What Will It Take for Us to Get Back to Being a Decent Society?

POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Saturday, April 25, 2026 00:05
VIEWED: 18057
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SIGNYM

Sunday, December 22, 2013 11:29 PM

That is the point of having a society with surplus. (Not savings. Savings is "money", surplus is "extra goods").

AURAPTOR

Sunday, December 22, 2013 11:36 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Well, technically you can only get addicted to...

*sigh* Different pills, 1kiki

Seriously, I figured fans of Sci-Fi would get that reference. Oh well.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

1KIKI

Sunday, December 22, 2013 11:39 PM

FACT: Rush Limbaugh is a blue pill addict.

As evidence of "rape mentality"

Tuesday, July 30, 2013 8:11 PM
MAL4PREZ
And just remember, according to Rappy, the term befitting a women who wants the insurance she pays for to cover medications affecting her reproductive organs is

whore

Wednesday, July 31, 2013 4:23 PM
little rappy
The term applies.

SIGNYM

Monday, December 23, 2013 12:34 AM

Quote:
Seriously, I figured fans of Sci-Fi would get that reference.

Oh, you mean you thought that we didn't???

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Christ, rappy, you gotta stop with the jokes so early on Sunday!

Oh yeah, BTW it's a fact that Limbaugh is a blue-pill addict.

And, you can answer my questions any time now!

AURAPTOR

Monday, December 23, 2013 1:02 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
FACT: Rush Limbaugh is a blue pill addict.

WAS, I believe, is the operative word. And yes, his choice to toy w/ that drug. What's that suppose to mean to me ? He didn't kick the habit with some govt intervention program, did he ? And who did he hurt, with his addiction? His body, his choice, at least.

And your inane sig, literally makes no sense, what so ever. 'rape mentality' ? If anyone is showing a rape mentality, it's the Sandra Fluke types, who want to use the power of govt to FORCE others to pay for her drugs. SHE should be the one who decides, not the govt. Good grief, your mind is completely upside down and backwards, as usual.

Siggy, I was talking to 1kiki, who made the viagra / oxy comment. It's evident the reference was NOT understood. Not sure what point you're trying to make. Still butthurt, I see.

And 'early' on Sunday? I posted the reply @ 1:30 pm. Unless you're in Hawaii for Christmas, how is that 'early' ? And my sig has been here for a while, so you're just full of fail on this matter.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

6IXSTRINGJACK

Monday, December 23, 2013 1:44 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
When I was growing up, bank managers and ceo's probably earned about 3 or 4 times that their basic employee did. Houses were smaller, but almost everyone could afford to buy one. Electricity and gas, publically owned in those days, were dirt cheap. Cars were expensive. Most households only had one. Medicare had just been expanded and all education, including tertiary was free. Welfare was very generous and not many checks and balances about how it was accessed.

There are lots of things about those days I do not long for.... the position of women in society, the open sexism, racism and homophobia - but I do miss that it was a much more stable place and less dog eat dog. I'm kind of horrified at what ambition has done to some of my closest friends who are really chasing big big salaries and what it has meant for their lives.

Yep.... Accept these inalinable truths...

In the mean time, isn't it really cool how almost 0% of families in America can even exist now unless completely government subsidized without two parents working, even if the daycare expenses are almost as much as the 2nd salary after taxes? Most women I know personally envy my stepmom for being able to be a stay at home mom. The house was always spotless, and although her two sons had some problems like we all do, they both went to big colleges for free because of sports and their brilliance.

God Damn America in the 80's and my parents split for making my Mom go to work doing data-entry in the late 80's. By the time she retired, she was a consummate Project Manager for 15 years for Ameritech (formerly Ma-Bell).....

She fought so hard to have Ownership of her children, only to leave us with her parents or day-care because she worked nearly 80 hours a week (salary) with zero overtime pay. Being a woman at that time, she had to work twice as hard as a man in the same position.

She doesn't understand why I don't want a wife. Why I don't want to get married. Why I don't want to have a kid or 12.....

Everything I learned, I learned from my mom. Her life sucked.

I appreciate her love for her kids, but it was all she had outside of that miserable job, and the deeper she got into it the less she even acknowledged her kids over the years. Meanwhile, I'm quite certain that at least two Rich Old White Guys got huge Golden Parachutes when they bailed. Last I heard it was "SBC". Ma Bell whem my mom joined, then Ameritech, then SBC.....

Wonder how many people in India they employ now..........

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Monday, December 23, 2013 3:22 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
I was talking with a temp who works in the lab. He was telling me about the jobs that have been offered him, the payscales, and the conditions attached. He has advanced degrees in both physics and chemistry and years of work experience. He was offered a job that paid $17/ hr. Another place offered to pay him by the month - no matter how many days or hours he worked. Another potential employer said he would get $25/hr but have to work Saturdays for free. He said the people who he knows - with his level of education and experience - are in the same boat.

So, I asked him if this was due to businesses being extremely wary about spending money, or if it was an attitude. And he told me it was an attitude, because those same people thought nothing about paying themselves hefty salaries and bonuses. They didn't mind spending business money on themselves - not for work but just b/c they were owners, they just couldn't see their way to paying other people a reasonable wage, for a 40 hour week.

His story corresponds with the stories of the other temps who come through. And it corresponds with what the security guard tells me, about how the owner of the company thinks nothing about having everyone's (minimum wage) paychecks 'accidentally' be a week late - every pay cycle. It corresponds with what the waitresses at the restaurant tell me - that they are expected to show up early and set up for free, and stay late and close up for free.

When the economy crashed and people lost jobs and got desperate, business people became what they always wanted to be - greedy without restraint. People got desperate for jobs, and business owners took advantage without any consideration.

So no, I don't expect this society to go 'back' to being decent. For one thing, it never was. In the US we floated on the post WWII destruction other countries were struggling with to give us our first-place economy. And besides, this is a capitalist economy. Profit is the only goal. That won't change.

I agree, I think businesses will always try to get away with paying you the least they can and making you work the most they can. They whinge about unions because that's generally the only thing in the way of workers being completely screwed over.
I work in the community sector. You'd think it'd be all love and cups of tea over here because you know, most of us are in the so called 'caring' professions, but no its as ruthless and bloody as working for the biggest multinational, but without the healthy pay checks. And its all bullshit, it doesn't make you more productive, it makes for a resentful, hostile workforce who leave at a moments notice even though many of the positions are hard to replace.
I'm so jacked off with the harshness and inhumanity of the system I live in. Not inhumanity unbearable North Korea style, but nasty niggly little indignities and injustices inhumanity.
I can only change myself in this crazy system, make choices about how I go about things. Do I buy into the ruthless mindset? I can make lots of money, have a good life. Or do I practise humanity and speak out when I see wrong? Chances are I'll be unemployable, washed up.
What should I do? What would you do?

SIGNYM

Monday, December 23, 2013 5:22 AM

MAGONS, KIKI I have to bring this up again, it was so funny the last time:

Quote:
Crazy Eddie [Lampert] has been one of America’s most vocal advocates of discredited free-market economics, so obsessed with Ayn Rand he could rattle off memorized passages of her novels. ... Lampert took the myth that humans perform best when acting selfishly as gospel, pitting Sears company managers against each other in a kind of Lord of the Flies death match. This, he believed, would cause them to act rationally and boost performance. If you think that sounds batshit crazy, congratulations. You understand more than most of America’s business school graduates.

Instead of enhancing Sears’ bottom line, the heads of various divisions began to undermine each other and fight tooth and claw for the profits of their individual fiefdoms at the expense of the overall brand. By this time Crazy Eddie was completely in thrall to his own bloated ego, and fancied he could bend underlings to his will by putting them through humiliating rituals, like annual conference calls in which unit managers were forced to bow and scrape for money and resources. But the chaos only grew.

Lampert took to hiding behind a pen name and spying on and goading employees through an internal social network. He became obsessed with technology, wasting resources on developing apps as Sears’ physical stores became dilapidated and filthy. Instead of investing in workers and developing useful products, he sold off valuable real estate, shuttered stores, and engineered stock buybacks in order to manipulate stock prices and line his own pockets.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/eddie-lampert-and-ayn-rand

FREMDFIRMA

Monday, December 23, 2013 10:07 AM

Quote:
What Will It Take for Us to Get Back to Being a Decent Society?

THIS.

Morality and Ethics aside, historically it's the ONLY thing that ever HAS worked, problem is... it's a temporary solution that simply feeds the cycle by skimming the scum off the top and never addressing the root cause of how those learned sociopaths are created and enabled, so eventually you wind up with meet-the-new-boss-same-as-the-old-boss.

However, in order to reformat a society and address the issues of our social, legal and educational systems formenting sociopathic behavior on a goddamn assembly line, well, that takes time, and it's time we don't HAVE, unless, of course, it's bought with a heavy price - as violence scars those who use commit it as well as those subject to it.

But those numbers keep haunting me, 25% casualties concentrated primarily in women, children and the elderly, with a potential for up to 25% more of the remainder over the next five years...
Or 8%, more immediately, concentrated primarily amongst the most vile factions of our so-called society.

I don't pretend it isn't a monstrous suggestion, that it isn't every bit as evil as those inflicted daily upon us en-masse by laughing sociopaths, I simply point out that it may well be a matter of survival rather than morality - and frankly, the decision isn't really up to me, or you, as much as all of us, and you can bet your sweet bippy there's a whole *lot* of hungry, angry, desperate people out there with nothing left to lose thinkin the same bloody thing.

Damn tragedy, is what it is, cause had we not chosen this course back in the 80's, we'd be in a different place now with maybe better solutions more readily available.

-Frem

1KIKI

Monday, December 23, 2013 11:34 AM

"Seriously, I figured fans of Sci-Fi would get that reference."

Unlike you I deal with facts when I think about the real world. OTOH you have not posted a single fact yet. You keep posting fantasy.

FACT: Rush Limbaugh is a blue pill addict.

As evidence of "rape mentality"

Tuesday, July 30, 2013 8:11 PM
MAL4PREZ
And just remember, according to Rappy, the term befitting a women who wants the insurance she pays for to cover medications affecting her reproductive organs is

whore

Wednesday, July 31, 2013 4:23 PM
little rappy
The term applies.

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