I've been thinking a lot about the impermanence of things lately, and there will be a more abstract post about this at some point, but this has been annoying me specifically this week
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I think the well off see themselves as immune because they usually have golden parachutes of some kind. That and when someone in those circles does falter, they're usually never heard from again. They don't show up at the country club anymore.
While we continue to let lobbyists run Washington, and elect wealthy representatives and senators, it's not likely to change.
Oh it's true, I certainly wasn't implying that this is the only place such attitudes crop up. Just where I've been seeing them over and over again in the last few weeks.
*sigh*
I guess there are people walking around with their brains switched off in every area.
I'm currently worried as I don't have insurance and, after a quick look at some quote sites, have no clue how to choose them. I wish our politicians would see their way to providing state-funded insurance.
As part of my job I have to read the dregs of tabloid press, namely the Daily Mail, and that attitude is really obvious there. It's a prevailing attitude of 'only the lazy are unemployed or sick' along with 'only drug addicts/alcoholics become homeless' and it always gets much worse during a recession. People back off from social responsibility and refuse to think they could be in the same situation at any moment.
One of my partners was on sickness benefit for a decade before slowly getting well enough to work again. Now he's struggling again and is petrified of ending up back on benefits once more. Seeing the current UK government talking about cutting that safety net really doesn't help his stress levels.
It's a prevailing attitude of 'only the lazy are unemployed or sick' along with 'only drug addicts/alcoholics become homeless'
Yes this - a nuance I didn't quite capture, I feel.
As I'm fond of saying in conversations about privilege, it is hard to see the mountain when you're standing on it, but I can't quite believe that this lot don't feel how the bracing wind at the top could just as easily knock them off.
Sympathy to your partner. I've been there, and am very aware of how fragile things really are.
I find it bizarre that the bigots complaining about paying taxes can't imagine a situation in which they themselves might be ill, or homeless, or old, and in need of help.
With the current Government, I'm afraid they probably can't imagine that situation - most of them come from very wealthy and privileged families and have had trust funds, property investments and stocks and shares to back up their working incomes, so even if they did find themselves out of work, they would never find themselves in genuine need. There may, for the more nouveau-riche Tories, be a family story of how great-great-grandfather pulled himself up by his bootstraps from humble beginnings but that only serves to cement the notion that hard work will get you to the top in life - conveniently ignoring the thousands who worked just as hard as Good Old Pop and died in penniless old age.
I think not everyone who is making these sorts of comments is actually born into the privileged classes in that sense, but I know a lot of folk who have simply through luck never been out of work or seriously ill, who assume that they will continue to be that way forever. (I have a partner who takes this attitude, not about taxes, but about debt) - These are the people who REALLY make me headdesk. They're at risk, but don't understand, or want to know it.
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I think the well off see themselves as immune because they usually have golden parachutes of some kind. That and when someone in those circles does falter, they're usually never heard from again. They don't show up at the country club anymore.
While we continue to let lobbyists run Washington, and elect wealthy representatives and senators, it's not likely to change.
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*sigh*
I guess there are people walking around with their brains switched off in every area.
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One of my partners was on sickness benefit for a decade before slowly getting well enough to work again. Now he's struggling again and is petrified of ending up back on benefits once more. Seeing the current UK government talking about cutting that safety net really doesn't help his stress levels.
Reply
Yes this - a nuance I didn't quite capture, I feel.
As I'm fond of saying in conversations about privilege, it is hard to see the mountain when you're standing on it, but I can't quite believe that this lot don't feel how the bracing wind at the top could just as easily knock them off.
Sympathy to your partner. I've been there, and am very aware of how fragile things really are.
Reply
With the current Government, I'm afraid they probably can't imagine that situation - most of them come from very wealthy and privileged families and have had trust funds, property investments and stocks and shares to back up their working incomes, so even if they did find themselves out of work, they would never find themselves in genuine need. There may, for the more nouveau-riche Tories, be a family story of how great-great-grandfather pulled himself up by his bootstraps from humble beginnings but that only serves to cement the notion that hard work will get you to the top in life - conveniently ignoring the thousands who worked just as hard as Good Old Pop and died in penniless old age.
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