Why is no one responding to this? There are people on a mission and some are pretty important and some are just self interest with phony concern for the masses. They are the ones on a mission. A mission from God.

Neo-cons can name all sorts of rhetoric coming from Libs and Libs do the same. Neither one is paramount to a fair shake for all. I have heard many people claim they have the answers. But as one group of problems and people are helped another group goes downhill. There is no such thing as fairness. I have never indicated anything is fair whatsoever coming from Libs or Cons. That is life and all the missions and all the players, no matter how good can change that.

Bill Gates wrote a column in the Trib indicating it is necessary for American Corporations to hire from abroad. It stimulates the economy here. Tell that to the people who cannot afford any kind of housing other than renting unless they finance for fifty years. The beat goes on. Mortgage foreclosures plenty and the market is down. Even my house is overpriced and it is not as fancy as a lot.

I own forty acres up North and it took my savings bonds savings to buy that. It may be worth more than I paid for it someday. Thank goodness we have ours paid for because the wife worked for a number of years in plating and made good and I worked all the overtime I could get. Now our home is paid for.

The average person doesn't have that advantage now because to me, wages and prices are totally out of whack and health care and health insurance and materials and long term care can destroy a person. But I don't see very many people on a mission really caring about the Average Joe. If people are doing well, it's the same old story about the struggle they had, but if the poor are not doing well and things are going worse for them, it is their fault.

Whose fault is it? Maybe theirs somewhat but every poor person it is their fault? No thanks.

We need to understand what we can and can't blame on the government.  I think that "Lib and Con" is more right here.  I think that Americans need to take a look at thier lifestyles, and start living within thier means.  It is not the fault of the government that people can't pay thier home loans, just as, it is not shameful to rent a flat because they can't afford a home.  There is no shame in being poor, nor should we vilify the rich.  Most people are in the pickle they are in, simply because they can't say no.  I do not feel sorry for a person whose eyes are bigger than thier wallets. 

In the days of easy revolving credit (not so long ago) people wanted to get into a home so that they can feel prosperous.  People who did not have the patience to save and plan for a home, or who used the "creative credit" plans to get into a home are now paying the price for an ill concieved decision.  People who respond to those easy credit card deals (just sign it and mail it) somehow forget that they have to pay it back...with interest, and cry because they did not read the disclosure properly before they signed it.  If course, you will say, "they are hard to understand".  To me, this is not an excuse.  If I can't understand it, I don't sign it.  If it is too good to be true, then it is more likely a lie.

But...Lib and Con, you are wrong on one point.  Most people who are more proserous then they were before usually are there because of thier hard work.  Very few people are prosperous because of privilage or power.  We seem to hold people who did nothing to earn thier wealth up as models of society, rather than the quiet prosperity of most people who just it defined as "doing better than I did yesterday".  When people express how it was, they are not crying about thier "struggle", they are expressing joy, as you have about your quiet prosperity about your land.  You are the kind of person (politics aside) I would hold up to my children and grandchildren as an example of the American dream. 

When I describe for my children my life in Syria, it is not a depressing story.  I tell them it was different, and proseprity here in America means something different (not more right, or more virtuous) than it does in Syria.  We were not poor, we ate good, we had a home, clothing, and were able to go to school.  I (as a woman) was never oppressed, and never denied anything because of my gender or because of my faith.  My father stressed education on me to the point where I think he was obsessed with it.  His reasoning was simply because I was a girl, to become a mother, and would be the first to educate my children. (again, the motherhood thing is a Syrian thing for some of you feminists who might read this)  Most of all, we had plenty of friends, and many good neighbours.  The only manifestation of the government we had was health care, schools, the military, and the civilian police.   I also tell them too that we came here to make a better life for them.  We wanted to give them opportunities that we did not have access to.  My husband and I are investing in our children's future by bringing them to America.  But, again, that does not mean that where we came from is a bad place. 

So, we need to stop blaming the government for everything.  In fact, to me, less government is probably better.  Let us not regulate innovation, and incentive.  Sometimes, it might be better to let people fail, so that they can learn the lesson from thier folly.  And stop electing people who did not earn thier wealth the way we have to.  They don't know what it is like to eat from plastic spoons and paper plates.

Asslamu 'alaykum

Zanubiyah