Hi Winston,

I am also a Charleston resident. Since you are interested in “intelligent, progressive discussion on beliefs and religion in general” you might want to check out Circular Church on Meeting Street. I think it’s the closest thing to a “Tikkun-like” place in town. All are welcome to discuss and question in an open and accepting manner. It is a bright, progressive beacon in our lovely, but conservative city.

Cheers!

The Republicans have to deal with the Libertarian and the Reform parties. We owe it to the American public to encourage a more vibrant political life by giving them a real progressive option. As Ralph Nader pointed out, it isn’t about stealing voters from the Democrats, it’s about getting people to vote who have given up on the two major parties.

One symptom of this disintegration is our inability to get things done. We are so angry and so ignorant as a population that we grasp at anything that will relieve our frustration. Those who manipulate the masses, our propagandists, use that weakness for their own ends. Try to cheer me up, because I am in despair.

But what company is going to start up in Bend when these progressives have vowed to loot them? How many companies already there are going to survive both a bad economy and the progressives’ looting?

I’ve lived in a more than a few places where economic hellholes were forced to create smaller and new economies after big steel/big coal or a corporate HQ pulled up stakes and left town. The increase in the corporate tax could hardly be considered “looting” except in the bizarrely-addled dis-perceptions and strange parasitic expectations of the owing class. Eventually those even amongst the owning class who are truly local will figure that distortion out and discard it, starting businesses anyway. That’s how it’s been done all over various hellholes in PA, NY and New England. The places I’m talking about didn’t turn into Beverly Hills by any stretch but at least people can get by now whereas before, there was nothing.

Nothing’s going to happen now to be sure, but eventually a body’s gotta eat and food’s gotta get grown to be eaten. When necessity hits, people adapt or die/move.

I mean, come on, $250K in Oregon is big bucks. A 34% tax rate on their income is still nothing for someone at that level. So they might have to buy VW instead of Mercedes. Boo hoo, ya’ know?

take responsibility for your own life, IMAGINE that if there is a problem in your life, it is about you, you alone are responsible for your feelings

IMO, this is just bright-siding denial. No person lives as an isolated island, unimpacted by life around them. Lower class people are told this all the time, usually as a way to shut us up or not have to hear about the consequences we bear of the choices they’ve made. It’s long past time for those higher up, and those that continue to drink the bright-sider kool aid to hear the very real obstacles of other’s creation lower class people face that cause depression, frustration and anxiety, all of which are indeed quite real and cannot be solved by simply imagining them away.

The surprise maybe comes from my own apparently atypical experience as a male who has laterally shifted (invaded according to some) into the traditionally female experience. For me as a male and a SAHD turned WAHD, the home is where I’ve focused my energy for the past twelve years. I have a different class position than most middling class folks too, we’re much lower on the rungs below them though we share the advanced education of those much “higher.” So I already know to expect my personal engagement in the things raised by Harriet’s piece is going to be out of alignment with the experience of most other readers of her piece.

Looking around my neighborhood and talking about some of her analysis and observations in the piece with coworkers (working class and below types in my world, other educators and professionals in my mate’s) the responses have been varied, largely along class lines, perhaps predictably too. The one thing that has stood out however is the emphasis on women as the emotional core and responsible party for home. Even women we’ve talked to found that jarring if not strange. The typical comment from women we’ve talked to who read the piece as well was along the lines of, ‘well maybe that’s how it used to be but it sure isn’t now,’ and ‘what kind of a goal is she trying to suggest, that we go back to that?!’

The other comment that came up, and also came up for me personally was the notion of passivity and apathy in Americans. Nearly all my working class neighbors and coworkers flat out rejected that observation or conclusion on the whole. My neighbor from El Salvador pointed out that she doesn’t see Americans as passive at all, apathy in some sectors of society, maybe. She sees, as did several other people born locally, that Americans are trapped and they know it. “Just because we live in a cage doesn’t mean we’re passive about it. You can only shake the bars so many times before it just wears you out.” I think she’s on to something there. Depression was something my mate’s coworkers brought up a lot. My coworkers and our neighbors agreed there was depression after thinking about it for a minute or two.. mostly amongst the working and working poor class, we’re exhausted and running on auto-pilot while running on pure fumes and it doesn’t look like it’ll change any time soon.

Thanks, Dave for putting this up with some excerpts.