applied to their own off-spring as well. If you "don't make it", you're a loser, but we will make it as hard as possible for you to make it. I saw one lady I used to know there, who owns a farm and her husband a small business with no mercy for her own children, who claims they are financially "better" off, then she was when she was young. She wrote that young people,  nodding to her own children who ranged from Gen X to millennial age and were long out of the house, that they don't know the value of "hard work" and are "lazy". There's no mercy even for their own off-spring. Sadly what I faced with my own narcissistic upbringing has only been increased for millennials. It is interesting some young people posted and said, "We have to get out of this town." I would tell them if you are around people who do not support you or your efforts, that is the wisest choice of action.

Then there's always the "its no one's job to support you especially the government" types. I guess they see government as only there to make war or something like that. It's funny how conservatives always cheer for the police state, and crack-downs but when it comes to any improvement of anyone's life, they start whining about "limited government". Even there, before Trump, there used to be such a thing as sane and moderate conservatives who were just more fiscally conservative, and were not religious. There's no love lost for the disabled. Entering political debates as a disabled person can be hell, I sometimes step out. They start bitching about "entitlements" and "how people are sucking off the government tit" That was all over this community board. They sure hate people on welfare, they have a special disdain for them. One liberal guy I used to know from the old music and art co-op, looked up cites, that showed the town has one of the highest participation rates in food stamps. Of course, it does, the place is poor!

This is those without empathy operate. Life is a zero sum game, where health problems and money problems are not understood.  Some seemed to think magically jobs could be picked off trees. One person absurdly wrote, "there's plenty of jobs that pay 30 dollars an hour in our town". I wrote, "LOL", and said "who? A few auto mechanics, doctors over at the hospital and business owners?" Wouldn't I rather be able to breathe outside and not have pain? Empathy is gone. Even for people who work full time, who may be paid minimum wage, their consensus is that "they have made some bad choices in life that led them there."

All welfare people are seen as "cheats" and they cheered for Trump's food box, because that would keep the poor from buying "junk food". They complain about the "societal leeches" and those"refuse to work". Some concede that many places don't pay livable wages forcing people on welfare, but then have the attitude that "they didn't work hard enough". Everyone that wants a phone or even Internet to apply for a job is "entitled". It's dog eat dog competitiveness. The working class and middle class small town conservatives really has been fully indoctrinated into complete poor-shaming and lack of empathy for anyone that struggles.  The irony too is that these are the most religious. It's like in their own struggles instead of caring, they embrace Social Darwinism, and cry to all who drown, as they tread water, "You have gotten what you deserve!" Fox news makes them obsessed with fraud among the poor as well. By the way, I never have lived in the south, so I am sure attitudes are even worse there.

One thing I find ironic, is some posted in panic that this extremely large store in their community that sells clothes, food and other needed commodities  had been taken over by bed bugs. It is a store I had to go to a lot during my sojourn there. It was more then one person too, expressing extreme outrage. I did not know if this was rumor or hearsay, but given the damaging effects of bed bugs, it was frightening to read.

For me, if this was true, this was a sign of outward rot for the rot in some of their souls. I imagined carpets of bed bugs joining the abandoned houses, and pot holed roads and thought, the outside will resemble the "inside" more and more.  Human being's ability to deceive themselves is pretty extreme. When I moved away from the place, there was 11 empty houses across the street from my apartment building, the roads had giant pot holes, the poverty was observable, and still people denied it. I had grief over the dying small town that once was my home, but now I have grief over what they have become.

There was shuttered businesses all over the place.  Corruption grew there too, and there was some major scandals among major town institutions where people embezzled money. The place probably is on the edge of becoming a ghost town within the next generation. I guess there's a special blindness that develops in narcissism, they aren't too keen to even "see" what is going on. I see that here too in this county sadly, as the rich and conservative, say "There's plenty of jobs and people just don't want to work", as the stores shut down and the would be photographic ruin-porn increases in number.

 Lack of empathy doesn't bring joyous surroundings and doesn't bring progress. Their politics suck. Lack of empathy is destroying America, on multiple levels. Perhaps nations rise and fall when there's too many narcissists. And Social Darwinism brings people to delusion about their very lives.