Scared Senseless

It has to be hard for some seniors right now.  While the economics are true that it may be so, I am not really talking about that in this blog.  What I am going to talk about is a senior that is watching the country go to hell in a hand basket.  They don’t know what to do and they are scared.  People in the AARP and other organizations are scaring them saying they are going to lose their Medicare, their pensions.  How could they live?  They are too old to go back to work!

I had a discussion with a senior tonight about politics and the direction of our country.  He is scared that his country is falling apart because of wacky right wingers.  He’s afraid of those who talk secession and is being told militias are waiting in the wings to start a revolution.  He is told that republicans wish to take away his only sources of income and assistance and he has no other way to make it besides that.  I understand, I do.  It’s an old school mentality that you support your president, whoever and whatever he is to keep the country united.

Seniors and those entering that age are generally products of the 60’s.  They grew up with the protests, the Vietnam war, and the progressive revolution.  They also bought into the idea their parents gave them that you work a job, retire, and are taken care of by your pension and government assistance.  They were told that they earned this as a right by all the work they did.  Now we see that whole concept under assault, not by the republicans as they are being told, but just by simple reality that the government cannot successfully sustain a welfare state.  There is simply not enough money.

We see it in every state and municipality.  We see it in union work shops.  Pension plans are collapsing all around.  They were sold a bill of goods.  It seemed to work for their parents, why shouldn’t it work for them?  Simply put, the numbers don’t support it.  We have fewer and fewer workers supporting more and more people who are not working.  The workers are getting tired of footing the ever increasing bill. The only way the left sees to fix it is by raising taxes.  Todays workers are already overburdened by tax.  Something has to give.

Those of us working today understand that the system is broke.  We know it will not be there when we get to retirement age.  We also know that so much of our money is being taken to support the broken system that we ourselves are unable to provide for our own ends meet.  We, the workers of today are scared too.  Scared that we will not be able to make a decent retirement for ourselves.  Scared that we may be the first generation that does not have it better than the previous.  Scared that we will have to spend our entire lives slaving away for nothing.  Something has to give.

Politicians and advocates run around trying to make this a democrat vs. republican right vs. left thing.  It is not.  It as an issue for ALL Americans.  We ALL have to face this reality.  We ALL have to face some sort of consequence for the reckless spending and outrageous promises that our government can no longer sustain.  You older people may be afraid of losing what you have, but we of the following generation are afraid there will be nothing to have.