Class Envy = No Class

I have been taking in all the images and news stories about AIG executives living in lush homes with tennis courts and swimming pools. I've seen the faces of the men and women who are protesting and I've listened to their complaints and I am ashamed of the American's who are using class envy for political reasons and drumming up anger in the midst of this terrible financial crisis. The organizations ACORN and Connecticut Working Families are well funded by our own tax money and Union largess. These "protests" are not spontaneous events but well planned theater to make a political point.

The protests are happening in major cities and at AIG executives homes. This video downloaded from YouTube is by a young man calling himself Kairosan.

His profile lists his occupation as a clerical worker and a video director. This is a quote from one of his other videos "working for a company is like being a pet". It sums up the philosophy of this young man and, interestingly enough, of Barak and Michelle Obama. She has stated, while talking to students during the Presidential campaign “We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we are asking young people to do. Don’t go into corporate America."

Kansas City has a beautiful section of the city called Ward Parkway. I can remember as a young married woman , going with my husband to a job site in this well to do neighborhood. I was amazed by the beauty of the well manicured, gated laws and the beautiful homes. I never thought "why do they live here and I don't." If anything it motivated me to work hard and attain my portion of the American Dream. I never dreamed of or sought to live in one of those mansions. I just appreciated their beauty.

When my husband and I bought our first home, it was a four-room "Mansion". We both worked hard and our second home was a five bedroom Cape Cod in a modest neighborhood of Kansas City. Due to a recession while trying to start a business in the 1980's we lost that house. We never blamed anyone but ourselves. We now own a four-room "mansion", again. It's the perfect size for a pair of retired folks who still have to work to make ends meet. We have had a good life but we've had to work hard to achieve our American Dream.

I live in a neighborhood that must be similar to the areas some of the Bus Tour protesters live in. Our neighbors are hardworking people of all different ancestral backgrounds. All colors, black, brown, yellow and white. It is an interesting place to live. It is part of the grand idea that makes this America. How sad the protesters are made to feel "less than" and taught by their trainers to hate the American Dream. The next video is from CNN:



That brings us to this cartoon from Current TV that must sum up the true feelings of the "folks" living in the White House and the President's cabinet. It's a political cartoon, a joke really but it may have some valid points.



Sad to say, this is what we, as Americans, have come to. Our President, Our Leaders and Institutions are a joke. People can be whipped up at a moments notice to protest some rich guy because has more than they do. There is class envy every where you look. Even in my American Dream.

This actually happened to me at on a recent visit to Target. There was a middle aged women with a teenage boy ahead of me. She was dressed really nice and she and the young man had leather coats on. I looked at my fleece jacket and for a moment I had a flash of envy. It didn't stop there. They both had multiple gold chains around their necks and she was talking on a an iPhone and the young man appeared to be playing a game on his Blackberry.

I couldn't help but notice she paid for several hundred dollars of merchandise with a credit card. Then she paid for her food items with a WIC voucher that took extra time for the cashier to mark off items, one at a time, and a Vision Card. That's food stamps to you and me.

I had another moment of "class envy" when I went to my 1995 Ford Explorer to leave and as luck would have it, they were parked next to me. But you know what, other than remembering the incident, I didn't attack the pair as they were loading their bags into their New Escalade (the sticker was still on the window). I didn't accidentally smash my door into the side of their ride. I didn't go picket their house. I really don't know anything about their lives other then my observations while I was shopping.

This seems to be the state of the poor in this country. Most of the underprivileged kids at the community center near me have electronic gadgets and cell phones. They are dressed decently and seem oblivious to the "fact" that they're poor. Kind of like me when I grew up. I lived in the four-room house that was the same house my husband and I bought early in our marriage. We've been rich in love and spirit and not in material things.

Too bad ACORN, the Unions and Foundations that provide services for the poor don't train their protesters to work hard and appreciate what they have instead of lusting after other peoples good fortune.