A profound sadness hit me today.

I need to hire a couple of more engineers for my group, and I was browsing through resumes today. Many applications, most from people 50 and up. There's a chronic unemployment problem with older working-age Americans these days and engineering's not an exception.

All of the sudden my brain froze: it struck me that these folks, some of who have not had a job in years, were about to get the rug pulled even further out from under them by the Simpson-Bowles/Gang of 6 sickness. The people getting fucked mightily had gone from being nameless concepts, to being people with names, who had worked at many of the same companies, and many of the same jobs, as I had. They followed the same rules, had a bad break, and now they have become prey for the Predator Class. They were me, but with a bad break at the wrong time.

This awfulness cannot stand for long, and it will not stand for long. We're in a pretty bad place right now: two elected parties hell-bent on sucking the last few bits from the 99%. It is time to be smart and tough, and to remember: the 99% have more of the vote than do the 1%. As long as we have the vote we can win this thing.

Be tough.

how's that voting thing working for you?

I am AMAZED that there isn't only one party here. I recall from Reagan to the present how the entire country thought being a right wingnut, a fascist imbecile, and a complete Bible-banging fake, was just the greatest thing. It wasn't the people in Washington, it was the media making right wingerism seem ideal, it was Americans (who aren't the deepest thinkers on the planet), falling right in lockstep with the right wingerist way of thinking, and for chrissakes, it's still with us today.

I think the illness lies with Americans and the American system. Truly.

If nearly everything, media, churches, people on the street, is going along with right wingerist thinking, what on earth do you think is going to happen in govt? Really.

I have no solutions. I know I never went along with that bullshit, but then I'm not a Bible banger, nor have I ever been impressed with churches (a HUGE part of the right wingerist brainwashing of America). In fact, I ABHOR churches since Raygun's time, something I didn't start out doing.

Now, thanks to right wing thinking, I simply HATE churches. They're venomous, they're punitive, they're hate-filled, they're ministries of disinformation, they're the places where little fascists are formed, united and shaped.

With all that shit going on in this country, how the hell can you expect any other form of thinking, in govt or anywhere else?

Our democracy has been auctioned off to the highest bidder. We are all victims of the greatest sin, greed, and we'll have hell to pay for it.

will take down not only the USA but this planet given time and enough of it. been saying that for years now.

that you read Richard Dawkins' wonderful "The God Delusion"? It demolishes the entire project of religion and then smashes the remaining bricks to atoms in the most elegant of ways. And Dawkins does it with pure, ruthless, relentless logic, great wit and just the right dose of moral outrage. I just finished it, and it is hands down one of the finest books I have ever read on any subject.

of the RW by the media, but as polls show the country doesn't believe it anymore. Or not MOST of it. The actual PEOPLE of the country support "leftish" positions by BIG majorities. It's the politicians of BOTH parties (mostly anyway) that don't represent this majority anymore. I'll go further, the politicians REFUSE to represent this majority.

The New Silent Majority. How long will it STAY silent?

between the candidates. With the way it's set up now, we're going to elect a capitalist candidate either way. Oh and BTW, I will still vote, but I have NO hope that it will do any good.

There was a huge sucking sound of jobs to China from both the US and Mexico.

That is why I did not like him.

He was absolutely right about free trade, though.

And most people don't realize the worst of all things about free trade.

We have ceded our self-government, our right, for example to set local environmental standards that are stricter than some other country and therefore exclude its products.

The NAFTA and trade courts make decisions, and our state and local governments can be bound by them.

That is a loss of the ability to govern locally.

It is bad enough when the federal government pre-empts the right of the states in areas that involve issues that should be decided locally.

But when international courts can meddle in such issues, it is really, really abominable.

But everyone kept parroting the lies that corporations paid lobbyists so much money to promote: that by taking jobs away from here, new jobs would appear magically.

All that time, I was SHOCKED that Americans were believing that crap. It was as if the whole f country had drunk the corporate Kool-Aid. But that's America, non-thinking all the way.

I was very concerned about NAFTA at the time. I voted for Ross Perot in part because of that.

Everything else, I disagreed with vehemently.

We can't see straight
We can't think straight
We can't hear straight
We can't feel nothing , got no heart and soul, but we're Godz
And someday there'll be thousands of us, thousands of Godz, thousands of machines
More of us than there is of them, they can't stop the Godz rock and roll machine, stop the machine......machine
The Godz are rock and roll machines
No hearts but at least we're machines
The Godz are rock and roll machines

-The Godz, Gotta Keep A Runnin'

Sorry.

I've got a habit of clang association with respect to song lyrics.

I've been noticing that for years. :)

Often brilliantly funny choices too..

I worked with a guy for a while whose conversation was mostly movie quotes, chosen to fit the situation, it actually took me a while to figure it out because he had so many and I'd never seen a lot of the movies he quoted.

That equation always = R.:(

Edit:
I hope you will be hiring these older, experienced engineers.

Different needs and salary ranges. I'll work hard to balance my duty to my company with my duty to humanity.

I'm one of those older folks who will be looking for a job soon. Hope someone has sympathy for my plight, too.

What we need is MORE jobs for both young & older. (sigh)
But if the banks won't let go of capital for expansion, then we're stuck in this limbo/down slide.

laid off last year at age 59 after 20 years of loyal service to a large corporation. He's a kick-ass software engineer. He had a hell of a time finding something. Finally, a former co-worker came to the rescue and helped him land a position at a 40% cut in salary. He took it. Our daughter is starting college this year so a job was absolutely essential, and he was getting pretty damn desperate after 6 fruitless months of hunting.

The older person you hire will be grateful for the opportunity to again be productive and the paycheck will be a tremendous morale booster.

Look at the White House.

vote for, the outcome is the same. Reminds me of the old John Belushi SNL skit in which the short order cook only produces cheeseburgers no matter what the customers request.

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We abandoned our manufacturing because it was cheaper to have Japan and then China do the work.

We have spent our tax revenues on a massive military infrastructure.

We deregulated our economic system so that it became a Ponzi scheme.

It has been a jetsam economy.

What we have not done is value educating our nation. Our culture is a flash in the pan in comparison to the rest of the world. America only knows red white and blue stars and stripes. We don't have a Europe next door, or the history that comes with it. We're short sighted. And our presence in the history of the human race is somewhat tragic in that we were a shining example of success.

Today I am realizing that at first the fruits of capitalism feel so soothing and comfortable. But then they turn against us. We used to depend upon people, and now depend upon machines. It's a cold hard world. To a degree it is highly valuable. But like alcohol, we keep drinking to excess. And the result is illness.

I made my way through school to become a machinist, and then an engineer. A very difficult task. There are too few who recognize and value how important these technical skills are to a society. They are crucial. Engineers are at the very foundation of a modern society.

And here we have it all turned upside down. The financial schemers are the ones pulling the strings.

We're not at the end of the human race. We are in fact at the beginning of solving problems that are crucial to the survival of the human race. We are in fact in the beginning of an emergency. All of this goofing around is wasted time.

That's about all I have to say on this. Rome is burning.

exactly.

Looks really young to be in that group.

That's what we need right now -- more young people who won't kowtow to the old members of the old payola system!!

9 . Sen. Robert LaFollette, Jr., (PROG-WI) was the eldest son of Robert LaFollette, a progressive Senator from Wisconsin and one-time presidential candidate. When his father died in 1925, Robert Jr., then only 30 years old, was appointed to succeed him. Initially elected as a Republican, LaFollette changed his party affiliation to the Progressive Party in 1934. LaFollette served on the House-Senate conference committee that drafted the final version of the Social Security bill. He served in the Senate until 1946, when he was defeated by Joseph McCarthy. In 1953, LaFollette committed suicide in Washington, D.C.

http://www.ssa.gov/history/fdrsign.html

Tragic story, actually.

At least he was able to witness this great moment - and from his face, it seems he knew how great it was.

It's sad that LaFollette killed himself, but I can understand how someone would start thinking that way when someone like McCarthy takes your job.
It's unfortunate that he didn't stick around to see that he was right all along about Red Baiting Joe, but maybe he knew by then anyway.

The Republicans and the press were vicious to FDR and to all of his allies.
The Democrats never had "a friendly press" in this country. That's just a myth the GOP likes to perpetuate.

Things are going to get worse before they get worse.
And the fact is- the American public will go out with a whimper, not a wail.
We have a country of ignorant, arrogant people who still have
the audacity to think they have a voice in a multi national corporate run Republic.

I empathize with your OP, but sincerely say- it AINT gonna get better in our life times, if EVER.

Like Mike Ruppert said- we have crossed the rubicon.

BHN

in the US? If so, do you thing the situation is so much different today as then?

I suspect that we'll end up with a New Deal or with the Third Reich.

Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini would have accomplished their visions
had they had access to the technology we have today.

So I vote Third Reich, and then some, via technology.

And yes, I have studied the global history of the last few centuries,
as well as the philosophers of those times.

Two words in particular come to mind:
Carl Schmitt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_theology

Ever watched the doc "The Century of the Self?"
Extremely informative.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/century_of_the_self.shtml
BHN

because controlling the masses through televised propaganda and manipulation of the news is much cheaper, much easier and much more effective over the long term. Dissenting voices don't need to be placed in concentration camps, though some will be, when they can be completely marginalized. Add dumbshit Jebusism to the mix and it's even simpler to control the general populace.

Wars don't need to be fought against neighbors anymore, they can be fought halfway around the world in shithole backwaters like Afghanistan, and the profiteers of the MIC do their looting out of sight and out of mind.

The looters are lionized and celebrated, something even Goebbels didn't have the colossal cojones to do. Why? Because the looters control the media and they, unlike Goebbels, don't have to maintain a facade of national unity and the "people's" purpose. The only interests the looters need serve is their own.

The tools of control are infinitely more sophisticated and harder to see through than they were in Germany and Italy during the interwar era. (Stalin's USSR is something of a different case primarily because it was, comparatively, a very backward country compared to Italy and Germany).

Which is why if I were a betting man I would bet on a superficially softer version of the German model winning out here.

Good question for a DU poll.

I'm sorry to say that if forced to choose, I would see Third Reich as the more likely outcome, mostly due to the erosion of democracy because of the takeover of the political and public information systems by militarists and corporate oligarchs.

I wrote this to try and explain it

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1530963&mesg_id=1530963

or women.

I know people in that age group.

Some of them are in my family.

They've already lost their jobs and had to spend their retirement. Many of them have lost their homes or are in the process of losing their homes.

THERE ARE NO JOBS FOR PEOPLE IN THEIR 50S AND 60S -- or at that is how it feels when you send your resume out and you are in that age group.

Once in a while someone gets a job, but it's generally for a low salary that does not permit the person to save what they will need for retirement.

And wait until those in their 50s reach their 60s, they will be fired again.

That's the way it works.

Employers want people who are quick -- with quick memories, quick hands, quick feet -- oh, yes, and beautiful faces for the women and great bodies for the guys. No pot bellies please. No wrinkles. No thick thighs. Not when you are over 50. You have to be presentable. You have to dress well. Your hair has to look like you've got a $90 haircut -- on $10 an hour.

I worked in an office in which the bosses systematically went after every employee over 60s, especially the women. I watched the process and was even invited in error to one of the meetings when the plotted the firing of one of the women -- a divorcee in her 50s who had no other source of income and very little likelihood of finding a new job.

Obama is not thinking about these people.

And when they get into their 60s and apply for Social Security -- and unless things really change, they will have to apply early, they will have to turn to the government for help -- for Medicaid and some sort of supplement like food stamps. There are going to be huge masses of people whose retirement savings were spent during their 50s just to stay alive.

Obama is oblivious to the suffering.

I don't think he is a mean person. He is just out of touch. And his aides, people like Daley and Geithner just to name two, make sure he never finds out just how much people are suffering out here.

The Obama supporters I know are mostly affluent and isolated from the rest of us.

Ever since Reagan took office in 2001 America has had a recession and systematic lowering of wages every 10 years. Older workers are often tossed by the wayside as over qualified / over educated.

I agree Jobs need to come back to America, but from every thing I have read it appears it is going to take a thorough revamping of the US Corp Tax Code to close the Tax Loopholes that Outsource American jobs and yet provide an equitable solution to allow younger start up companies to compete against the Huge Multinational Corporations. Who BTW: all too often gobble up the Upstart Companies and outsource the jobs to increase profits.

We're getting down to the point where we're no better than Iran as far as being "democratic" goes. Yeah, they have elections, sham ones. It just so happened their last election was so blatantly rigged that the Iranian people finally realized they were being screwed, so they rebelled and rioted for weeks...before the police and army crushed the protests and sent the citizens back into their homes.

In one way, they're ahead of us: They know they're being fucked over. Here, we still think we're free, that our votes count.

We're lucky to have a county clerk who insisted on voting machines that still required a paper ballot. It's only a small part of the country, but hopefully there are clerks as good at the job in other states too.

just not enough of us to make a difference :(

:)

Young people starting out are having trouble, too.

But I can say with confidence that, at least in my field, many more older people are looking for work than younger people.

took a contract position, Electrical Engineering.
The company hired a slew of just contract employees, he tells me they're all in their 50's-to-60's.

He's in his early-mid 40's and he's getting worried already.

You know these engineers worked their entire careers, yet here they are towards the end
or what should be towards the closing of their careers
and they're stuck working contract positions.


Funny, the word "loyalty" is bandied about so much in this country, in so many different demographics,

but it seems the expectation for said Loyalty is only one way.

Most people would probably just throw those resumes away.

to make a real change in the lives of two of those people. i hope you're allowed to hire unemployed people. and i hope those people have managed to maintain their expertise well enough so that you should hire them. can you let us know how it goes?

but you're right this country is so fucked up. i don't even know what keeps me from being swept up in despair. i just disallow it - and love my family, work (happily having work!), and sleep a lot. cherish the moments.

than the newer applicants. Experience, savvy, years of working with others. Give them a shot!

My last kid is on the tail end of university, my mortgage is winding down, and I will soon be free to be a real pain in the ass on a regular basis as a full time 'career'. They want to fuck with social security? I am at least one boomer who fondly remembers how to riot in the streets.

You are a wonderful person. We can trust you to do the right thing. If there were 1 million, maybe 5 million, people in the USA just like you things would be very different.

I'm watching Barney Frank on Rachel maddow's show on MSNBC now. He sounds depressed, but committed.

the same right now.

And thanks for the kind words!

That is the shitty part. You don't even need 99% of the public, you only need 55% of the electorate to oppose plutocracy to see major inroads against it start to happen.

So many people in the US have had it drilled into their heads that wealthy = moral and non-wealthy = immoral and inferior that how can you turn it back?

I really don't know what will happen to the US. In the midst of a plutocratic collapse the tea party (which supports plutocracy) was born. What kind of short term future do we have?

I think long term (10+ years) we will be ok. The hyperconservative boomers will die off and be replaced by millennials who are more socially and fiscally liberal, having grown up in a society where multiculturalism and science were considered uncontroversial, and having experienced the negative effects of plutocracy (no health care, shitty jobs, student loans, predatory lenders, etc).

The average age of fox and talk radio listeners is 65-67, and I saw that stat a few years ago. By 2020 millennials will be about 1/3 of hte electorate, and the fox news types will be gone.

But until then, I think we are in for some serious trouble. This decade may be as bad as the last.

... won't win jack shit when the choices are tweedle dee and tweedle dum.

Our government has been coopted and it will take a lot more than "votes" to fix it now.