shape
carat
color
clarity

If it's Trump vs. Clinton ...

If it's Trump vs. Clinton you will ...

  • Hold my nose and vote for one of them

    Votes: 26 55.3%
  • Write in another name

    Votes: 7 14.9%
  • Stay home

    Votes: 5 10.6%
  • Other, please explain

    Votes: 9 19.1%

  • Total voters
    47

lulu

Ideal_Rock
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Messages
2,328
I'll vote for Hillary. She's a very energetic liar but Trump is unthinkable.
 

Niel

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Jul 23, 2012
Messages
20,044
Dancing Fire|1457241053|4000421 said:
katharath|1457234058|4000393 said:
kenny|1457229951|4000381 said:
packrat|1457228921|4000370 said:
Then maybe we should work to change *that* rather than oh well your home life sucks, so here's this to make it better for you now as an adult. Why don't we work to change things in the beginning rather than putting a band aid on it?

Someone from a group that is statistically more likely to be disenfranchised finally getting a decent job with benefits IS making it better 'in the beginning' ... AKA their kids.
That's no band aide.

We can't exactly take a way their kids and give them to be raised in 'nice' families on the right side of the tracks, with hope, the right values, language clothing & mannerisms of the more successful classes, high expectations, middle+ income and career connections.

A parent getting a decent job is just one step in the right direction out of the never-ending cycle of hopelessness, but a big one
.

This. That is how you break a cycle and move forward.
Must stop having babies born out of wedlock.

Oh, df, I assumed you where pro life.

Are you one of those conservatives that support birth control education in our public school systems?
 

House Cat

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Feb 22, 2009
Messages
4,602
kenny|1457226242|4000352 said:
msop04|1457225347|4000350 said:
kenny said:
msop04|1457224074|4000346 said:
kenny said:
msop04|1457223456|4000341 said:
kenny|1457222765|4000337 said:
I support affirmative action.
It's not discrimination.

In a zillion or so generations, when we're all equal (yeah right :roll: ), I'll stop supporting it.

Affirmative action is known as "positive discrimination". Yep, nothing like having to get [potentially] lesser qualified people working for you just because of their sex or race... ::)

That's the short view.
The long view is equality.

If a white male is more qualified for something, but it's given to a Hispanic female (who does not have the same qualifications), that does not in any way ensure future equality. It means minorities have no incentive to try as hard as their majority counterparts. No one wants to work hard, only to be told they can't have something bc of their race/sex.

It seems to me that it's not true equality that some are seeking... it's special treatment.


Groups with, overall, lower economic status getting better jobs helps their kids do better.
Kids may get better nutrition, health care, education and grow up with something whites have long take for granted, hope and high expectations for themselves.

Over time inequality will be reduced and affirmative action can end.

In theory, that sounds great… Reality is that you have to want to do better to really do better. From what I have seen and witnessed, very few want to do better when all they have to do is exist to reap the benefits for which others work hard. When there is no incentive, everyone will eventually stop trying. That's just common sense.

You try being raised in a culture/family/home/community where the only hope is a lucky lottery ticket.
lottery.jpg

This is the lottery line for the billion dollar ticket in the neighborhood where I grew up. Looks like a line for a prison yard, doesn't it?

This is a rough neighborhood in the East Bay, California. Wanna know how much my old house is worth right now on Zillow? $497,000. In 1989, we sold it for $298,000. California's poor neighborhoods have gargantuan property values.

I don't know why they stay. Probably because they have jobs or family in the area. But what I can tell you is that these people are in survival mode. When they are in survival mode, their children are in survival mode too.

Then they go to schools that aren't equipped for learning. My high school in this neighborhood was anything but safe. We had overflow kids bussed in from Oakland. The powers that be did not care about us. There were no honors classes. As a matter of fact, it was an honor to get thrown into continuation school because you got to watch movies all day, had no homework, and you got out at noon.

The best way to get into continuation was to get into fights. The tension in the halls was thick. You had to align yourself with people that would make your heart hurt now if you saw a 14 year old even looking their way. I had adult gang members picking me up for lunch. There were guns and drugs in their car. These were hardened people, but they sent a message.

After being in two shootings and having a friend put in the hospital for being beat with a crowbar, my parents moved us to a different area. Culture shock doesn't even begin to describe it. The football team was all rednecks wearing cowboy hats and boots, spitting tobacco into big gulp cups rather than the usual gang members that I was used to. The kids drove better cars than my parents. Everyone cared about their grades and getting into college. There were exactly three African American kids in the school. One guy dressed like Eazy E, but his parents were professionals. These kids had support and goals. Expectations were much higher for them. Heck, these kids HAD expectations! The year I graduated, there were four kids in my area who went to Harvard, two of them were in my graduating class.

The kids from my old high school were in a place where they were trying to secure their most basic of needs, safety, food, and shelter. It has been proven again and again, that when a people are chronically in that state, they are not able to consider any other needs at that time. They must secure those basic needs first. When their homes are insecure financially, when their parents are drug addicted and not providing appropriate support (I saw that a LOT during sleepovers,) or the parents are working a lot (saw that too!) or when they are just too poor to establish security, the kids and the parents are not going to have secure feelings that lead to a different set of thinking. When you go to a school where the educators don't even provide higher learning, how do you believe in yourself? How do you know there are better alternatives out there for you? If your parents did not go to college, or better yet, if your parents didn't even graduate from high school, how do you know that there is a better way to procure your education? It is up to the adults to educate the children. You can't blame the kids in these situations. If you feed a starving animal shit, it will eat shit. If you feed it steak, it will eat steak.

These schools churn out poorly educated people or drop-outs and pour them out into these crappy neighborhoods and then they are expected to make better choices for themselves? They don't even know that better choices exist! Better choices are for other people, not them! No one ever believed in them. No one ever helped them. No one ever cared.

My step daughter's mom lives in a crappy neighborhood a lot like the one I grew up in, maybe even worse. You should have seen my step daughter's MIDDLE SCHOOL graduation. It was like an actual high school graduation. You could hardly find parking. People were selling bouquets of flowers on the corners. People had leis and balloons and dozens of roses to give to their children. Why? Because this was probably the only graduation their children would have. TRUTH! In contrast, my son's middle school graduation was modest, held between two classrooms, they dressed in khakis, we clapped,, it was over. My daughter's high school graduation, the names were printed on one sheet of paper. They had mostly dropped out. Like I said, middle school was the big event. Her high school was in a documentary cited as a drop out factory.

In this neighborhood, my step son was robbed at gunpoint right outside of his home for his ipod. My daughter has lost friends to shootings. When she was 10, her best friend was shot in her own home in a drive-by and put into a wheelchair. My step son had been in many fights, securing his place in the school. When your safety is constantly threatened in school, how is learning a priority?

http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

Here is a lesson on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. When I see some of the talk on this forum, I think of this. It is important to know that people have very real needs that must be fulfilled in this order before they can meet the expectations that are being thrown around on this thread. Someone can not be living in survival mode and also be going into self-actualization. It is not possible.

I think it is very easy to live in White America and point fingers and tell people how they should live. I also think it is easy to live in a secure environment your whole life and tell people how to make decisions. I have to tell you that something actually happens to your brain when you are under that kind of chronic stress. When you don't know where your next meal is coming from, when you are scraping change for rent, you are flooded with stress chemicals and you aren't thinking straight. That is science. I know many people want so desperately to blame the poor, but those people are going to have to look deeper. Poor people born into poor families, generation after generation, living in poverty stricken areas, going to ill-prepared schools, surrounded by dangerous individuals who will "protect" you, not knowing how you will eat or live, is not an equation for higher decision making no matter how badly people want it to be.

At some point, the problem will have to be analyzed with genuine eyes and then solved bit by bit with compassion and understanding or it will have to be accepted for what it is and still given the same compassion and understanding. I don't see where anger or judgment is going to help this issue at all.

ETA: Hiring people from these areas should be considered as a way to help lift them and their children out of this kind of survival living I have described. It is a first step in providing those basic needs that I am referring to. If you lift the family up, the children have a fighting chance. If the children are elevated, their children will do better. This becomes a positive, snowball effect for this family. Hiring someone of "ethnicity" is so much more than giving away a job.
 

smitcompton

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Feb 11, 2006
Messages
3,254
Hi,

After reading Housecats last post, I wish to celebrate those that are able to lift themselves up: Our immigrants. Imagine, people with no money, unable to speak the language, working in factories, raising children who have ambition and desire to get ahead. Generations of every kind of people come here and make it. Asians are the top middle class earners now.(CNBC)

How long do you keep affirmative action? Isn't 50 yrs enough? Black American have had middeclass success, as shown in Atlanta Georgia. Sure racism exists, as has prejudice against most all immigrant groups when they arrive. They all move ahead. And usually within a generation. Immigrants know the fields to go into to get ahead. Amazing!

Parents teach their children to be independent. When you keep giving your children an excuse for behavior that will not be conducive to that end, You hurt them. We hurt those persons that we expect nothing from. We also expect too much from our schools, who are over burdened with caring for children who are not being cared for at home.

My view of life is more optimistic. Responsibility begins at home with parents.

Annette

PS. I have changed my view. I will vote for Clinton.
 

ksinger

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Jan 30, 2008
Messages
5,083
lulu|1457281099|4000560 said:
I'll vote for Hillary. She's a very energetic liar but Trump is unthinkable.

Yeah, it's pretty bad when you're desperately hoping that Trump is lying. Heaven help us all if he believes what he says. I believe downplaying what he says as too extreme, just for effect, and no one could actually mean that stuff, is very dangerous.
 

ksinger

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Jan 30, 2008
Messages
5,083
House Cat, I could hug you right now. Thank you for your personal experience as example. Thank you for making it less abstract so people with no experience with that world, or who do not work in it, can maybe get a glimmer of the reality.

My husband teaches in a school district not unlike what you describe. Not quite as bad, but plenty bad enough. And getting worse, as poverty deepens here. Poverty that is encouraged and helped along at the highest levels. It is to weep.

I will say that there ARE good and caring teachers in schools like you describe, but they are the last line trying to bail out the inpouring ocean with a teaspoon, to make bricks without straw. They can't do it alone, although they are often expected to. My husband's father taught Elizabeth Warren at the start of his career, and later after forced integration, had a kid die of knife wounds in his arms. He then had a heart attack mere months after retirement. My own husband has developed migraines and high blood pressure in the last 4 years, from the stress of it all. Still, the kids, mostly poor, mostly black and hispanic, are the reason he's not ossified into a "scared old white guy" like so many of our friends. His kids are not scary. Their parents are not really scary either, just doing the best they can. Most of the time, it's good enough. But yes, sometimes their best is not good at all, but on the whole, they do care about their children and want them to succeed, they just don't know how to go about it. They - and the kids - are often dealing with more crap than all but a very few on these threads can even fathom. As you said, they're not thinking straight.

I'll post this for anyone who cares to read it. It was written by an Oklahoma teacher just last week, and has gotten enormous traction in local news outlets. This guys is NOT my husband, but my husband could have written it. The descriptions will resonate with you House Cat, I suspect.

https://stevenewedel.wordpress.com/2016/02/26/open-letter-to-oklahoma-voters-and-lawmakers/

An Open Letter to Oklahoma Voters and Lawmakers

I am a teacher. I teach English at the high school of an independent district within Oklahoma City. I love my job. I love your kids. I call them my kids. I keep blankets in my room for when they’re cold. I feed them peanut butter crackers, beef jerky, or Pop Tarts when Michelle Obama’s school breakfast or lunch isn’t enough to fill their bellies. I comfort them when they cry and I praise them when they do well and always I try to make them believe that they are somebody with unlimited potential no matter what they go home to when they leave me.

What do they go home to? Sometimes when they get sick at school they can’t go home because you and the person you’re currently shacking up with are too stoned to figure out it’s your phone ringing. Sometimes they go home to parents who don’t notice them, and those are often the lucky kids. Sometimes they go home to sleep on the neighbor’s back porch because your boyfriend kicked them out of the house and his dog is too mean to let them sleep on their own back porch. They go home to physical and verbal abuse. They go home looking for love and acceptance from the people who created them … and too often they don’t find it.

Many days your children bring the resentment they feel toward you to school with them and they act out against peers, property, or their teachers. When I call you I’m told, “When he’s at school he’s your problem.” Or you beat them, not for what they did, but because it embarrassed or inconvenienced you when I called.

Often, they stay at school with me for an hour and a half after the bell rings because they don’t want to go home to you. Reluctantly, they get on the two buses meant to take home students who stay for athletic practice, and they go away for a dark night in places I can’t imagine.

Over 90 percent of the kids in my high school are on the free or reduced lunch programs. The walk hand-in-hand with Poverty and its brother Violence. They find comfort in the arms of your lover, Addiction. They make babies before they are old enough to vote. Or drive. And they continue the cycle you put them in.

Sometimes I get through to a student and convince her that education is the way out of this spiral of poverty and despair. Then you slap them down for wanting to be better than you.

And you, the lawmakers of this state, you encourage it. I hold two college degrees and have been on my job for 10 years. I was our school’s Teacher of the Year in 2014. I teach kids to read the ballots that keep you in your elite position. I teach them to look behind your lies and rhetoric. I teach them to think for themselves. The compensation of me and my colleagues ranks 49th in the nation, and is the lowest in our region. I currently earn about $18,000 per year less than I did in 2002, my last year as an office worker for an energy company that merged with another and eliminated my job. I feel like my life has purpose now, but, as I turn 50 this year and wonder how I’ll put my own high school-age kids through college, I have to consider giving up helping scores of kids per year so I can afford to give my own children what they need to find satisfaction in their lives.

And what do you do? You whittle away at education funding. You waste the taxpayers’ money so that our great state faces unbelievable shortfalls and massive budget cuts. You take home a salary that ranks 10th highest in the nation among state legislators and you are inept, uncaring, and an abomination to our democratic form of government.

Those kids who stay after school with me? After Spring Break 2016 they can’t do that. You see, our district can no longer afford to pay to run those late buses. Your kids wade through garbage in the halls because we had to release the custodial crew that cleaned at night. Oh sure, we could make the kids clean up after themselves, except our administrators live in fear of lawsuits, and making a kid pick up the lunch tray he threw on the floor has been considered forced child labor. There’s also the very real possibility that a belligerent kid will just take a swing at one of us — again — because he or she wasn’t taught respect for authority at home. Did I mention how we had to let go of our security officers because we could no longer afford them? We now share one single solitary Oklahoma County Sheriff’s deputy with our ninth grade center and our middle school and alternative school. That’s one deputy for about 1,300 students.

We can no longer afford rolls of colored paper or paint or tape to make signs to support and advertise our Student Council activities. This fall our football team won’t charge through a decorated banner as they take the field because we can’t afford to make the banner. There won’t be any new textbooks in the foreseeable future. Broken desks won’t be replaced. We’re about to ration copy paper and we’ve already had the desktop printers taken out of our rooms.

We live in fear that our colleagues will leave us, not just because they are our friends, but because the district wouldn’t replace them even if we could lure new teachers to our inner-city schools during the teacher shortage you have caused. We fear our classes doubling in size.

We fear becoming as ineffective as you are. Not because we can’t or won’t do our job, like you, but because you keep passing mandates to make us better while taking away all the resources we need just to maintain the status quo. We fear that our second jobs will prevent us from grading the papers or creating the lesson plans we already have to do from home. We fear our families will leave us because we don’t have time for them.

I am the chairman of my department. My teachers could easily take other jobs in the private sector where they would make more money, but so far they have chosen to remain teachers because they love working with kids. How long will they continue to put the needs of students over the needs of family? It’s something we’re all dealing with. How far will you push us? What will you do without us when we leave the classroom or leave the state? It’s happening. You know it’s happening, and yet you do nothing.

You, the representatives, senators, and governor of Oklahoma are creating a population of ignorant peasants fit only to work in the oil field and factories you bring to this state by promising those businesses won’t have to pay their fair share of taxes. You leave our kids in a cycle of poverty and abuse while your pet donor oil companies destroy the bedrock beneath us, shaking our homes to pieces while you deny your part in all of it.

Parents, I beg you to love your children the way we love your children. Vote for people who will help teachers educate and nurture the kids we share. We can’t do it alone anymore.
 

AGBF

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Jan 26, 2003
Messages
22,143
House Cat, I love what you wrote. And ksinger, I love the letter you posted. I know these worlds, not because I grew up in them, but because I knew children (and adults) from them due to my work. Your descriptions, House Cat, and those of the teacher who wrote the letter you posted, K, are such a good reminder. I did not remember what it was like for children to have to go home from school into abusive situations. Maybe that is a perspective to which I needed more exposure. I tend to remember my last job (in 1992) in which I worked with poor adults-although I was supposed to be doing psychotherapy in a mental health clinic!-because I happened to be working in such an impoverished city. I couldn't just sit there and look at psychodynamics while a poor woman was feeling unwanted as she moved from the couch of one relative to the couch of another, essentially homeless, trying to find housing! And struggled to get medical help for her diabetes! I was told to treat her depression. Well guess what. Her her depression was not simply chemical; it was also reactive!

AGBF
 

Amber St. Clare

Brilliant_Rock
Joined
Dec 15, 2009
Messages
1,673
Niel|1457281848|4000566 said:
Dancing Fire|1457241053|4000421 said:
katharath|1457234058|4000393 said:
kenny|1457229951|4000381 said:
packrat|1457228921|4000370 said:
Then maybe we should work to change *that* rather than oh well your home life sucks, so here's this to make it better for you now as an adult. Why don't we work to change things in the beginning rather than putting a band aid on it?

Someone from a group that is statistically more likely to be disenfranchised finally getting a decent job with benefits IS making it better 'in the beginning' ... AKA their kids.
That's no band aide.

We can't exactly take a way their kids and give them to be raised in 'nice' families on the right side of the tracks, with hope, the right values, language clothing & mannerisms of the more successful classes, high expectations, middle+ income and career connections.

A parent getting a decent job is just one step in the right direction out of the never-ending cycle of hopelessness, but a big one
.

This. That is how you break a cycle and move forward.
Must stop having babies born out of wedlock.

Oh, df, I assumed you where pro life.

Are you one of those conservatives that support birth control education in our public school systems?

I don't know about DF but I certainly am. I would put up Safe Haven posters in all the girls locker room and bathrooms. Until I was told I was "forcing my agenda on others". These posters simply showed babies and told the reader about SAFE ways of finding a safe place to give up your infant w/o legal sanction.
 

ksinger

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Jan 30, 2008
Messages
5,083
AGBF|1457301260|4000693 said:
House Cat, I love what you wrote. And ksinger, I love the letter you posted. I know these worlds, not because I grew up in them, but because I knew children (and adults) from them due to my work. Your descriptions, House Cat, and those of the teacher who wrote the letter you posted, K, are such a good reminder. I did not remember what it was like for children to have to go home from school into abusive situations. Maybe that is a perspective to which I needed more exposure. I tend to remember my last job (in 1992) in which I worked with poor adults-although I was supposed to be doing psychotherapy in a mental health clinic!-because I happened to be working in such an impoverished city. I couldn't just sit there and look at psychodynamics while a poor woman was feeling unwanted as she moved from the couch of one relative to the couch of another, essentially homeless, trying to find housing! And struggled to get medical help for her diabetes! I was told to treat her depression. Well guess what. Her her depression was not simply chemical; it was also reactive!

AGBF

Thanks Deb. That letter is the tip of the iceberg here. Unmentioned in his letter, is the current push to sell the publics to the highest corporate bidder. A 6 million dollar shortfall this year, and 24 million for next year, so "One of the alluring things about charter schools is the opportunity to solicit more corporate support, and that will alleviate some of the strain on the district to come up with operational money," board member Bob Hammack said Tuesday." Because nothing says good education like a corporate profit motive. :rolleyes: But that is a topic for another thread.

And thank you for not slamming me for my egregious "had a kid die of knife wounds in his arms". Um...no. The kid did die of knife wounds, but not knife wounds to his arms. :oops: Geez, I guess my public school education in the penultimate state known for educational excellence is showing, or something.... ;)) Because Oklahoma is OK! (Is that the worst state motto ever used?? I think so. It's been retired, but lord.)
 

Dancing Fire

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Apr 3, 2004
Messages
33,852
[quote="House Cat|


ETA: Hiring people from these areas should be considered as a way to help lift them and their children out of this kind of survival living I have described. It is a first step in providing those basic needs that I am referring to. If you lift the family up, the children have a fighting chance. If the children are elevated, their children will do better. This becomes a positive, snowball effect for this family. Hiring someone of "ethnicity" is so much more than giving away a job.[/quote]



It is time to stop blaming society, b/c most of these kids grew up in a single parent home w/o proper family supervision, plus their parents mostly likely grew up in the same type of family environment. Why do you think that there are so many young Asians in the medical and high tech field today? b/c most of these Asians were raised by both parents who would push their kids to go to college and get a higher level of education.
 

Dancing Fire

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Apr 3, 2004
Messages
33,852
smitcompton|1457286069|4000586 said:
Hi,

After reading Housecats last post, I wish to celebrate those that are able to lift themselves up: Our immigrants. Imagine, people with no money, unable to speak the language, working in factories, raising children who have ambition and desire to get ahead. Generations of every kind of people come here and make it. Asians are the top middle class earners now.(CNBC)

How long do you keep affirmative action? Isn't 50 yrs enough? Black American have had middeclass success, as shown in Atlanta Georgia. Sure racism exists, as has prejudice against most all immigrant groups when they arrive. They all move ahead. And usually within a generation. Immigrants know the fields to go into to get ahead. Amazing!

Parents teach their children to be independent. When you keep giving your children an excuse for behavior that will not be conducive to that end, You hurt them. We hurt those persons that we expect nothing from. We also expect too much from our schools, who are over burdened with caring for children who are not being cared for at home.

My view of life is more optimistic. Responsibility begins at home with parents.

Annette

PS. I have changed my view. I will vote for Clinton.
Exactly!... :appl: agree with you 101%!... :wavey: :appl:
Many Asian immigrants arrived to this country can't speak a word of English have had achieved middle class status within a generation, and American born citizens are blaming society for their underachievement? ... :rolleyes:
 

Amber St. Clare

Brilliant_Rock
Joined
Dec 15, 2009
Messages
1,673
PS. I have changed my view. I will vote for Clinton.

I will also vote against Trump.
 

nala

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Oct 23, 2011
Messages
7,045
I'm proud to say that I'm visiting for Clinton! And I'm glad she has a vagina, and i f more women would stick together in more aspects, we would one day have a good old girls' club!
 

nala

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Oct 23, 2011
Messages
7,045
Regarding affirmative action, thank you to all of you who view it as a positive. As a first generation Latina, I did reap the benefits and have since paid it forward. I have paid a lot more in taxes than I would have had I not been admitted to a great university and gone on to my career as a teacher. You might be surprised to know that although I didn't have a decent SAT score Bc I couldn't afford to pay for SATclasses, the university saw great aptitude in me. I worked 30 hours a week in high school, was the editor of the paper, played sports and ranked in the top 5 percent of my graduating class. In college, I made deans honor roll every quarter. And it is and was a nationally ranked university. I should add that I didn't get a free ride. I was responsible for paying my books, and room and board. No such thing as free rent at my house. I chose to teach BC I wanted to be like my teachers. That is the only model I had. I didn't know about other careers enough to risk my future. Kids aspire to be what they see . many if my students don't see too many positive rolke models, but we put on a career fair and try.. Im glad I am a teacher and I came back to my alma mater. I encourage kids to go on to college. I challenge them and teach them as I would my own daughter. And many resent me BC I'm tough BC their parents don't really expect them to graduate or BC some teachers don't think they can so they don't push them.. These are the minority, but these teachers are not minorities. Many kids appreciate it and do go on to succeed. Many work hard and many don't. My own daughter will not be admitted to college BC of affirmative action. It does stop after the first generation. She may have higher scores and grades and achievements than kids I teach, but they will be admitted before she is at the public universities BC of location in context. Do I think it's unfair? Hell NO! I'm not a hypocrite who will condemn a policy that helped me become who I am just BC it's now hurting my daughter's chances. Bc i am fully responsible for her. I know many people who benefit from policies and become successful and then tuyrn their backs on the political parties that helped us succeed. I hear everyone's frustration on immigrants who take advantage of the system and seem to not be productive citizens. My latino community is fruastratwd too.But I'm glad that as a teacher, I can continue to do my part to produce higher achieving citizens.
 

nala

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Oct 23, 2011
Messages
7,045
I wanted to add that many here keep repeating that a çhilds future depends on the parenting. While I agree with this notion, I think it takes a village to raise a kid. Yet in my community, and I've read it here on PS time and again, parents do not want unsolicted advice. Thats the problem if you ask me. Pride. It must not be a cultural flaw BC here on PS, everyones first response to parenting issues is always: it's none of your business! You can't tell parents how to discipline their kids. Hmm..can you imagine how much better this world would be if as parents, we were open to suggestions without taking it as a personal affront to our egos?
 

soberguy

Brilliant_Rock
Joined
Mar 25, 2009
Messages
650
Sure seems true to me.

_2338.jpeg
 

monarch64

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Aug 12, 2005
Messages
19,222
HouseCat: :appl: :appl: :appl:

I had no idea. Many thanks to you for sharing your experience. :clap:

ETA: Nala, just read your story above and was really touched. You are a light and an inspiration.
 

Gypsy

Super_Ideal_Rock
Joined
Aug 8, 2005
Messages
40,225
My view.

1. Trump is a racist and a bigot who is not afraid to admit to both and in fact relishes in displaying these qualities. That's just the person I want appointing federal judges, not to mention commander in chief of the armed forces. He does not know how to build consensus at all, instead he spews hatred and divisiveness, and does so in every speech. He is a hater monger who dislikes: the poor, migrants (except his wives), blacks, Hispanics, and women. That is not someone who can build consensus, not unless your definition of 'consensus' is a civil war or another world war. And this time the countries BORDERING US will be AGAINST US. Won't that be fun.

2. He is not at all a business leader. The large majority of his businesses have failed and he has a string of bankruptcies as proof of that. So yes, let's put him at the helm of the largest most complex business in this country and watch him fail that that too. Why? "Because he can MAKE DECISIONS!" Yes. Poor ones both personally and in business. My my 2 year old nieces can make decisions too, but I wouldn't nominate them for president.

3. Speaking of his personal life, again he has a string of failed marriages, because he cannot remain faithful to the vows he takes. What makes anyone think that he will remain faithful to his vows as a President to defend and uphold the Constitution and this country against all enemies foreign and domestic. That's a serious vow.

4. He represents the worst of the 1% and will NOT defend or help the 99%, which is most of us here in 'reality.' And he is not "self funded" by any means: at BEST that is a half truth: http://www.politifact.com/.../donald-trump-self-funding.../


Personally,the people VOTING for Trump scare me more than Trump himself. Because all the brainwashed masses that are rushing to vote for him because they are hypnotized by his propaganda and have no desire to check in with reality at all-- even to do a basic fact check on the man and his proposed policies. It's the fact that bigoted racist loser with a history of untrustworthiness (strings of bankruptcies and infidelities) is actually a potential nominee for a major party in the 'land of the free.' And it's not just the folks of the left that are afraid. It's the moderates and even many republicans. He will not "make America Great Again." You know the last President that "made America Great" after financial devastation and a series of wars abroad? FDR. And you know what he did? He instituted a bunch of SOCIALIST PROGRAMS. And guess what? They worked and America, because of those programs, recovered and indeed "Became Great." And you know when it all started to fall apart? When the RIght Wing started chipping away at all the financial, executive and social program, like welfare, and food stamps, and education funding in their quest to make the government JUST small enough to fit into a women's womb. That's what's breaking America's back. So actually YES, Bernie WOULD be the best choice for this country. Unfortunately he's not going to get nominated. And that leaves us with Hillary and Trump. And between the two anyone who votes for Trump is voting with fear and intolerance and hate in their hearts. Not hope.

So I will be voting AGAINST Trump no matter what.

Do I wish Bernie was the candidate for the Left? Yes, I really do. But it's not going to happen. So I will vote for Hillary when she in inevitably nominated.

You know what bothers me most, regarding the Democrats? The inevitability of Hillary because NO ONE ELSE IS RUNNING. There are SEVERAL great Democrats that would have been great nominees for the left. BETTER than Hillary, IMO. But they were browbeaten or scared off from running. And that LACK OF CHOICE bugs the crap out of me. We should have had more than Bernie and Hillary to chose from.
 

monarch64

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Aug 12, 2005
Messages
19,222
Gypsy,

#3. Re divorces: why exactly is this fair game? Voters have gone through divorces; I'm here to tell you that strategy-wise it doesn't matter how many times a candidate has been married or not. In fact it makes me think worse of the candidate who uses that tactic against another. To bring that up and try to use it against any candidate is seriously rude on your part. It's a tactic that maybe makes you personally feel superior because YOU have been married one time, but girl...that ain't always the case for everybody else. Dang lady. I expected better from you.

ETA: also? sexist and mean. Come on. You're making me sad.
 

missy

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Jun 8, 2008
Messages
53,980
Gypsy|1457339285|4000902 said:
You know what bothers me most, regarding the Democrats? The inevitability of Hillary because NO ONE ELSE IS RUNNING. There are SEVERAL great Democrats that would have been great nominees for the left. BETTER than Hillary, IMO. But they were browbeaten or scared off from running. And that LACK OF CHOICE bugs the crap out of me. We should have had more than Bernie and Hillary to chose from.

Yes I agree but you know what also bothers and frustrates me greatly? That we have NO good candidates on either side. No good democrats and no good republicans to choose from this election. I don't vote a party (I really don't Kenny) and instead I vote the individual candidate so for me it is the lack of any good candidates (IMO) on either side that makes me sad, angry, worried and frustrated.


Housecat, thank you for sharing. And as someone who works with a very poor population I agree completely.

Nala, :appl: :appl: :appl: .
 

kenny

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Apr 30, 2005
Messages
33,225
missy|1457354953|4000943 said:
... I don't vote a party (I really don't Kenny) ...

I DO vote party.

We are different.
No problem. :wavey: :))
 

missy

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Jun 8, 2008
Messages
53,980
kenny|1457369089|4001058 said:
missy|1457354953|4000943 said:
... I don't vote a party (I really don't Kenny) ...

I DO vote party.

We are different.
No problem. :wavey: :))

I do vote for "parties" however. :dance: Especially if there is live music and dancing. :cheeky:

_1024.png
 

House Cat

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Feb 22, 2009
Messages
4,602
Dancing Fire|1457314666|4000784 said:
[quote="House Cat|


ETA: Hiring people from these areas should be considered as a way to help lift them and their children out of this kind of survival living I have described. It is a first step in providing those basic needs that I am referring to. If you lift the family up, the children have a fighting chance. If the children are elevated, their children will do better. This becomes a positive, snowball effect for this family. Hiring someone of "ethnicity" is so much more than giving away a job.



It is time to stop blaming society, b/c most of these kids grew up in a single parent home w/o proper family supervision, plus their parents mostly likely grew up in the same type of family environment. Why do you think that there are so many young Asians in the medical and high tech field today? b/c most of these Asians were raised by both parents who would push their kids to go to college and get a higher level of education.[/quote]

__________________

Thanks for further reinforcing my point DF! Asian kids coming from two parent households (and possibly multigenerational households) have far more emotional and physical support and resources than kids who come from a single parent/drug addicted household! Most kids from these homes ruin their own lives by the age of 16. How much did you know about life at that age? How many family members were living in your home at that time?

Asian culture takes pride in the accomplishments of their children. As a matter of fact, the accomplishments of their children is a direct reflection of the family. In American culture, some of the people are so sick that they will get angry when their kid does better in life than they did. A parent is a powerful influence. Kids WILL self sabotage if their parent is angry with their accomplishments. This is simple psychology.

I don't expect you to understand DF. You show very little compassion toward anyone. But maybe it is like this... Why aren't all the members of the middle class billionaires? Wouldn't YOU become a billionaire if you could? Is it because you made terrible choices for your life that you didn't become one? What about the rest of us? Are we too stupid? We don't want it enough? What is it exactly that keeps everyone in the middle class from achieving billionaire status? What makes this so elusive to us?

Well, it's kind of like that for the very poor. The middle class status is for everyone else, not them. Nice cars, good food, safety, a nice marriage, that is all for other people or fairytales on TV, but it isn't even an option for them. They wouldn't even know HOW to go about changing their lives in order to reach a different financial status.

It's time that certain members of the MIDDLE CLASS stop making excuses for their judgmental attitudes and their lack of education on the matter of the poor. Go work at soup kitchens and homeless shelters, volunteer anywhere you can and meet the poor before you think you know it all. Stop judging everyone by ONE woman wearing Versace and paying with food stamps. As a society, we have no excuse to keep people living in these conditions. Anymore, the only crime is that they are born into those neighborhoods because let me tell you, no one is merrily house shoppin in the hood.
 

Dancing Fire

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Apr 3, 2004
Messages
33,852
[quote="House Cat

__________________


Well, it's kind of like that for the very poor. The middle class status is for everyone else, not them. Nice cars, good food, safety, a nice marriage, that is all for other people or fairytales on TV, but it isn't even an option for them. They wouldn't even know HOW to go about changing their lives in order to reach a different financial status.

[/quote]


Why not??.. :confused: You should stop making excuses for them, if poor Chinese immigrants can get themselves off the ground so can American born citizens.
 

msop04

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Dec 3, 2011
Messages
10,051
vtigger86 said:
[quote="House Cat

__________________


Well, it's kind of like that for the very poor. The middle class status is for everyone else, not them. Nice cars, good food, safety, a nice marriage, that is all for other people or fairytales on TV, but it isn't even an option for them. They wouldn't even know HOW to go about changing their lives in order to reach a different financial status.


Why not??.. :confused: You should stop making excuses for them, if poor Chinese immigrants can get themselves off the ground so can American born citizens.[/quote]

[emoji1303]
 

Dancing Fire

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Apr 3, 2004
Messages
33,852
msop04|1457397101|4001268 said:
vtigger86 said:
[quote="House Cat

__________________


Well, it's kind of like that for the very poor. The middle class status is for everyone else, not them. Nice cars, good food, safety, a nice marriage, that is all for other people or fairytales on TV, but it isn't even an option for them. They wouldn't even know HOW to go about changing their lives in order to reach a different financial status.


Why not??.. :confused: You should stop making excuses for them, if poor Chinese immigrants can get themselves off the ground so can American born citizens.

[emoji1303][/quote]
Wish I was smart enough to be a pharmacist... :wink2:
 

msop04

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Dec 3, 2011
Messages
10,051
vtigger86 said:
msop04|1457397101|4001268 said:
vtigger86 said:
[quote="House Cat

__________________


Well, it's kind of like that for the very poor. The middle class status is for everyone else, not them. Nice cars, good food, safety, a nice marriage, that is all for other people or fairytales on TV, but it isn't even an option for them. They wouldn't even know HOW to go about changing their lives in order to reach a different financial status.


Why not??.. :confused: You should stop making excuses for them, if poor Chinese immigrants can get themselves off the ground so can American born citizens.

[emoji1303]
Wish I was smart enough to be a pharmacist... :wink2:[/quote]

[emoji12]
 

nala

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Oct 23, 2011
Messages
7,045
Dancing Fire|1457396757|4001266 said:
[quote="House Cat

__________________


Well, it's kind of like that for the very poor. The middle class status is for everyone else, not them. Nice cars, good food, safety, a nice marriage, that is all for other people or fairytales on TV, but it isn't even an option for them. They wouldn't even know HOW to go about changing their lives in order to reach a different financial status.





Why not??.. :confused: You should stop making excuses for them, if poor Chinese immigrants can get themselves off the ground so can American born citizens.[/quote]



DF, the "poor Chinese immigrants" you are lauding use affirmative action to their advantage. Then they use financial aid to finance it. The public universities factor in first generation when they admit their students. So are you still against Democrats and their policies when you are crediting a groups success BC they used affirmative action to succeed?

Eta: thanks Missy and Monarch..I am humbled by your compliments :oops:
 
Be a part of the community Get 3 HCA Results
Top