So does "Everbody" have a chance to make (subjective) it in America?

I just had a run in with an Anarchistic, Constitutionalist, Capitalistic/Capitalist Wannabee, and while I gave the smackdown enough he was big, loud, and repetitive.

Once he left to DJ the bar quiz game (I still can't figure out how his claim to be in the oppressed top 1% is true. He didn't OWN the bar.) most everyone present told me that, while they weren't Socialists, that I made the most salient points over the "Talking Points" pig.

I swear that I was hearing total Libertarian talking points from this middle class child of the Boomers.

"Yeah it's their problem if they fail" Holy crap! He seemed to have the POV that his "success" was totally independant from environment and Society. Actually he admitted that then simply said "That's the system, not my problem".

A guy that I had been talking to about "comfortable middle class apathy", he was a victim, ended up getting into it with the crass, harsh, Social Darwinistic, fool too. Even he saw the benefit of the Progressive Income Tax and Universal Healthcare. While he debated with me, he was appalled by the libertine. By the end he was saying that I was the lesser of two nutcases!

It was the sickest conversation that I've ever had. Unbelievable really. The troglodyte was apparently an Atheist too (I'm one but not proud of all of my "Rationalist" friends) but GAWD how I'd a prefered a rational Christian...

http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,6761,1057357,00.html

Michael Moore 'Face it, you'll never be rich'

for those who dedicate themselves, take measures to improve their marketable skills, and take risks to succeed beyond their wildest dreams.

The vast majority of those with an income and/or net worth in excess of $1,000,000 are first generation "rich".

My own family serves as a prime example. All four grand parents are the children of immigrants, who came here with nothing and died with virtually nothing. My grandparents, all four of them were factory workers for Endicott Johnson shoes making next to nothing. To make a long story short, my mothers mother decided she wanted better, got her real estate license and after 20 years in real estate started her own company and became what many would consider "rich". And it wasn't unitl her 50's! Because of this my grandfather has been able to retire very nicely.

My fathers father died young, and my grandmother continued to work away in the shoe factory. Her children (my father, uncle, and two aunts) run the gamut of financial and personal success. One aunt screwed her life up with drugs and was on welfare for many many years. My other aunt and my uncle life nice middle middle class lives after years of being at the bottom. And my father has become very successful, and is retiring from IBM after 38 years of service with a hefty 6 figure income. He busted hump working while a teenager, after high school for a few years to save and pay for community college. Graduated from community college and worked a few years, then went back and got his 4 year degree and MBA.

Other family members have similar stories, as do many of our friends.

Can everyone make it in America? No. There is no place on earth where everyone can make it. But America provides the greatest opportunity for one to use their skills to make it. Rages to riches stories surround us and we meet these people every day.

Success should not be punished, but should be rewarded with our admiration and instill in use a desire to achieve for ourselves.

My parents would point out those who had succeeded and say to me "if you work hard, treat people right, and dedicate yourself you too can make it." They never said to me "those people are evil and need to be punished."

Can everyone make it in America? No. There is no place on earth where everyone can make it. But America provides the greatest opportunity for one to use their skills to make it. Rages to riches stories surround us and we meet these people every day.

Hard work usually pays off in any system, in any place.

who 'make it' everywhere, as opportunity is everywhere.

It's a Horatio Alger myth that it can only occur in America.

Seriously.

It doesn't matter what they say, at times perhaps, it really only matters that they say what they're told (or what sells something).

It's a perverse meritocracy.

For instance I am a fairy effective salesman, however I've chosen to be a city planner...

Like you say Jan, being verbally superior has it's advantages.

I've found the biggest and baddest liars usually 'make it.'

to make it in America. I know a 14 year old boy who was taken out of school in 5th grade to be "homeschooled" by his mother. The mother I won't bother to describe. Suffice it to say that this child can't read, spends all, and I mean all of his time playing video games and eating junk, is at least 100 pounds overweight and has no friends. What chance does that poor kid have?

Sounds like Rush Limbaugh's childhood.

It isn't as easy as it sounds.

The story you described, if true, is not the fault of "America" and "America" has not prevented him from "making it." A shitty mother has. And shitty parents abound all over the planet.

But if the kid was being physically abused there would be a system in place, albeit a broken one, to try to help him. As it is, child protective services can do nothing, and since in AZ all you have to do is write a letter to the school board informing them that you will be homeschooling, there is no help available for him at all. When I was growing up we had truant officers. I think "America" can do better than this.

I can debate the issues point by point but preacher-like pontificators are unusual for me to deal with.

I never bellow at this particular gathering, it's just not the venue, so it took me a while (after 5 big beers) to transition. I hate have bellicose opponants so I made that clear by being intentionally bellicose myself.

It's tiring...

It's a lot of luck. But everybody doesn't get the same odds. You can be a quadriplegic gay black man and still 'make it' but the odds are against you. You can be scion of a wealthy WASP family and still fail but your odds favor success, even with minimal effort or aptitude.

In short the game is rigged, but everybody does have 'a' chance. Even the slots pay off 1-2%.

there are many examples of people making it from seemingly impossible situations, so yes everyone, or nearly everyone can make it.

But, they certainly don't all have the same odds.

However once we acknowledge them as anomolies (And knowing that most of the 289,000,000 Americans do not share those good graces), then what?

:)

but of course you know that anybody who does not make it just did not try hard enough. How hard do you have to try? Hard enough to make it, of course. You can also make water run uphill if you pray hard enough.

I still like one of my metaphors. Suppose I am a slave in Mississippi in 1860. I say that the slave system sucks. Someone says back - look at all of the slaves who took the underground railroad to Northern States or Canada. They prove that anyone can make it in this system, so the system is not the problem - you are.

You might say that the slave has escaped the system, but I would say similarly that those at the top today have escaped the wage-slave system.

I used a few similar to that but this guy just kept on preaching. I suppose if you looked around at all of the middle class (And some very well off) white people in the place it would be easy to see his point...

It's not easy being a Lefty in Sarasota, FL:-)

If you are willing to work hard, sacrifice alot, and have the ambition nothing can stop you.

Forget "it". I spent too much time banging my head againt the pollyanna types last night.

Ciao.

and opportunities you have in America.

Work, as Edwards says, isn't rewarded in America. Wealth is.

People in America should be able to reap the rewards of their efforts in a way in which the rewards correlate to the efforts.

There is a large gap between classes/socio-economic groups, and I don't believe everyone has a chance to make it.

I was browsing through a transcript of last night's debate this am; I didn't get home from work in time to see it myself. One of the candidates, I don't remember who (Edwards???) was saying something about helping the middle class, standing on a podium representing them, etc. It read well, except my radar detector sounded. All of this concern for the middle class; all of these plans to help the middle class...no mention, not just in this instance, but in the whole conversation, of anyone below the "middle." Now, I know the middle class has its own issues. I'm not "anti-middle class." But what about the rest of the population?

I guess if you look at income, I would now be considered "middle class." I'm not sure where the magic annual income begins. I make enough to support myself. I own a home with a mortgage. An 800 square foot place on a postage-stamp sized lot, built 50 years ago. Zoned industrial, on the edge of a neighborhood housing the working poor. Across the street from a yard of heavy equipment that makes noise early and late. Next door to a 2 decades-abandoned chicken farm and the railroad tracks leading to the lumber yard. I drive a 94 toyota with 200,000+ miles on it, and worry about how I'm going to replace it when it goes. There's no budget for a car payment.

I didn't grow up as part of the middle class. I was raised by a single parent who worked multiple jobs to pay the rent in our apartments. We moved continuously. I was an original "latch-key" child, taking care of myself while mom worked from the age of about 7. I was the first person in my family to attend college. The only person to get past an Associate's degree. It took me 15 years, while I also worked and raised my own 2 kids. I'm still paying the student loans; I didn't qualify for grants. I've been homeless. More than once. I've lived in the back of a pick up truck. I once took my kids on a "camping adventure" for 4 weeks, trying to find an apartment I could afford. I've gone hungry. And I grew up with people just like me. Very few of us make it out. We don't have the support system that middle class kids have, to put it mildly. It takes more than education, desire, and willingness to work. It takes a level of personal sacrifice, not just for a short time, but for a lifetime, to get the job done. I never had a "childhood" where life was safe and easy, and someone always was there to take care of things. I never really was a child. I didn't have years of relative freedom with which to pursue education, adventure, and make choices about my future. It was written before I left high school.

Now I spend my days with kids who come from diverse backgrounds; middle class through poverty. ( No affluent families.) I can tell you that I cannot bridge the divide between these kids. Not with the resources and support that are available at this point. The divide is a yawning chasm; I'm doing my best, but it's not enough. It is not their FUCKING FAULT. And by the time they are adults, their "status" is so well absorbed that it's a miracle if any ever shed it.

I have a half sister. We have the same dad, different mothers. Neither of us had our father around, we were raised by our mothers. We lived about 45 miles apart. I didn't know she existed until I was about 14. I've met her twice.

We just barely got by when I was a kid, but I had access to a passable education. My mother made sure I worked hard in school. I grew up surrounded by middle class friends and upper-middle class relatives. I didn't have much but I saw what there was to aspire to and how to get it.

My half sister is Native American. She grew up on the reservation. Her mother had no money. My dad doesn't believe in paying child support. She went to a terrible school. All around her she saw unemployment and alcoholism. She really didn't have much chance to grow up to be anything other than what she became--an alcoholic teen mother in an abusive relationship.

It's folly to say that the United States doesn't provide some incredible opportunities for advancement, at least to a degree. How often do you see immigrants who come here, start a small business, and within 1-2 generations their families are attending college? It's a pretty wide phenomenon.

BUT...

Quite often, these people achieve their success through the raw willingness to work 18-hour days and pour every ounce of their being into their business. Forgive me if I sound like I'm "promoting laziness" or "sounding off socialist fantasies", but at the point we are with gains in productivity and such, there should not be a "need" for anyone to work 18 hour days. Of course, if that's what you really *want* to do, that's your business. But there is no reason that people should have to spend their entire lives working just to provide a decent living.

And let's look at the costs of our highly competitive culture. Market fundamentalism has become all the rage -- elevating this intangible lord over all of us, "the economy", to a level that it overrules the wise stewardship of the earth or the basic recognition of human dignity. Ours is an increasingly unhealthy society in which we have lost our common bonds with the earth and the other people of the world. We are cynical and selfish, and live in a society in which values such as cooperation, compassion and empathy are suborned to the ethos of "greed is good".

So, is it possible for anyone to make "it" in America? I don't think so. I would categorize "it" as achieving a life in which you are part of a true community, in which you are able to truly make your family the #1 priority in your life (most of all by spending the majority of your time with them), be free to commune with nature and strengthen the innate bonds we have with the earth, explore the arts and personal development, and so on. The term "making it" has been correlated completely with financial success, and in many instances, I think that this drive for financial success quite often inhibits our ability to truly enjoy the wonders of life.

The government should do everything to even the playing field, good schools, good health care for those who can't afford it,etcetera but after that you are on your own....

My theory is that the best baseball players ever born never play in the major leagues. They are blown off course before they get there. Deterrents include dirty competition, other interests stealing their time, other commitments, misfortune, a manager who didn't like them, a manager who didn't fully recognize their talent (Michael Jordan missed the cut in grade school but persevered), discrimination, being the lone star on lousy teams that go nowhere, spotty media coverage and recognition, lack of money for promotion or other "entrance requirements", etc., etc.

It may apply to everything in an imperfect world.

Jordan sucked at baseball and in no way could he compete at its highest levels.

A pet peeve of mine is the way in which the lifestyles of the rich and famous are constantly thrown up as the definition of "success." Very few of us are going to become gazillionaires. But anyone of sound mind and body has every prospect of enjoying a reasonably comfortable working class/middle class life and decent retirement IF they work hard, live soberly, and save a little.

Hard things, I know. Jobs sometimes go away, and you may have to relocate, retrain, retrench, or just suck it up and take a job you dislike, at least for awhile. And yes, I know: everything in the popular culture tells us to live for the moment, spend every penny, keep up with the Joneses, and run up the credit cards. And sometimes health fails.

But the fact remains, the leading cause of poverty in the USA is illegitimacy, followed by alcohol and drug abuse. If we could somehow eliminate these three factors, I would guess that 90%-plus of our "social problem" would disappear. (That leaves room for plenty of exceptions to the rule, but let's stay clear about the main thing.) I have no desire to climb into a pulpit and lecture anybody about lifestyle choices, but persistent poverty is largely self-inflicted.

The really tough social policy question is how to break the generational chain and rescue kids whose parents model nothing but self-destructive behavior.

P.S. I have been middle aged and unemployed. It's not pleasant. But most of the unemployed will be reemployed within a matter of months. An astonishingly high percentage will take another job within two weeks of their unemployment benefits running out. Sometimes the new job pays less or is a step down in status, and that's tough. (Been there, done that too.) But you won't be impoverished if you get back in the game. And the vast majority of today's working poor will, within ten years, have moved several rungs up the ladder.

I'm not saying it's easy. I am saying that persistent poverty is mostly the result of self-defeating behavior. The guy who hasn't had a steady job in five or ten years has something else going on other than mere joblessness. The statistics would suggest it's probably something chemical, and/or the depression, aggression, and general unreliability that goes along with substance abuse. This, of course, will be heatedly denied by the abusers; denial is part of the syndrome.

Ok, end of rant. That's one side of the "making it" question. Getting rich, of course, is a whole 'nother issue. I choose to dwell on the underside of the question because that's where most of the suffering is.

You sometimes hear racists say,"Well, if Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan both rose from humble backgrounds to become multimillionaires, then racism can't be an obstacle to people getting out of the ghetto."

It's using the exceptional case to formulate a rule.

Some immigrants come over with nothing, work 18 hours a day in a convenience store or restaurant, send all their children to college, and retire comfortably.

Others, like an immigrant family of my acquaintance, work 18 hours a day in a restaurant but are held back by their daughter who is mentally ill and needs frequent hospitalization and medication (no insurance), and their son, neglected because all his parents' attention is going to the restaurant and to the needs of his sister, gets involved in a gang, is arrested on drug charges, and faces deportation to a country he barely remembers, so the family also needs to shell out for legal expenses. What kind of a retirement is this couple going to have?

What about the street kids that I worked with for four years? Some were so emotionally disturbed from years of abuse and neglect (and some of them came from wealthy two-parent families--it wasn't just the stereotypical "welfare mother" who produced street kids) that it's doubtful that they'll ever be successfully integrated into society. A few remarkable kids did manage to triumph over their backgrounds, but they were few and remarkable. I've seen them described as "super-resilient," members of the single-digit percentage of any population that is going to do well no matter what life throws at them. They had an inner strength that radiated out of them, and I often wished that we could bottle whatever they had and feed it to the other kids.

But we shouldn't hold the super-resilient up as means of bashing less successful people any more than we should bash weekend runners for not winning the Boston Marathon.

Then there's the factor of luck.

My brother had a high school classmate who made his first million at age 28 because he got into real estate and just happened to negotiate a deal for the site of a major shopping center. Did he work harder than the people who spend their lifetimes selling ordinary houses? No, he literally lucked out.

Or think of show business. How many extremely talented actors and musicians spend their entire careers in regional obscurity, waiting tables to survive, simply because they're never able to capture the attention of anyone who could take their career to the next level? As one who follows the arts closely, I know that this happens all the time. I saw Meryl Streep in student productions at the Yale School of Drama, and I was happy for her when she became successful, but she had many equally talented classmates who have never been heard from again.

I once interviewed a best-selling mystery writer as part of my volunteer work for a Portland radio station. I asked why his book had broken out onto the bestseller list when so many mystery titles written by equally fine writers go straight to the remainder table. His answer was that he didn't really know, but he supposed that it got good word of mouth. I read his books and like them, but some of the finest mysteries never make it to the bestseller list.

If hard work were the only factor in financial success, then the people in the metal-plating plant where I worked as a temp in the 1980s would have been living on easy street. The production and QC workers (I temped in the QC department) worked 7:00AM to 5:00PM six days a week with 30 minutes for lunch and two 15-minute coffee breaks. Some of them, especially the single mothers, slept instead of eating during their lunch period. The suits (and fancy suits they were!) came in at 8:30 and left at 4:30, sometimes taking long lunches in the middle of the day. Who worked harder?

When I was living on the East Coast in the 1970s, I read an article about black uemployment in New Haven, Connecticut. It asked the question why, when major manufacturers closed, did the white workers bounce more easily than the black and Puerto Rican workers did.

The writer investigated some cases and found that the white ethnics had mostly been in the city for two or three generations and were well integrated into the business community. When white workers lost their jobs, they had relatives and neighbors within other businesses who could "put in a word" for them.

The blacks and Puerto Ricans, as more recent arrivals, not only didn't have these connections but also faced unofficial racial barriers.

Well, why didn't the blacks and Puerto Ricans just start businesses? the right wingers ask. Ah, but as one who is now self-employed myself, I can tell you that not everybody has what it takes to start a business. You have to overcome self-doubt, you have to have a financial cushion or access to credit, you have to have a product or skill that other people want to pay for, and you have to be able to work without someone else telling you to.

I've now been self-employed for slightly over ten years, and it was a terrible struggle in the beginning, so much so that I almost gave up. What saved me was getting hooked up with an international network of translators who began sending referrals after they got to know me. We all rely on getting "overflow" work from other translators and being chosen when they are assigned to form translation teams.

I have a long-term unemployed friend who entertains the idea of starting a business but has no idea what she could do and besides, has no money for start-up costs, having spent all her savings since becoming unemployed in 2001.

I could go on and on, but success is not simple. Yes, you need skills and determination, and you do need to work hard, but that's not enough. Your skills need to be in an area that someone else is willing to pay for, you need to avoid unforeseen mishaps as you work hard, and you need to be in the right place at the right time and know the right people.

when a brilliant, hardworking, straigt and narrow, and idealistic kid born in Anacostia or Watts has an equal chance of becoming President as a dopey, lazy, substance abusing, uncurious, and cynical son of a rich oil family.

to educate 1 child from k-BA because the public education system is going to hell in a handbasket.

I doubt doing trivia gigs would cover that.

eom