GREAT post by the way. Peace, Shagaia

I spent years living without heat or a/c (in New Orleans–no insulation in the house, and it does get both bitter cold and broiling hot here), but even in the 1980s, it didn’t seem like such a sacrifice to me while I was earning my degree. In retrospect, I had a $4,000 Macintosh computer in 1984 that I’d sunk every penny I had into, but no heat or a/c in my house, and my door on one place was held closed with a hasp and padlock. ??!! No car, either, and a lot of times, not much food. One winter, it was so cold in my house (I just wore a coat while I typed) that the Vietnamese refugees I was typing for and tutoring in English showed up with a gift of a space heater–I realized I’d hit a new low when the “boat people” who’d arrived a few years earlier felt sorry for ME! But things got better, and my education was worth it.

Last year I got my gratitude reality check…by the truckload. Our house came through the hurricanes with only about $10,000 in damage and no flooding this time. We stored things from three other families in our garage, my husband worked from home for a year till his office was habitable, my daughter went to school half days so we could share our school with another Catholic school that had been destroyed. And our best friends (and their three home-schooled teenage boys) essentially moved in with us for 10 months. They didn’t sleep here, but were here usually from 6:30 am to midnight. And I’m used to being alone all day. One particularly stressed out day, while talking to our priest, who’s from Zanzibar, Tanzania, I told him I didn’t know how much more of the “full house” thing I could stand. The (much) higher grocery, water and electric bills were killing me and the lack of personal space was driving me crazy, especially while dealing with contractors and insurance companies. And living in what looked (still looks in some places) like a bomb zone. Instead of the sympathy I expected, he told me I should get down on my knees and be grateful that we were all able to pool our resources to survive, and said wasn’t it nice we had enough to share? He changed my attitude in a hurry! Now, even though my house still isn’t done two years later, and some things are back just to the “new normal,” I’m reminded of just how lucky we are that we live where and when we do. And I spend a lot less time watching the news–they haven’t gotten the picture yet.

One more thing. Do you know how much attention a guy like Ron Paul, a guy that wants to gut the education system and legalize drugs, would have gotten in 1952, 1972, 1984, or 1992?

Zero.

He’s raised over 7 million dollars in 2007 and is being ruthlessly attacked, not because he is nuts, but because his opponents are starting to believe he is a threat. They wouldn’t waste their time or money if they didn’t think he had a chance. Now, he might not win, but what is happening right now could not have happened at any other time.

Your comment about Gatto made me think…
I do admire Gatto. I don’t agree with everything he says, but I do think his heart is in the right place. Yes young people do have less autonomy and local control than in the past, but you are going to fix it, because you know it too. You have technology no generation before had, and you are using it intelligently. We’ll get there, have a little faith. Don’t be a pessimist, it’s a waste of energy. Time marches on.

I don’t think 1955 was better, but even if it was it doesn’t matter, we are alive now. You are never going to be in any other time except, right now.

Figure out what you wanna create, and godammit, create it! Don’t be intimidated by the obstacles, don’t dwell in the past, move forward.

I’m saying this to you…
Because I wish someone had said it to me.

I agree that TVs, VCRs, 2 to 3 cars, etc. are not “necessities” and it’s ridiculous to feel you must have them. But you are missing the bigger picture. If people didn’t feel these were necessities, to be blunt about it, the economies of all industrialized nations, and the U.S. in particular, would quickly collapse. Don’t you see that if your blase attitude to these pseudo-essentials were to catch on like wildfire, the entire economy would fall apart?

So that tells us something about the nature of our world. Our world is sick. Any economy that requires people to have childish dependencies on vast amounts of material things - to regard as essential things that aren’t essential at all - is a sick economy. If what is now rather condescendingly referred to as the Third World were to “upgrade” to First World conspicuous consumption standards, it would be an environmental catastrophe for the planet! And yet, modern economies DO have to grow in just this fashion - so obviously the game is flawed, and we have to start playing a different game. Just exhorting people to be “more grateful” and “count your blessings” and “stop whining” doesn’t cut it.

Another thing: when you just point to all the toys and gadgets we have our grandparents didn’t, so what? They also had genuine communities and a sense of control over their lives to a greater degree. Because they WERE more in control of their destinies. It’s odd that an apparent admirer of John Taylor Gatto doesn’t see this - doesn’t see that the loss of personal autonomy and local control experienced by today’s generations is real. Is being a wage slave cubicle worker, an office drone, really an improvement over being your own boss, as was the case when family farms were responsible for the food supply? Is being a Wal-Mart welcomer, a fast food jockey at McDonald’s better than owning your own Mom-and-Pop store? How can you look on this as an advance? If anything, people console themselves with expensive toys and technology precisely because they don’t have any job satisfaction. The world of today in many ways resembles Aldous Huxley’s BRAVE NEW WORLD, hardly something to celebrate.

“So you didn’t have electricity, running water, your parents rented out your bedroom to strangers just to make ends meet, you lived in a damp dark basement where the bugs ate holes in your clothes, and you didn’t consider that poverty?”

Yes indeed life was better then… Having a TV/Scooter was a luxury in 70’s and now Cable/Car a necessity. One family we knew when had a second child, said now they can’t do without a four-wheeler, while I have seem a family of four on a bicycle.

I find many people do not realize that some people have still been raised without the necessities.

When I was age 5 to about 10, I lived in a home that we had no running water. We and other families used the Pump in town for getting water. We lived without a fridge. We had wood stoves. (I get afraid of my kids around and oven but not once did I ever get burnt on our wood stoves.)
I never once spilled the oil lamp or knocked over the kerosene lamp.
I had more respect for the things around me. I feared getting injured.

We had an out house. We used bed pans at night but some one had to haul it out in the morning! What a chore!

We lived in Two Harbors, Minnesota.

I so identify with the post. It brings back my own memories and I’m only 35 today.
I’m thankful with how we had to live because it gave me a different perspective of life.

This was a wonderful post.

Thanks
Fawn