No Pain, No Gain
By "Big John Sharque", Jul 22, 2002

New Depression, Old Depression, How Can We Stand These Tough Times, ya ask? Folks, as with everything else in life, there is an upside here.

When times get really hard, after a boom like we had, the middle class stops identifying with the rich. And that has been the bane of every progressive Democrat, Indy and Green, trying to get people to see the light, when they aren't motivated.

Of course they weren't, because they held out their "win the lottery" fantasy as a way to hang on to the idea that they too would someday ascend the golden steps into Country Club heaven. The idea got planted in their heads by non-stop media blitzes whose purpose was to make this critical connection: You got a 401K, you're part of the "better off".

That fantasy has been shattered--the middle class in America had built the paradigm that their 401K meant that they too were in the investor/monied/privileged class.

They never really were, but sometimes it takes a major kick in the ass to jumptstart reality.

And reality means paying bills, thinking about costs, realizing where you actually are as opposed to where you wish you were.

People believe what they want to until it becomes impossible to ignore the truth, which is that the average Schmuck and Schmuckette have nothing in common with the rich and lots in common (now) with working poor people.

That's what brought Huey Long, FDR and the New Deal on. That's what is gonna bring single-payer and if we're really hurting and react accordingly, a living or prevailing wage statute.

No pain, no gain, remember?

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