Is the shit in which we're standing today deeper than it has been in the past?

[Stinky The Clown]

Let's define "shit" as anything you think it is. For me, it is the financial mess, the outright plundering by the 1% over the 99%. It is the way we are fed Orwellian bullshit when we have real needs - like the "healthcare" voodoo that we got when what we wanted was single payer. It is the ongoing wars, even as we wind one down we're sharpening our knives to start a new one in a neighboring country. It is our near total abandonment by those we elected to represent us. It is the ever shrinking middle class. It is the lack of jobs. It is the lack of a sense of security, not against manufactured boogeymen, but against more basic threats, like cold and hunger and disease.

That's some of the shit soup to which I allude.

Is it deeper today than in years past? Decades past. Centuries past? Or is it simply a common perspective due one standing in it, and therefore not unusual at all?

[bemildred]

1. Historically speaking, we are just warming up, IMHO. nt

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. Yes. In every imaginable sense, worse than anyone alive now has ever seen. n/t

[Newest Reality]

3. Looks pretty bad

to me, considering that the global financial crises is creeping towards its apex.

The fecal matter has coated the fan blades and it is starting spin more rapidly.

[dionysus]

4. read The Jungle, and compare today to those times..

[Missy Vixen]

6. Could one survive during the time "The Jungle" was written

without a credit rating?

[dionysus]

17. they had a hard enough time affording food and not freezing to death in the streets.

even if they had jobs.
:shrug:

[redqueen]

20. Jobs where they had to work 10-12 hours a day.

7 days a week.

[Missy Vixen]

22. Anyone who works for a startup in the software industry works those hours, too

How many people work round the clock on their smartphones?

[redqueen]

23. I was referring more to factory workers.

People working on docks, in construction, etc.

Not people answering emails on their phones, or starting up their own business.

[dionysus]

27. thats JUST like working 16 hours shifts in a foundry or slaughterhouse!

:rofl:

[Missy Vixen]

48. Yeah, you're funny, aren't you?

We've lived through 100-hour weeks at a startup. Till you've done it, maybe you shouldn't mock those who have.

[dionysus]

50. if you're comparing office work to risk of getting crushed to death by livestock or heavy machinery,

then yes, I am laughing...

i've pulled OT like that for software releases, but you won't find me comparing it to turn of the century factory labor...

:rofl:

[Missy Vixen]

51. I get the OP's point

It's unfortunate you're unable to.

:rofl:

[dionysus]

52. you've bought the OP's bullcrap hyperbole, is all you've done...

:hi:

[newspeak]

34. come on, you're going to make some modern corporate robber baron

dream of the good old days. It's not as bad, yet, as the great depression. But, don't worry, we're getting there. You've got the repukes again, wistfully wishing for the good old days where there were no safety standards, the plebes working seven days a week 10-12 hour days for slave wages, children working along with their parents with little or no education and big business running the show. Ah, the good old days. See, we're in this financial mess because the global corporations don't have enough chance to pour their love on the little people-we need to get rid of all regulations for that to happen.

Many people abandoned their children during the depression, families were displaced and homeless, people starved and suicide (especially those who lost their jobs-not the wealthiest) committed suicide. It seems we don't learn from history--I do believe that this financial disaster has been deliberately created. To me, it has to do with that new world order thing, where corporations gain even more power at the expense of people and countries. The big bloated fish (big banks) swallowing even more of the little fish--becoming even more of a giant global power monster.

[LanternWaste]

57. How many six-year olds are getting maimed by the slaughtering machines in these new start-ups?

How many six-year olds are getting maimed and killed by the slaughtering machines in these new start-ups?

[Romulox]

64. Child labor is still legal in America's fields. Please educate yourself.

Exploitation, long hours for low pay:

Children can legally work on any farm at age 12, with their parents’ permission, and it's not uncommon to see children as young as 7 and 8 in the fields. During peak harvest season, the children work up to 14-hour days, and earn far less than minimum wage. There is no minimum age for children working on a small farm with parental permission

http://www.hrw.org/support-care

:eyes:

[dionysus]

26. and job with a very high likelihood of a crippling or fatal injury.

the two eras just don't compare, but i guess some folks think they do..

[redqueen]

29. I have to say...

I find it just a little bit shocking that the idea isn't being roundly dismissed.

You could make a case that it's worse in some ways, perhaps. But worse for the working classes? For the poor? There just isn't much room for argument at all on that one. Unless we're talking about undocumented immigrants. For many of them, yeah, it's about the same as it was during some of the worst times.

[dionysus]

35. +1

[Missy Vixen]

24. Maybe you might want to research the spike in hunger and homelessness since 2008

1 in 6 Americans now have "food insecurity" - in other words, they're hungry.

There is also a growing population of children living with a parent or parents in a car. The article about it was posted in GD yesterday.

It is now IMPOSSIBLE to find a dwelling without a positive credit score. It's also impossible to get a job without one, either.

[dionysus]

25. be that as it may, it's foolish to equate the two eras. zero social safety net.

and cerippling poverty for people working 6-7 days a week.

just no comparison, sorry.

[WildNovember]

30. There actually was a safety net at the time if 'the jungle'. Home relief, settlement houses,

soup kitchens, workhouses.

[dionysus]

36. comparable to modern day subsidized housing, food stamps, unemployment benefits?

not quite.

[WildNovember]

37. you said "zero safety net". just clarifying the record.

[redqueen]

16. +1

[TheWraith]

46. Yes indeed, and thank you for that.

"The Jungle" is one of those good examples anyone should look at when they claim that the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

[dionysus]

55. we sure got problems, but for people typing on computers to claim they have it worse,

is funny yet sadly pathetic at the same time...

[TheWraith]

70. Agreed. The world could be better, but it WILL be better, and was much worse before.

That's kind of the whole idea. People seem so in a rush to say the world is collapsing that they don't realize that's counter to the entire notion of progress.

[Romulox]

59. *You* should read about the bubonic plague. Those meatpackers didn't know how good they had it!

:shrug:

[dionysus]

61. is there a point in that post, anywhere? i can't seem to find it....

[Romulox]

63. It's the same point *you* made: somebody else had it worse, so shut your mouth. nt

[dionysus]

65. i see. you must be confused, or haven't read the OP correctly...

:rofl:

[Romulox]

66. Nonsense. Your small imagination simply put an artificial time limit on "the past".

"The past" includes EVERYTHING that came before. :hi:

[Missy Vixen]

5. We have the technology to avoid some shit

but we don't have leaders with the compassion or humanity to solve the rest. Let's face it: Antibiotics and modern conveniences (refrigeration, safer transportation, government agencies that allegedly make the workplace safer,) have saved some people. The lowest rungs of the ladder, however, are still suffering.

The lack of a sense of security against the most basic life and safety threats means that we are ALWAYS in "fight or flight" mode.

In my opinion, it's deeper than in years past, simply because we know there are millions in the same situation. The gap between the 99% and the 1% is the largest in world history. The 1% can get leadership and police to do their dirty work, too, while the 99% have nobody but themselves.

[PETRUS]

9. Looking at the lowest rungs of the ladder.

It's definitely worse. Growing poverty here in the US, and wordwide the bottom 20-30% is worse off vs thirty years ago.

[PETRUS]

7. It seems awful.

Not that I can claim to have any great perspective. That said, whether or not we can say for sure if it's better or worse, we can see that it's BAD, and it surely does make sense to be serious about it.

[The2ndWheel]

8. Prisoners of history, slaves to the future

[librechik]

10. i'm just blown away by the correctness of your grammar

especially considering the nature of the subject.. Me, I just fall out of bed and yell SHIIT! shit shit shit shit shit shit SHIIIIIIIIIIT!! completely wrong.

[hifiguy]

11. It's worse than it has been in my lifetime, by a long shot.

And when I was born, Ike was president.

The greed/looting and propagandizing (by the media and crackpot "religion"), combined with the complete and utter corruption of the political process have elevated the shit levels to our collective chin. Fearmongering has always been a part of US politics (see, Drunken Paranoid Joe McCarthy, et al) but eventually some grownup has stepped in to squelch it in prior eras. Nowadays it has more conduits into the national psyche and a dumbed-down population to boot, so it is more effective.

I don't have much hope. We need an FDR and we got what amounts to, on all the most significant policies (pointless wars, destruction of civil liberties, economic justice, health care, not bogus schemes to prop up insurance companies) an "improved" (read smarter) version of The Little Chimp. I know that Social Security will be gone or worthless by the time I hit retirement age - I've never made enough to save anything and have had extended periods of un(der)employment over the last twenty years. Currently my retirement plan is a 9mm to my right temple.

I don't hold out much hope at all. The grip of the 1% is so complete it may take a generation or two to break it or for it to implode on itself, and I will be long gone by then. This country is circling the drain at an ever-increasing rate.

If I were twenty years younger I'd head just about anywhere other than here - Asia, Europe, Canada, South America.

[Major Hogwash]

12. Are they serving shit sandwiches along with that shit soup?

I think we have been witnesses to the largest theft of monies ever to take place in the modern world, since the Norman Invasion of England in 1066.
Not just here in the United States, but also in the Middle East.
In Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Libya, and in Syria, as well.

We are nothing but feudal serfs trying to figure out how to survive while the coffers of the banking kings grow larger by the day.

[stellanoir]

13. Just past the critical mass stage I'd guess &

starting to implode.

Here's one historical perspective on similar cycles throughout the past half century or so. . .

http://www.archaijournal.org/Tarnas_World_Transits_2000-2020_An_Overview.pdf

[kenny blankenship]

14. So deep that it is now reaching the fan, which it shall soon be hitting.

In the Great Depression, the USA had the world's best industrial manufacturing base, the largest industrial workforce, all the food it needed (Dustbowl notwithstanding) and all the oil it would need for generations. It had nothing to fear but fear itself. Most of those advantages are now history.

[Kermitt Gribble]

33. That's a great point!

"In the Great Depression, the USA had the world's best industrial manufacturing base"

The pontential for living-wage manufacturing jobs no longer exists in this country.

[DirkGently]

15. The cumulative results of money-over-people policies are reaching crisis, is all.

It is said these situations are cyclical, and they are. But each the wheel comes around on this particular problem, it's gotten uglier in certain ways. Greed has now been systematically bolstered with ridiculous false information, and elevated to a kind of fanatical religion. Half of Congress is "sworn" to a private individual to "never raise taxes." John Kyl actually just said that the payroll tax cut couldn't help the economy, but tax cuts on big business and millionaires will.

The cognitive dissonance alone required to blame teacher pensions and OVER-regulation for a worldwide economic collapse created solely by systemic fraud in the financial system, to suggest we can no longer afford to honor Social Security requirements, but cannot possibly stop spending billions per week in ill-defined military actions in the Middle East is staggering.

It's probably been this bad before, and it can probably get worse, but we are living through at least AN apex of the destruction of democracy and the public good by and on behalf of private wealth.

[MADem]

18. No.

People like to think so, but no.

In the Great Depression, people were in far more dire straits than today, with WAY fewer safety nets. Families were forced to take in relatives, or leave them to starve. And starve--yes, starve--some did.

Happy days were here again, recovery was 'just around the corner,' and it was 'only a matter of time' before all would be well again.

It took forever--and a war--to make that happen, though.

[pacalo]

19. Considering economic problems plus ideological divisions, it's worse than centuries past.

The McCarthy period was bottom-of-the-barrel low in nationwide ideological division until the current, new brand of Republicans showed the world how devious, inept, & inhumane they could be. What makes them most dangerous than ever before is the fact that they are supported by corporations in the corporate-owned media. I've always thought they'd hang themselves with a slow death; still waiting, but hopeful.

[Amonester]

21. As time goes by, the overall population expands, while the resources

to sustain life deplete, year after year.

It is becoming more and more obvious that we ain't seen nothing yet.

We cannot all move away to Mars, or to any other 'new Americas' (Columbus-style).

[CrispyQ]

28. Climate change will intensify all other issues.

How many more summers like this past one, can areas like Texas endure?

Here's what's so contradictory about the climate change deniers. On one hand, they believe that we are the pinnacle of creation & can bend nature to our will. But when confronted with the facts of climate change, they deny that our species can have an impact on the environment. :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy:

Homo sapiens has reached the pinnacle & is on the way down. Asimov has an essay about this. He submits that, if there is or has been intelligent life in the universe at a similar point where we are, it will always reach a point where they think they can control nature.

[XemaSab]

31. Here are the things that freak me out the most:

Our constitution is in the toilet.

Almost every kind of job from Wal-Mart greeter to auto worker to teacher to computer programmer is having serious problems. People at the bottom have always been shit on, but people in the middle class and upper-middle class are freaked out too.

Our politicians are owned.

Our empire is going down like the Titanic. (I'm not in favor of the empire, but we simultaneously can't afford to kick so many people off the payroll and we can't afford to keep flushing trillions down the crapper.)

People are cynical, and faith in the American government and the ability of the government to solve problems is crushingly low.


I just don't see a way out of any of this, and part of me does think that it HAS to get a lot worse before it gets better.

[woo me with science]

69. Good post.

The world is smaller now than it was then. The power is consolidated to a greater extent, and there are fewer options for recovery.

That said, there are more of us than there are of them.

[Octafish]

32. Much deeper because most people can't smell it.

"The best slave thinks he's free."

[hifiguy]

40. Indeed.

Just as Winston Smith finally learned to love Big Brother, a huge slice of the have-nots in this woebegotten nation beg and plead, even demand to be enslaved even further by the 1%.

[woo me with science]

58. Well said. We are becoming slaves of a system that is in many ways inescapable,

yet we are taught to accept the control, because it is always for the good.

*Naked scans and groping? They're to protect you from terrorists.

*Your very personal information in huge databases? That's to make sure we can catch child pornographers, or keep immigrants from taking your job.

*Tracking of your every move on the internet? Well, you love Facebook and google, don't you?

*Detention of American citizens? GPS tracking without a warrant? Well, it's because of the terrorists...

The tentacles of the corporate state are growing fast and deep, and it's becoming more and more difficult to find ways of living that escape or minimize them. Our civil liberties are disappearing at an alarming rate as the surveillance state grows.

And as a corollary to that, it is becoming more and more difficult to escape the debt traps that that are the foundation of this corporate system for the one percent. If you use banks, if you have a credit card, if you take student loans, if you buy a house....you are a target, and the one percent has its hands in your pocket. Your food comes from their increasingly centralized system. Everything you need comes from their increasingly centralized system. If you merely breathe and are alive, you now have a bill from the corporate health insurance machine.

There is no way out.

[Huey P. Long]

38. The outer edges of the shitstorm is just now making itself known.

People who have gotten used to the smell are unaware.
Much more pain ahead, and soon. In 5 years we will be covered in fecal material.

[Yavin4]

39. It's The Same Shit

The a better way of looking at it. We went through hell with capitalism in the 1930s. FDR, WWII, and the post WWII prosperity boom put into place policies that ameliorated the damage that capitalism wrought. Since Reagan, we've been steadily removing, undercutting, and eliminating those policies.

IOW, we're rapidly returning to the same shit of yesterday.

[bvar22]

41. The really bad part...

...is that we are in decline,

the decline is accelerating (despite the "reassurances" from the Ministry of Truth),

and there is no reversal in sight.


I am 62 years old, and can not see a tangible reversal in my lifetime.
The knowledge that things will get worse,
probably FAR worse,
before they get better adds an aura of gloominess.

When America gave the Democrats a majority in Congress in 2006, there was a bright spot.
When America gave the Democrats even larger majorities in Congress,
The White House,
and a HUGE Popular Mandate for CHANGE in 2008,
there was an intoxicating surge of hope.
But that was quickly extinguished.

Now, OWS is the only glimmer of hope,
and THAT mechanism will not produce any quick results.
We haven't begun to fight yet.
We are only at the stage of awakening.
When The Fight comes, it will be UGLY.
The 1% and their puppets in Washington will NOT let go of anything easily.




You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
Solidarity99!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Fire Walk With Me]

42. We have some problems to solve. They've become obvious so we CAN solve them.

But it requires the work.

[PassingFair]

43. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....

or something like that....

[PufPuf23]

44. A mass die-off of the human species is a certainty because

of the ecological limitations of Earth and the competitive and predatory nature of humankind.

The tipping point will be war, pestilence, natural disaster(s), or more likely a cascading combination of events. I expect this will happen in what we call the 21st century.

Ironically and despite current financial conditions and wars, there are more humans that are secure and obtain high standards of living than ever before.

But the Earth is suffering mass extinctions, global climate change (because of the use of fossil fuels), soil and water degradation, and a variety peak availability of a variety of natural resources. Our technological advances come with costs. Most recent, the revolution in communications technology is morphing into a social control mechanism. By splitting the atom, we can destroy ourselves.

In the USA, instability (and greatest change) follows periods of greatest social inequality: the Civil War, the Guilded Age, the Roaring Twenties, and now. The danger is much higher now because of the globalization of social economy and ecological and natural resource degradation. Consciousness and spirituality has not kept up with technology. Predators, medieval superstitions, and the struggle to meet basic human needs and wants rule the day.

The USA is a global military and financial empire and we have lost our democratic republic IMO. Education and not media and government or other entrenched institutions has a liberal and progressive bias.

The election of POTUS Obama gave me great hope but he and our other pols and leaders chose preservation and extention of the status quo over social redesign to benefit The People. Probably, current trends are inevitable and unavoidable, the crash of an accelerating runaway train running out of track.

Reviewing my life, I am most glad about all the opportunities to learn and travel and most proud of my idealism. Idealism may be the achilles heel of the liberal.

So yeah, we are facing a shitstorm of major proportions relatively soon and things are not going to get better but rather much worse for most of us and our children.

The higher the climb, the harder the fall.

[Blue_In_AK]

45. Um, I think it's pretty deep.

It's been piling up for quite a while.

[Vanje]

47. Thats not shit!

Thats Hope and Change!

[Angry Dragon]

49. YES

[Aerows]

53. It has been piled higher and deeper

But that's no excuse for letting it get higher and deeper now. We all know we are in a pile, and every little bit of discussion about it teaches us all how to shovel it back down so that we can move freely again. Too much shit bogged down and nobody moves freely.

[AngryAmish]

54. By almost all respects people in the US live in the greatest time ever

It used to be routine to have half of your children die. 60 was old. People drank beer all the time because the water was no good. There was no middle class, just a few nobles who could fuck with everybody with impunity and everybody else.

Tell me, would you like to be a Helot? Living under the Tartar Yolk as a serf? A Maori with the blood feuds?

Lack of security? Think about living in Baghdad in 1258. You sat in the richest and most technologically advanced place on earth. God's representative on earth lived in town. But Hulagu was camped outside of town.

No these times are not the worst devised by a long shot. We'll get through.

[LanternWaste]

56. The "deep shit" from years past turns into an entertaining academic lesson

The "deep shit" from years past turns into an entertaining academic lesson. The "deep shit" of the future is easily avoided with our eyes. The "deep shit" of the here and now, because it here and because it is now, always seems deeper.

[Blue Owl]

60. Not to mention we're standing on our heads

Up is down, black is white, war is peace, death is life, etc.

[Aerows]

68. +1 Biggest problem

We are bombarded with messages that tell us to stand on our heads. If you listen to them for even a minute, your life sounds empty and meaningless if you don't have a Mercedes.

It's not like people didn't have fulfilling lives before Lancome.

[MilesColtrane]

62. We've got it great compared to those who had to live through the...

global flu pandemic, the Great Crackdown after terrorists took out New York and LA, the Resource Wars brought on by global warming, the Robot Apocalypse, and the near-extinction Apophis Strike.

oh..you meant, do we have it bad compared to the past...

nevermind

[Romulox]

67. The empire is unwinding, and the PTB are fighting with all of their energy against the inevitable.

That's my opinion.

[EFerrari]

71. Stinky, would you check this out? I posted it late last night.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2402589

If this is the remedy 45 million Americans are depending on, yes, the shit is deep and wide.