Work Until You Die?

Think about the people who want to raise the retirement age. What kind of jobs do they have? Most have what I call think-talk jobs, jobs that require very little physical exertion, but rely on talking about situations, thinking about problems, attending meetings, applying learned information to situations, reading documents, occasionally writing documents, expressing opinions.

These think-talk jobs are held by Congresspeople, business executives, bankers, some TV personalities, and others whose work is mostly not physical. As long as people retain their mental faculties (and sometimes even when they don't), they can continue doing this kind of work well into old age. People with this kind of work often consider it a big part of their personal identity, and are therefore not interested in retiring. All or most of the people they know do the same kind of work; their contact with other kinds of workers tends to be superficial. It is easy for them to imagine a world in which no one retires before age 80, and maybe not even then.

Compare them to people who have body-using jobs: Construction workers, gardeners, janitors, garbage collectors, farmers, warehouse workers, food servers, and many others. Some jobs that may not look physically demanding really are, because they require the worker to stand for hours. Think of grocery cashiers, hairdressers, department store clerks, and others who are on their feet all day.

People lose strength and stamina as they age. A person at 65, even if healthy, is not as strong as they were at 45. Physically demanding jobs can be hard on the body over time and are often not practical for older people. Yet the people with think-talk jobs often fail to understand the challenges of body-using jobs. A lot of these people ignore the fact that older people are often let go by their employers, sometimes because they are at a higher pay grade, sometimes because they are physically outperformed by younger workers. It is very difficult for people over 50 to get hired anywhere (although it sometimes happens), and it is a rare employer indeed who wants to hire someone over 65.

If we imagine that every person who reaches age 65 has the option of keeping their current job or getting a new one, we are kidding ourselves. Besides, having 75-year-olds on the roof laying shingles or operating a steam press all day doesn't seem like a good idea. Who would feel good about making a great-grandmother clean public restrooms until the day she drops dead from exhaustion? People who have paid into Social Security or some other retirement plan for decades deserve the chance to finally relax and get what they paid for.

 

Other People's Problems

The worst problem you have is the worst problem you have.

If someone is crying over a hangnail, it is easy to say their problem is meaningless when compared to the guy whose arm was blown off. At the same time, it is not right to get into the habit of dismissing and invalidating other people's experiences or demanding that they can't have a feeling or a reaction to something unless it meets certain standards.

There are people who think it is silly to grieve the death of a pet, because it is not a human being. There are people whose first reaction to anything someone else worries or complains about is to sneer at "first world problems". Some people seem to think that if they don't know anyone with a particular problem, that problem doesn't really exist. And there are those who minimize everything that happens to others because "it could have been worse". Imagining a worse scenario doesn't magically make this one acceptable.

If there were a truly objective scale for measuring tragedy, it might show that the worst thing that ever happened to my neighbor isn't nearly as bad as the thing that happened to me. But it is still the worst thing that ever happened to him, and he has the right to see it that way. His experience is just as real as mine.

 

They Want it All, And They'll Take it From You

The oligarchs have more wealth than they can possibly use, and even if they never made another dime, they, their children, their grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren would still be incomprehensibly wealthy.

They can have anything they want or need: Big houses, big vacation houses, spare apartments in cities around the world, nice cars, designer clothes, the best food cooked by private chefs, whatever medical care they need at top hospitals with famous doctors, multiple yachts, private hunting ranches, hairdressers who travel with them on their private jets, secret bunkers (underground mansions) in case of nuclear war, their own private security force, private schools and top-notch universities for their kids, lawyers on retainer, ownership of TV stations, newspapers, and tech companies, and the hired help needed to acquire and maintain all their possessions. In summary, they have everything. ^@themrswest

Yet, somehow, that isn't enough. Not only do they constantly want more, they want to make sure that everyone else has nothing. They crave a world where they have absolutely everything, whether they need it or not: All the power, all the means of production, all the necessities, all the luxuries. And they want that world to be populated by impoverished serfs who have nothing and live short lives of sickness and pain. Why? I truly don't know why. It's very hard to get into a mindset where other people's misery is perceived as making your life better. But there it is.

Link: The Koch brothers' political activism and its damage to America - "The Kochs' Ayn Rand–inspired hellscape has yet to completely come to fruition, but the ideas the duo promoted are now part of the regular discourse—and have been for a while."

Link: While the Planet Burns: Billionaires Are Busy Hunkering Down for the Apocalypse - "Many of the wealthiest people in the world have decided that Earth is a Titanic heading for an iceberg. As a result, they have decided to create luxury lifeboats for themselves."

Link: The Koch Brothers Are Even Worse Than You Think - "Koch was found guilty of criminal conduct in many cases.... The workplace is becoming more dangerous under this constant pressure to produce profits."

Link: Robbing the poor to pay the rich - "Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor is increasingly popular as we leave the 20th century, especially in this country"

 

Rallies

There are people who think that holding rallies with enthusiastic crowds somehow proves that a candidate is great in some way. Yet we know that evil dictators throughout history have had big rallies. All kinds of charlatans, crooks, fraudsters, and destroyers started with rallies, tent meetings, well-attended lectures, and parades. It is obvious to mention Mussolini and Hitler, or even Jim Jones, well-known examples of people who used rallies and mass meetings to lure followers into belief systems that would prove disastrous.

A hundred years ago, Benito Mussolini used to travel across Italy, holding huge rallies for fans of his Fascist Party. In October 1922, speaking to a crowd of around 40,000, he urged his followers to march on Rome. Fascist militias began driving toward the capital.

Elected officials wanted to declare a state of emergency and defend the city. The poorly-trained militias probably would have lost any battle with the military, but the King refused to declare martial law. Government officials resigned in protest. The King decided to accept the Fascists, and made Mussolini prime minister.

Mussolini soon became a total dictator, rescinding civil rights, replacing the press with propaganda, and invading Corfu and Ethiopia. Mussolini's career inspired Adolf Hitler, and eventually Italy was aligned with Nazi Germany in World War II. At least 8,500 Italians were murdered in the Holocaust. ^@realrkwest

In 1943, the King, who had had enough, convinced Mussolini's close associates to turn against him, and he was arrested. He escaped and attempted to set up a new government, but in 1945 he realized that defeat was near, and tried to flee the country. He was recognized and shot. A crowd mutilated his corpse and hung it up in the public square. It was eventually buried in an unmarked grave.