Destructive, Consuming Stress and Anxiety from living in Constant Uncertainty

Madame:

The home educator in you has burst forth brilliantly.  I am in awe of your “I Think We Could Fix This” post, and there is nothing I can add that would contribute more value.  It is the Rx we should try immediately.  I think a bold state or two should authorize a few communities to begin doing so immediately and we should see how they fare. 

Hedges has written much on the cycling through the prison system that you mentioned.  How we even have an industry that feeds the demand for it.

And your post of four days ago?  I agree with it.  Self-justifying biases can be asserted in much of what the researcher says.  Perhaps even more importantly, studies are only as good as the data tools they use to analyze.

Since we’re topic flying, the title of today’s post is it.  How many citizens the world over, and how many Americans in particular, are being consumed by an uncaring oligarchical structure that uses them up and discards them without thought, compassion, or, especially, responsibility?  The bargain once struck by the wealthy with a needed professional and administrative (middle) class has partially and sometimes completely dissolved.  For even white collar employees are often exploited—or even abused—wage slaves these days.

So they join their blue collar disempowered former union brethren in the draining slog.  One done in a fog where nothing is clear economically about next year, let alone one’s “future.”  And this utter lack of ability to reliably plan or chart an economic course is that way for both individuals and the larger society and economy as a whole.  The selfish, uncaring, or devious oligarchs and their servants have forced workers into nervous serfdom.   Those serfs are both afraid to upset their masters, and yet uncertain when, through no fault of their own, they may be upended and turned out—impoverished or even made homeless—by the whims or designs of oligarchs with other agendas that have nothing to do with the greater good.

It’s one of the reasons why, in an economy where the basic indicators—unemployment and otherwise—would lead one to expect hot pressure for wages to rise significantly, that the “rise” is more like the change from cool to something distantly approaching lukewarm.

See, six paragraphs.  And you all thought I was too much of a windbag to hold forth that little.  Oh, wait, this is the third sentence, which means this technically counts as paragraph seven.  Darn it, failed again. :)