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In reply to the discussion: THE PAY IS TOO DAMN LOW [View all]malthaussen
(17,307 posts)... they still think, and say, that service jobs and other low-level jobs are "supposed to be entry level," and therefore not only don't need to pay a living wage, but shouldn't pay a living wage. They will not or cannot assimilate that there is no place for many of these workers to "move on to." The farthest they will go is to grumble that government interference discourages the "job creators," which is patently false.
I think Mr Obama shares some of this illusion, too. When he maunders on about how we have "lost faith in the American Dream," he appears not to recognize that the fault lies not in the dreamer, but in the dream that has died. (I'd love someday to write a book called "Field of Broken Dreams." It's rather hard to believe that being a hard-working, law-abiding citizen will allow one to progress when all around we can see the falsity of that proposition.
The problem is also one of perspective, I think. For the most part, those who have had success have worked hard and obeyed the laws. If it worked for them, it must work for everybody. Ergo, those who do not find success must be neither hard-working nor law-abiding. To believe otherwise would be to give up the illusion that we have control over our lives, which lies at the heart of the Western mythos.
-- Mal
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