Winter pledge drive thoughts:

[likethebeer]

I was just commenting to mda that, when I make my "call for financial support," this is a much more rich and emotionally rewarding experience than simply sending in my pledge card when it comes in the mail. Although I've not done both in recent years (for I save my 1 gift-giving for the Human Rights Campaign, and will wait until I make over $16k/year* before adding NPR once again to the list), I can say that there is something when they're begging, pleading ("please, sir, can I have some more?"), there is an emotional catharsis to know that you are making their phone ring. They are just so happy! But sending back that little card when it comes in the mail about a month before pledge time just doesn't translate into that sense of moral accomplishment and righteousness when the pledge drive occurs. Nope. Total anti-climax.

In other news: I'd like to thank jujupees and WI-C for having us over last night. Of course we made it back home in one piece. I was sober, but actually a little tired, as I'd been sleeping, sitting up, on your couch last night for like 2 hours. The woman of the house has great fortitude to sit w/a 2 1/2+ year old on her legs for that same amount of time. Still very happy I didn't have any cookies, and still very pleased by my total suburbia snack that I brought to the festivities. It's a radiant moment for me when I can impress the WI-C with anything, least of all something that has 3 ingredients. Boy, am I so proud that I chose the Campbell's cream of mushroom soup instead of SureFine!

*I'm sure jujupees didn't mean anything by this, she didn't know, but she mentioned to me last night in the course of the story about, "You know, when we were all in our twenties and totally poor, and making, like, $16,000/year..." And I thought but didn't say, "Hey! I make $16,000 a year!" (before taxes, of course)

Comments

And we all agree

[jujupees.livejournal.com]

that you are grossly underpaid.

Of course there was no ill intent in my insensitive comment. As you know I have suddenly started thinking about the financial disparity (dis parity)that exists between oh - say me and all of my friends and the rich fucks, uh I mean FOLKS I work with/for. I'm just starting to take this class war thing seriously. You make 16K and that just isn't a living wage. I know that because once you consider that we have basically a single income household, that's about what we make. It doesn't cut it. And we are average or even above average in our income when you look at the entire US population. In fact we use that statistic to justify that we aren't so bad off really. That we are "middle class." And yet we do not even approach middle class in our income. We ARE the working poor. That is just reality. We have managed to make it better than it seems by choosing to live in a depressed economic environment that has little to offer professionally or monetarily but much to offer in richness of culture, quality of people (for a town of it's size in the midwest). I have spent the last year or so being mad at Madison. Being mad at a fucking city because it represents a population that I am not a part of. The cost of living there is for the middle class. I have also spent the last year and change realizing that being a millionaire is chump change to the rich. The really rich are way way way past that mark. They are making that much in a year. Upper middle class are millionaires. They are getting along just fine in their starter castles with the boat parked out front, but they might just lose it all before they die. To become a millionaire you probably need a household income of around 200K a year. Live like we live now with that kind of income and you're a millionaire in no time. 200K a year compared to what the super rich are making each year is NOTHING! It is not even as much as the interest they make in a year.

All that said, I do not really aspire to being among the super rich or even the upper middle class. I just want to really be middle class instead of imagining myself there. And I want this, not so much because I could live a better life. Life is pretty good now all told. The reason I want this is because it's time to balance the scales. We are in some sense responsible for our lack of living wage by accepting less, lowering our standards. We lower our standards because we know that happiness does not come in a paycheck. We use our high morals and good conscience to justify not taking money from the *real* work that needs to be done (ie Taliensin, APT etc). But the truth is we need to emotionally invest in the importance of those projects in order to keep from noticing the 7th night of bean burritos. When I say "we" I mean really a generation of people like us who grew up with parents or grandparents reaching for and on some level acheiving the American Dream. Once there, there was nothing else to dream for. We, the children and grandchildren, settled. We accepted the mantle of the AM. Dream even while we pooh-poohed it, embracing instead the romance of punk rock, or Bruce Springsteen the working class god. We had the security of knowing we made it and could therefore afford to pursue loftier less lucrative goals. Meanwhile, the American Dream was recalibrated and reset the standards for "making it."

Still the jobs we do are not yet the most likely to be outsourced. We can and should demand that those who we work with and for share the largess. We have some bargaining power, because as support people to those who have more, they would find themselves in quite a bind without us. (Perhaps mda should read this too since he's going to be negotiating salary for himself.) There is no shame in having/making what it takes to live comfortably in the middle class. The shame comes when wealth is managed poorly (as in when the rich people we work for don't share!).

Ok enough of this incoherent rant. Thanks for the inspiration.

Re: And we all agree

[likethebeer.livejournal.com]

There's a lot here that I'm going to have to process. I should make mda sit down & read this. I thought yesterday that I should change my entry so that it didn't seem like you were making me feel bad, or that you were insensitive, but I figured that you'd already seen it. Oh well. I'm at work right now and lunchtime is ending, so I'll have to go back and read this when after I get home.

I did, however, totally agree w/what you were saying the night we went to your house. Shit, we're not less smart than the people making $70k. "Where's my share? Where's Leo Bloom's share? I want.... I want everything I've ever seen in the movies!" Ok, that's all the analysis I can do when I should get back to work.

Re: And we all agree

[likethebeer.livejournal.com]

What's interesting is that you have seemed to have picked up on something I realized about myself (and wrote about myself earlier in October, to which you replied (http://www.livejournal.com/users/likethebeer/37251.html?nc=2)): that I do sort of worship the nobility of the working class... or the nobility of ME as the working class. In a way, it relates to my own self-worth (well, damn sure it does). I'm not worth more. Of course I love Taliesin, though, and I wouldn't at this point work in some boring place for 20x what I'm making now. Still, sometimes I talk to people in their 40s (not that far from me) who say, "Oh, I chased the economic dream in my 30s. It's more worthwhile to do what you love." And I want to say, "Oh, you wanna live on $16,000 a year? Go ahead, do it, then get back to me on whether it's work it." Well, that's just rambling.

But you caught on something else there--that we watched our parents chase that dream, and i can say that I've had many happier days than my dad ever will (and he also might end up losing it all... I guess he is middle class). You can't help thinking that $$'s not worth it when you see a person who can't interact w/his kids, and used to do the morning "pep talk" (which he still might do for all I know) of saying to himself, without realizing it: "I hate my life. I hate my job. Fucking life," and on and on. Nicely fucked up, huh?

Well, I have to at least participate a little in the food making preparations. Interact with the mda.