the american "dream"

i've been reading nickel and dimed by barbara ehrenreich - it's a book about her attempt to live as a slave wager in america and seeing how people actually manage to get by

her basic conclusion is you don't - you would need at least two jobs to get ahead and the main reason is the cost of housing; in her conclusion/evaluation at the end of the book she questions why people don't just look for a better paying job if they're stuck in a shit job

it comes down to dealing with the devil you know versus the one you don't, transportation issues, and finding the time to seek out a new job, drug testing, applications, and interviews

once you're stuck in a place it is really hard to leave - the human mind has an incredible yet self defeating mechanism to deal with misery and accepting a bad situation; it's similar to a woman that's being beaten by her husband/boyfriend yet does not leave

those that live at the bottom in north america have it hard and this book helped me understand just a little bit what it is like

but the ironic thing was in one of her "exit" interviews/discussions with her fellow employees she asks what that person wants in life and they fall into the trap of wanting the fancy things that they see rich people have; they buy into the myth of western civilization - that we can all be rich and enjoy a nice life; so many of those automatons out there realize that somebody cleans the building you work in, serves you your food, builds your widgets, takes care of your children and most of these people get paid peanuts

i'll leave that rant for another time although i would suggest reading anything on the myth of progress including ronald wright's a short history of progress