Segregation of the rich and poor

We need to re-look at the way the American Dream is changing due to the Middle class eroding, and the separation of the 1% and 99%.

Whether you agree or not there is a new outlook in life that is becoming starker. Economic realities and strife have always been around. The Greeks and Romans were doing it to their citizen’s ages ago. Remember when the French got tired of it? They started cutting off people’s heads. The upper class did not come out of that as well as they would have hoped, did they? All economic classes need to have a sense of interdependence and appreciation for the entire community they live in. The separation weakens the long term viability of a given society. In America, our government center’s on Capitalism. Capitalism is the center of our economic and social structure. The lucky can get to the top. It takes hard work, great timing, connections, intelligence, patientence, a good location, and many more attributes that may or may not help you get there.

The problem is once you get there. Are you now different from the others? Are you now outside of the general public welfare issues? What is your responsibility to your community?

These are not easy questions. I believe in the longevity of a society. This keeps life’s choices more stable and you can make better long term plans. Most people like stability as long as they have respect and representation in our democracy.

So when you take a look at one specific rule of Inclusionary Housing you have to ask yourself “How does this affect the greater good?” “What is it telling all the different groups who live in our society?” ”Are we respecting each other?” The group that got to the top, the 1%, are still a part of the general public, but now they feel above the other groups and think they need to protect their way of life. Or they may have social anxieties and feel embarrassed by the aesthetics of hair, clothing, skin color, or language. This 1% can afford to put fences between them and the rest of their societal counterparts. Making their lives feel exclusive and safe from the real world around them.

About 10 years ago I started seeing and reading articles about LED Lamps. Since I like testing out new energy products for home use on my family, I bought about a thousand dollars worth of various types of LED lamps for my home. In the end only about half of the lamps worked. In most instances the color the light gave off was wrong or, the type of light generated wasn’t good for the intended use. Unfortunately all of the dimmer type lamps broke within the first year of use. The reading lamps worked well, so we kept those and removed the general lighting LED lamps. After that, I did not see an advantage at the time to experiment further. But, it seems that time for experimentation is coming up again.

Summer 2014 is here.

Can you feel the spirit of mother earth? You should. It is your home. You share it with over 7 billion other humans and millions of other living species. Put your thoughts, time, and money, into positive actions to improve our planet. Humans need to remember that our actions affect all other living systems on this planet. Do you know what your Carbon Footprint is? Do you know what a Carbon Footprint is? Go on line to: -http://www.carbonclix.com/calculator or http://carbonfootprint.c2es.org/ to find out. See what you can do each day to reduce your impact. It could be you who is the tipping point on global warming. You can save someone else by your actions. Let’s reduce our negative effects on climate change. It could be someone in your family now or in the future that you are rescuing from the repercussions of weather change.

Earth Day is here, April 22, 2014. Look at it as a soul searching day. How are we taking care of the earth? What have you/we done to improve life for the next and future generations? The concept of looking out 7 generations is still very much alive, for as we live, we effect the environment. I hope you think about this daily, I know I do. This is a life philosophy for me. I think everyone should put their thoughts, actions, time, and money into positive actions to improve the situation on the planet. As a teenager I used to think, “Why are my grandparents and parents generation allowing the air to be so polluted?” “Why, after all the wars that were fought, are people still being treated so poorly around the world?” “Why was the population on Earth expanding at such a rapid speed that food and water were going to be limited?” As I grew up and began to vote, these thoughts were on my mind. We all need to give back as we are able. We all need to think of the Earth as a complex integrated chemical system that works in balance for each living entity. Life is beautiful. Humans need to remember that our actions affect all other living systems on the planet.

You hear on the news every day that farmers are having problems obtaining water for their crops and that in the years to come you will be spending more money on buying energy. The top 1% can buy their way out of any calamity, up to a point. The less fortunate are at the mercy of their environment and their government. If you are starving and you have no water to grow crops, your only choice is to hope for assistance from your government, other governments, or to move. In Syria, the farming community chose civil war in hopes of changing their government to get assistance. Their need to move causes neighboring communities to experience large amounts of population growth, thus disturbing their balanced economic system and using a greater amount of their natural resources. So you see how our actions lead to populations of discontented people with lack of water and food. They are easily manipulated into civil strife and aggression toward those that have. This leads to war or terrorism.