Am I in Hell?
Lately I've been looking around and wondering what happened to the world that I grew up in. Most of the old faces, places and names are still there but everything has changed. Sometimes I wonder if I died or traveled through a black hole into a parallel universe. I hardly recognize anything familiar around me.
The city where I grew up was a typical mid-western community with thousands of manufacturing jobs where one could start and maintain a decent life if you were willing to show up and work every day. After a few years you could get married, buy a house and have children. The local government picked up the trash, maintained roads and sent criminals to jail. Civility and common sense prevailed in the public domain.
Most of the manufacturing jobs in my city are gone and with them the wages that start a good life. A home and marriage is out of the question for most young people , so out of wedlock children are the rule. Courts make the decisions and government pays the bills for children.
Meanwhile, government struggles to pick up the trash, maintain roads and annoy criminals a little before making excuses to put them back in society.
Public shame prevented most irresponsible behaviors. It was shameful to get pregnant out of wedlock, get divorced, get fired, go bankrupt, commit crimes or ask for a handout. Both family and community expected you to do your civic duty. If you behaved irresponsibly, you would suffer.
Now shameful behavior is sought-after for fortune and fame. Popular songs are sung about criminal and whorish acts. Boogers and shit are wiped on the walls of public facilities while the courts release roadkill sodomites back on the streets. We live in a cesspool.
In the 1970s, everything started to change for the worse. Irresponsible behaviors such as out of wedlock birth, divorce and drug abuse became common place. Hiring quotas put women and minorities into jobs that they couldn't or wouldn't do, making it impossible for employers to enforce workplace rules and discipline. In response, employers began replacing people with technology, eliminating good paying jobs.
Public handouts became institutionalized and common. It was no longer shameful to abuse drugs or alcohol, have a baby out of wedlock or get a divorce then ask for a public handout. Eventually, irresponsible behavior became a career choice for many women and minorities. Now business, local government and your neighbors all line up with their hand stretched out, asking for other people's money. The social contract that served us well for a couple hundred years is shredded on the floor.
In 2009, irresponsibility rules. There is no shame whatsoever. Do your thing. Never mind the consequences, someone else will clean up the mess. If it even is a mess.
Banks gamble investors savings, corporate executives loot their own companies, governments lie to the public while suburban teenage girls post videotape of themselves sucking gansta cock on a whim: then all demand respect.
I didn't even recognize Thanksgiving this year, as my grandsons were shuffled around to meet their court ordered holiday custody obligations. We squeezed in a late dinner for tired and full boys. No time for after dinner chat, as everyone had things to do that evening or in the morning. My wife worked for hours to create a dinner that lasted less than an hour.
Talking with coworkers Friday, their Thanksgiving experience was similar. A family get-together is rare because there are few conventional families anymore. Just bits and pieces with court ordered obligations and temporary connections.
Mostly my coworkers talked about mass hysteria shopping that they had done before work or would do after work. Good deals for them or gifts for the bits and pieces that they hoped to see for a few minutes at Christmas. Most were shocked that I wasn't going shopping, thinking it was irresponsible of me to miss all those great deals on things no one needs.
Perhaps our culture should rename Thanksgiving to EatBeforeShopping and Christmas to BuyABunchOfCrap. Both names would be more descriptive of the meaning of the holidays.
I'm a stranger in the land of my birth. Everything I was raised to believe in is gone. What is left looks like my old world but is changed into something I no longer recognize. Am I in hell?
The city where I grew up was a typical mid-western community with thousands of manufacturing jobs where one could start and maintain a decent life if you were willing to show up and work every day. After a few years you could get married, buy a house and have children. The local government picked up the trash, maintained roads and sent criminals to jail. Civility and common sense prevailed in the public domain.
Most of the manufacturing jobs in my city are gone and with them the wages that start a good life. A home and marriage is out of the question for most young people , so out of wedlock children are the rule. Courts make the decisions and government pays the bills for children.
Meanwhile, government struggles to pick up the trash, maintain roads and annoy criminals a little before making excuses to put them back in society.
Public shame prevented most irresponsible behaviors. It was shameful to get pregnant out of wedlock, get divorced, get fired, go bankrupt, commit crimes or ask for a handout. Both family and community expected you to do your civic duty. If you behaved irresponsibly, you would suffer.
Now shameful behavior is sought-after for fortune and fame. Popular songs are sung about criminal and whorish acts. Boogers and shit are wiped on the walls of public facilities while the courts release roadkill sodomites back on the streets. We live in a cesspool.
In the 1970s, everything started to change for the worse. Irresponsible behaviors such as out of wedlock birth, divorce and drug abuse became common place. Hiring quotas put women and minorities into jobs that they couldn't or wouldn't do, making it impossible for employers to enforce workplace rules and discipline. In response, employers began replacing people with technology, eliminating good paying jobs.
Public handouts became institutionalized and common. It was no longer shameful to abuse drugs or alcohol, have a baby out of wedlock or get a divorce then ask for a public handout. Eventually, irresponsible behavior became a career choice for many women and minorities. Now business, local government and your neighbors all line up with their hand stretched out, asking for other people's money. The social contract that served us well for a couple hundred years is shredded on the floor.
In 2009, irresponsibility rules. There is no shame whatsoever. Do your thing. Never mind the consequences, someone else will clean up the mess. If it even is a mess.
Banks gamble investors savings, corporate executives loot their own companies, governments lie to the public while suburban teenage girls post videotape of themselves sucking gansta cock on a whim: then all demand respect.
I didn't even recognize Thanksgiving this year, as my grandsons were shuffled around to meet their court ordered holiday custody obligations. We squeezed in a late dinner for tired and full boys. No time for after dinner chat, as everyone had things to do that evening or in the morning. My wife worked for hours to create a dinner that lasted less than an hour.
Talking with coworkers Friday, their Thanksgiving experience was similar. A family get-together is rare because there are few conventional families anymore. Just bits and pieces with court ordered obligations and temporary connections.
Mostly my coworkers talked about mass hysteria shopping that they had done before work or would do after work. Good deals for them or gifts for the bits and pieces that they hoped to see for a few minutes at Christmas. Most were shocked that I wasn't going shopping, thinking it was irresponsible of me to miss all those great deals on things no one needs.
Perhaps our culture should rename Thanksgiving to EatBeforeShopping and Christmas to BuyABunchOfCrap. Both names would be more descriptive of the meaning of the holidays.
I'm a stranger in the land of my birth. Everything I was raised to believe in is gone. What is left looks like my old world but is changed into something I no longer recognize. Am I in hell?
posted by lugh lampfhota at 8:04 AM
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