Indifferent In America

Haves, Have-nots, and the Death of the Middle Class

At first glance, Rittenhouse Square can easily be taken for a slice of serenity in the urban tangle that is center city Philadelphia. A model citizen of the metropolitan world, Rittenhouse is the type of neighborhood you could picture raising a family in: safe, vivacious, & prosperous. Buzzing while not bursting, “the square” gives rise to an eclectic mix of young and old alike. Here, the city's social elite, culturally hip, and corporate stiff all frolic under the same spanned canopies of its towering trees. In between swallows of tofu tarts and apple martinis, locals spend their lunch breaks lounging around one of the square’s many posh eateries, nonchalantly trading gossip as life gently rolls on by. As day turns to night, they simply trade in their button-downs for their bursting-outs and head for the bourgeois lounges and trendy nightspots dotting the area. It’s here where they finally top off their tanks with the finest in over-priced, ego-driving extravagance. Excess, indulgence, affluence….life sure is good in around these parts. That is, as long as those pesky Have-nots stay the fuck out!

My girlfriend happens to be one of the lucky ones who was fortunate enough to find employment with one of the many thriving businesses that call Rittenhouse Square home. A stable gig, decent pay, and a corporate environment that even a staunch anti-nine-to-fiver like myself could tolerate have all done wonders to remedy the forty-plus-minute commute she endures daily. To show my appreciation for her continued endurance, oft times I will make a surprise trek into RHSQ as I did recently on warm & sunny Friday afternoon. I planned for a relaxing evening of dinner & drinks while later getting wooed by the wonders of First Fridays. What I got was a lesson in indifference in America..…

Having time to kill prior to meeting up with my girlfriend, I made my way to the heart of Rittenhouse Square, its park. There, I decided to post up at its entrance and get lost in one of the city’s rag-tag alt-weeklies. Thumbing my way through the swath of political diatribes, cultural happenings, and transvestite escort ads, I couldn’t help but be distracted by the repetitive mantra being asked in the near distance, “Would you like to help save the children?” “Would you like to help save the children?” “Excuse me, sir?? Would you like to help save the children?” “Ma’am, Ma’am, just a second of your time, please!” “DOES ANYONE CARE TO HELP SAVE THE CHILDREN?!?!?!??!?” The solicitation was originating from two young men wearing red-colored polo shirts emblemized with an official seal of charity.

Charities soliciting help is nothing new to Rittenhouse Square. On any given week, non-profit organizations lay claim to the area surrounding the park in hopes that someone…anyone…will find value in their cause. It makes complete sense that groups like Amnesty International and The Salvation Army would choose here to take up their pleas for help. After all, the people of Rittenhouse are among the most affluent of Philadelphia’s population. Tending to be financially sound, socially adept, emboldened (or so they act), and politically oriented, they are, as Marilyn Manson would put it, “The Beautiful People”. But if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then surely this was the ugliest crowd of people I’ve seen in quite some time. Because, for over an hour, I sat and watched as well-to-do passer-by after well-to-do passer-by deflected the pleas of help by these two young men armed with only a clipboard and their compassion as they tried to save the lives of children unlucky enough to have been born in sub-Saharan Africa and not Rittenhouse Square.

“I’m sorry but I’m running late.……….. Oh, I’m sorry. I’d love to help but I’ve got to get back.……… Oh, I’m sorry but I don’t have time. ………. Oh, I’m sorry but….. oh, I’m sorry…. … oh sorry….. gee I’m sorry but…. sorry…” ……Sorry after sad sorry. The stream of bullshit excuses spewing from these dismissive, over-privileged brats seemed to have had no end.

As I looked on at this regrettable display of indifference, I caught eyes with one of the young men. He could see that I felt sorry for him. In a half-sarcastic, half-disgusted tone, I called out to one of the young man, “Hey, if you’re bored, you can always try your luck on my ears.” And that he did….. His name was something rather easily forgotten but his determination was something that I never could. A champion for helping poor, third-world people, the University of Penn student explained that in the hour or so that he’d been out there, a mere one person stopped to listen to his oration. While he admits that one of his goals was to solicit monetary contributions, he made it quite clear that ultimately, it was the hearts & minds of the people of Rittenhouse that he was after. And that, he said, is something no money in the world can buy… one hour, one person. Sad.

After talking with this young man for quite some time, we exchanged information, shook hands, and proceeded to carry on in our own directions. As I walked on, I thought back to all of the dismissive excuses I heard that day. And ultimately, I would have to agree with the passer-bys……. they are sorry. No, not for one minute do I think they’re filled with regret & anguish knowing they could’ve been the difference between life and death for a starving child, but because they’re a sorry testament to a sad truth about human nature: the more you have, the more you become blind and what starts out of sight, ends out of mind.

We as Americans are taught to feel, think, and act exceptional; like somehow we are different than “everyone else”. Because of this, many of us believe that neglect is an international issue and although no society is void of it, arises here only occasionally and at the fringes of our society. But as the days & months following Hurricane Katrina prove without doubt, class warfare is no longer just a food fight between seventh graders. It is a fact of the new America, and when the people of Rittenhouse Square pass by those two young men, not only are they passing by the have-nots of Haiti, Rwanda, and East Timor, they are passing by the have-nots of Orleans Parish, Flint, and Philadelphia too. Because if you‘ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing anywhere in the world.

Spend more than a moment in a place like Rittenhouse Square and you begin to sense that something is amiss. It’s almost as though you’re helplessly stuck in a surreal episode of Candid Camera or Punk’d. Only in this show, it's tragically real and void of all those preconceived emotions one gets from a man in monkey suit jumping out of the handicap stall in a women’s restroom. But if you happen to be have-not in America looking for bone to bite on, you might as well be a man in a monkey suit. At least that way, you may actually stand a chance of gaining the attention of the fortunate ones who continue to toil in apathy & acquiescence. As for the rest of us, we’ll be busy laboring to meet the status quo, like we always do, while George Bush and the new American Aristocracy post a sign at the entrance to the American Dream reading “Welcome to America. Just don’t bother me.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Have you not empathy for the weak, then have you only apathy for yourself”
-Anonymous

The Future of BlueCollarKids

We are excited to announce plans for a complete expansion and overhaul of BlueCollarKids. In the coming months, BCKs will be moving to www.bluecollarkids.com and there we will unvail the BlueCollarKids (new) blog, weekly podcast, and line of political-dynamite t-shirts. This site will have a newly vamped format including frequent guest bloggers, interactive content, and much more. Your patience while this change is implemented is greatly appreciated. We very much admire and appreciate each everyone's continued dedication to BCKs.

It's The Politics, Stupid!

The Problem with Being PC: Progressively Correct

The headline read, "Focus on 'Fake' News". Being naturally inquisitive, my brain slammed to grinding halt and with the sincerity of David Duke at a civil rights rally, begged “Fake news, huh? Where? You're kidding me, right? You mean to tell me that there's news outlets who don’t "necesarily" portray what's actually occuring in reality. Jumpin' Josepha, somebody alert the press! Oh wait, shit! They ARE the press.” I had to read on.

Turns out the good folks at the Constitution Center Culture Club in Philadelphia were hosting a town hall-type roundtable about the influence of ‘fake news’ on the body politic; ‘fake news” in this case being the political comedy & commentary from the likes of Jon Stewart (The Daily Show), Steven Colbert (The Colbert Report), and others. The piece, less an article and more an invitation, got me excited about learning more about my “new-found discovery”, so I decided I would attend. Now, before I go any further, I’ve got to confession to make: this wasn’t the first time I’ve heard about ‘fake news’….huhhhh! One would’ve had to have been born under a moronic moon to not know that it’s always existed and contrary to the opinion of some, I wasn’t. The only difference nowadays is that there are way too many Americans dumb enough to actually take it serious! I found that out with the a little help from my people on Independence Mall.

As we entered the Culture Club meeting room, I was rather surprised, or more accurately, saddened, by just how many concerned citizens didn’t show up. Hell, the free soda & pizza was enough to massage my hesitations about attending. And with the ever-suffocating cost-of-living index, you’d figured a hot meal gratis would be persuasion enough for at least a small contingent of broke, collegiate DNC-types to deal with an hour or so of 9th grade civics. But apparently, with only 20 – 25 of us present, the rest of the world must be sitting on some pretty full stomachs.

After a mad dash around the pizza table, I settled into my chair and began sizing up my fellow attendees. Now I know better than to judge a book by its cover, but I couldn’t help get the feeling that I accidentally stumbled into a Quaker anti-war meeting and not a heated debate in one of the most liberal, pissed off cities in America. With the exception of two sweet older Black ladies, a young Asian girl, and a silent 20s-something Chicano, the entire demographic was White, older, upper-to-middle class, and as I would soon find out, sickeningly polite & politically impotent. I guess this is who they’re speaking of when they speak of “outraged voters”. God help the movement.

Our moderator, an innocuous, mild mannered fellow, opened the evening with an amateur video collage of the usual late-night satirical shots launched at the political follies for that week. A few laughs and murmurs from the nervous attendees served to lighten the mood a bit. As the proceedings progressed, the group gradually delved deeper into the question, “does blurring the distinction between conventional media and ‘fake news’ serve to advance political debate or detract from it?” To me the answer was more obvious than not: any outlet that sparks interest in the classically-dull field of politics, especially of the 18-35 demographic, was a plus. Moreover, the genius of ‘fake news’ is that it puts the medicine in the dog’s food, wrapping politics in comedic flag and making it easily digestible to people who otherwise, could give a damn about the writ of habius corpus & campaign finance reform. It’s been too long since the Average Joe gave a shit enough to put down the remote control and pick up the protest sign. So if super-imposing Bush’s face on the back of camel’s ass gets his attention, then I’m all for it. But to my sad surprise, I found out I was in the minority…..

One of my major criticisms of the conservative movement is their asinine prioritization of the political issues. As we learned in the 2004 election, the rednecks in Kansas are more concerned with boys kissing in Massachusetts than Monsanto raping the cornfields outside of Topeka. In short, they are driven by impulse and not practicality. Well, as it turns out, “Progressives” aren’t so practically different after all. By and large, those in attendance, what I would describe as an accurate cross-section of the popular Progressive movement, were more concerned about the vulgarity in a George Carlin tirade than they were with understanding why exactly it is he’s so damn pissed off. This misdirected worry, the type I would expect from the Religious Right and not from Liberal lips, became evident throughout the course of the debate. In one telling instance, a member of our audience, dismissing Steven Colbert’s awesome display of testicular fortitude during his stinging critique of the Bush administration at the annual White House Correspondence Dinner as daft, was chastised by our moderator for saying “balls”. Apparently he was afraid of offending someone……awe, isn’t that sweet?!?!? Now maybe I’ve confused the 1st Amendment, but I find something quite hypocritical about capping someone’s speech in the home of the Constitution, you know, that little piece of paper guaranteeing our ability to speak freely about whatever the hell we want. It seems these pioneers of PC just don’t get it: political correctness is to the progressive movement what moral piety is to Conservatives….one big capricious, hypocritical banzai that does more to hurt than help the real issues at hand. To think that change can occur without first offending someone, anyone, is to be disillusioned. Because no matter what change it is you’re longing to see, there’s guaranteed to be someone out there who’s equally longing for it not to occur. And that my friend, is offensive. Progressives are staring so hard at the dreaming tree that they are missing the forest of reality.

‘Fake news’ by the likes of Colbert and Stewart, is intended to prove to politicians, through sarcasm, that we’re not as gullible as they may think we are: “Sir, it may look like you’re down there with the rank and file, swinging a hammer for humanity, but we all know damn well that it’s nothing more than a 15-second photo-op in between your 18th hole and lunch with Tom Delay.” But when comments are made by attendees, each one more aloof than the previous, demonstrating a profound misunderstanding of the sheer essence of ‘fake news’, comments such as “I’m afraid that kids nowadays only get their news from these fake shows”, or “I think people will misconstrue the puns and not take politics as a serious matter”, or “I was offended by Jay Leno’s joke about immigrants”, it just goes to reaffirm the opposite: we are really that stupid, Sir.

If you want to talk about ‘fake news’ that does real damage to the nations psyche, don’t harp on Steven Colbert, or Jon Stewart, or Louis Black, or Dennis Miller. Talk about the real fluff pieces, known as VNRs or Video News Releases, put out by George W. Bush and his puppets at some of the country's largest media companies including Clear Channel, News Corp, Viacom, the Tribune Company and Sinclair Broadcast, to push agendas as far from the best interest of the people as Pat Robertson is from being a Muslim. According to the Center for Media and Democracy, at least 77 TV stations around the country have been caught airing corporate-sponsored propaganda disguised as news releases in the past several months; corporations including General Motors, Intel and Pfizer. Or how about talking about Rendon, a DC-based PR firm hired by Chief Dubya via a no-bid contract to mastermind the propaganda war over Iraq and sell you a war of liberation which America bought….hook, line, and sinker. And yet sadly, somehow Progressives, like their conservative counterparts, have been fooled into thinking Bill Maher is a greater threat to national security than a war without end.

Having surmised beforehand that this juncture was going to be a referendum on the lack of reporting by a spineless American media, I soon came to the reality that this roundtable was nothing more than a blame session conducted & attended by a bunch of over-sensitive, politically righteous pussies who don’t understand that sometimes in order to beat them, you need to join them. And by “them”, I’m talking about the manipulative, conniving bastards who really run this country, the financiers better known as the corporations. Now I’m not advocating sinking to the level of fabricated terror threats or bogus oil shortages, but what I am saying is that sometimes it takes putting that medicine in the dog’s food to nurse it back to health. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the Conservative masterminds understand the power of smoke and mirrors better than the Marlboro Man on a coke binge. And until the Progressives, a title I wore proudly before this juncture, learn to maneuver inside of the callous world of Carl Rove, they will always be bent over a politically-correct barrel wondering why Soccer Moms in Spokane aren’t coming to their rescue. It’s the politics stupid! It’s the politics………

A Generation of Lost Causes

Succeeding Where The Baby Boomers Failed

Part I - Asleep at the Wheel

Damn if I haven't been this exhausted in quite some time. It's 2:30 in the morning and I'm struggling to stay awake. My eyelids, begging for mercy, feel like the feet of a mafia turncoat up Shits Crick...concrete and sinking fast. I can barely keep my body from free falling towards the floor. And to make matters worse, the only show after midnight worth a pot a piss in, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, is long but television history. Blind, broken and bored I am. But even that won’t help me with getting sleep any time soon.

As I often do when I'm anxious, I stare out of the window of my second-floor studio overlooking the concrete maze that is Manayunk, jealous at the sight of every blacked-out bedroom window I see. Besides the cast of usual suspects lurching around.... drunken collegiate hanger-ons, wannabe-Scarface drug thugs, transvestite prostitutes, and the local contingent of white trash..... I confirm that indeed the world has long ago put itself to bed....lucky bastards. This night, like so many before it, I am once again at the whims of that ruthless son-of-a-gun standing between me and the satin seduction of my bed......my brain. It seems I just can’t shut it off. So what is it tonight? What is it every night?

It happened as it usually does, with me obsessing over programming usually reserved for AARP types and that which most kids of my demographic would have me banished to a boring and un-hip hell for. Once again, I had the misfortune of hearing yet another respectable political and cultural critic make comment, no wait, better yet, almost laugh, at my generation’s incredible antipathy for all things political; about how we, Generation Y, suffer from a sad deficit of leadership, both politically and culturally; about how, when set next to the likes of Kent State, the 68’ Democratic Convention, or Olympic Black Power, the causes my generation chooses to rally around are almost an insult to rebellious spirit of youth; about how to kids nowadays, Che Guevara is less a revolutionist than a impotent fashion statement; and about how our concerns lie not with a controlling a reckless government but with getting recklessly out of control.... Basically, that we are asleep at the wheel. It would almost have been funny if it wasn’t so damn infuriating. Right then and there I wanted to jump through the television screen, kicking and screaming, “It’s just not true! We do care! We won’t let our country go to hell in a hand basket! We’re not just a bunch of latch-key losers easily distracted by superficial, artificial, & prejudicial bullshit!” But all I could do was hang my head in an angry shame and admit, “we’re not very convincing, are we?”

Part II - Driving Under the Influence

Now there are those like myself who want to believe that not every kid of my generation cares solely about themselves. And however modest, the past couple of years have at least brought a few attempts at funneling youth anger into political action, albeit some genuine and others for personal gain. However, in this, the age of immediate gratification, there is one fundamental truth that seems to have been forgotten: life is an art form not easily expressed or digested in 15-second sound bytes. And frankly, my generation has the attention span of fruit fly in field of shit. Now, before every self-righteous baby-boomer still high off the fumes of burning draft cards passes judgment on Generation Y’s inability to lift itself from up off the couch, understand one thing: our reality is not solely the fault of our own devices……. Frankly Mr. and Mrs. Baby Boomer, it is your fault too.

You see, you can blame us for a lot of things, and yes, for some things we are responsible. The insatiable consumption of violence & sexual degradation in entertainment being one example. But the truth is, people are products of their environments and you Sir and Ma’am, are the ones responsible for creating the world in which my generation has grew up in and now inherits. It is you who are responsible for creating a generation of kids so high on Prozac and disillusioned by corporate-consumer information overload that they’d rather vote for American Idols than American presidents. At least you guys had the option of sobriety....we're just driving under the influence of the drugs you fed us. Yup, it is you who has taught us the only real religion in America is that of the almighty dollar. It is you who markets, advertises, pushes, pimps, whores out, and sells every last thing that you think might distract us from a micro-moment of genuine thought. It is you who have financed and outsourced my generation’s hopes of a prosperous future to the likes of China, India, and Saudi Arabia. You are the ones who have raped Mother Nature and left us with a threat in global warning superior to anything human kind has ever known. Job Security? A joke. Social Security? Depleted. Universal healthcare? None. Surely you’ve at least taught us morality right? ....Ha-ha, now that one’s almost too easy. It is you who have allowed, yet again, fear, greed, and lies hidden behind a guise of “national security” to strip us of our rights and get us into a war that we can’t get out of……starting to sound familiar???? All this from a generation who swore by "peace, love, and prosperity".....please! One would think you would’ve learned these lessons when it was your asses that were on the line, but apparently you haven’t. And now you, like your parents before you, are leaving us to clean up the mess you created. Why? Because those who forget history are bound to repeat it! But………..

Fear not Greg Palast, and Chris Matthews, and Tom Wolfe, and Marty Moss Coane, and Neil Young, and every other baby-boomer who holds back the laughter (or tears) when they realize the future of America is in the hands of generation that appears to not give a damn…….all is not lost, my friends. Because, contrary to popular belief, not all of us belong to the band of aloof brats who would rather sink into a Sex in the City rerun than partake in some good old social justification. So rest assured, as long as there are poor saps like you to remind us what it’s like to fall short of our dreams, there will always be at least one motivated kid whose sole purpose is to see to it that this generation succeeds where yours has failed. And it’s like that!……….

And So It Begins........

Well, I've finally done it.... With this post, I've finally decided to thrust myself into the endless abyss of the twenty-four hour piss & moan match. A virtual sounding stage peppered with cliche and rife with contradiction. A world filled with obscure souls laying bare their innermost observations only to be fried under the unrelenting rays of the worlds sun-splashed lens.....you know, the real American Idol. Yes my friend, that's right..... I'm talking about the bloggosphere. Oh, the good old Rand-McNally of the information superhighway. The only place in the universe where a two-fart dairy farmer with a T1 can trade wits with a latte-sipping limosuine liberal over the pros & cons of an impending nuclear armegedeon. Can't you just feel the love already.....mmm, mmm, mmm. Look out world!...for there's one more narsacistic asshole coming to take over this here party. And he's got a guitar in one hand and an agenda in the other. So sit back, relax, and strap on your seatbelt....welcome to my world; the world of the BlueCollarKid.... enjoy the ride.........