I keep hoping against hope that I can save up enough money to attend the Augusta Heritage Workshops this summer in Elkins, WV as I have done every year since 1989. Gas and food prices are making it nearly prohibitive to do so, but I still have my uncashed $600 "economic stimulus" check from Uncle Sam that I keep hoping will get me there somehow. I also have a $52 check from an overpayment on a debt that I am saving in hopes of using that as well to get down to Elkins, so I have a total of $652 saved up for the trip, but it will cost $787 total between room, board and tuition, meaning I'd have to come up with an extra $135 on my own. Plus I'd need some spending money plus gas money, so we're probably talking an extra couple hundred dollars right there. I'm not so sure I can come up with that much in a month's time, even though I am now taking the bus to work instead of driving in order to save money. I'm thinking of shopping at dollar stores and at Big Lots from now on to save even more money instead of going to the regular stores at which I have shopped for so long. Even doing that may not succeed in helping me save enough to go on both of my summer vacation trips this year. That I have to live like a poor person from now on rather rankles me. That I have now been reduced to being considered to be in the income level now considered to be "the working poor" is also just a stunning blow. There has been such a dramatic redistribution of wealth in this country in the past 8 years that what we once knew as the Middle Class has now all but vanished into a historical footnote. We now live in a country of haves and have nots, without much in between. And I don't think that there will ever again exist a once mighty middle class like there was when I was growing up, the economic engine of this country's unprecedented post-WWI prosperity. Why there exist people who, for 40+ years, have been hell bent on dismantling the whole idea of a prosperous and comfortable middle class is beyond me, but apparently, this all began with Goldwater and has been building for over 40 years now to our current class of NeoCons, who have been angrily resenting our withdrawal from VietNam ever since it happened. Their answer to the world's problems has been to build a mighty American Empire that would rule through military might and power and would create a ruling class of elites who would accumulate most of the wealth of this country in order to squelch the peon middle class, the root of all evil as far as they are concerned, because it was middle class kids attending college who fomented so much of the protests against the VietNam War. Ah, well, don't
even get me started - I could go on at length about my thoughts on the NeoCons and how evil they are.
Another summer vacation that has fallen into doubt is the annual Pennsic War, the major event of the year of the Society for Creative Anachronism, of which I have been a member for 31 years now. This annual event attracts tens of thousands of SCA folks from around the world, and for two weeks every summer, we are the second largest city in Butler County, PA. Like anything else, it's become far more expensive to attend as costs escalate, and I suspect that owing to runaway inflation, attendance will be down sharply this year. Gas prices are doubtless going to be sharply higher the closer we get to Labor Day and the end of summer, so I consider myself lucky that I live a mere 85 miles from the site, making my drive a not very gas consuming affair to get there. It's the other costs that can get tough to shoulder, like food, water, etc. Food prices are up sharply as well, leaving me to wonder if I can make this event this summer. That my normal summer sojourns are in such doubt this year angers me to no end, because it's due mainly to the fact that food and gas prices have doubled in one short year and for what? The media insists that speculation on oil futures is not to blame for high gas prices and that the Iowa floods this year is to blame for the ridiculous food prices we're paying. How flooding in one state can so deeply affect food prices is beyond me, but then, I don't know everything about economic stuff works. All I know is that an income which used to easily sustain me doesn't anymore, and I am being forced to make choices that aren't pleasant to me at all. I feel like a victim of something so much larger than myself that I can do nothing to affect. I can make changes, make sacrifices, etc., but that's not going to do squat to change the situation at large. We're being held hostage by Wall Street and we can do nothing to change what can't be changed, no matter what we do or say. None of the Presidential candidates, should either of them win in November, are going to be able to do a damned thing, either, once they take office. They're largely powerless to do so. There are an elite few who are making all the rules and setting all the prices and we're basically at their mercy. In other words, we don't really live in a democracy at all. We haven't for a very long time now. We basically live under an oligarchy that would set our Founding Fathers rolling in their graves. How it got to this point, I don't know. How we can restore our country to what our Founders wanted, I don't know. All I know is that this isn't the country I signed up to live in. May we use this upcoming Independence Day to declare our independence from the elites who are in power and to begin the restoration of our once democratic country.
I keep hoping against hope that I can save up enough money to attend the Augusta Heritage Workshops this summer in Elkins, WV as I have done every year since 1989. Gas and food prices are making it nearly prohibitive to do so, but I still have my uncashed $600 "economic stimulus" check from Uncle Sam that I keep hoping will get me there somehow. I also have a $52 check from an overpayment on a debt that I am saving in hopes of using that as well to get down to Elkins, so I have a total of $652 saved up for the trip, but it will cost $787 total between room, board and tuition, meaning I'd have to come up with an extra $135 on my own. Plus I'd need some spending money plus gas money, so we're probably talking an extra couple hundred dollars right there. I'm not so sure I can come up with that much in a month's time, even though I am now taking the bus to work instead of driving in order to save money. I'm thinking of shopping at dollar stores and at Big Lots from now on to save even more money instead of going to the regular stores at which I have shopped for so long. Even doing that may not succeed in helping me save enough to go on both of my summer vacation trips this year. That I have to live like a poor person from now on rather rankles me. That I have now been reduced to being considered to be in the income level now considered to be "the working poor" is also just a stunning blow. There has been such a dramatic redistribution of wealth in this country in the past 8 years that what we once knew as the Middle Class has now all but vanished into a historical footnote. We now live in a country of haves and have nots, without much in between. And I don't think that there will ever again exist a once mighty middle class like there was when I was growing up, the economic engine of this country's unprecedented post-WWI prosperity. Why there exist people who, for 40+ years, have been hell bent on dismantling the whole idea of a prosperous and comfortable middle class is beyond me, but apparently, this all began with Goldwater and has been building for over 40 years now to our current class of NeoCons, who have been angrily resenting our withdrawal from VietNam ever since it happened. Their answer to the world's problems has been to build a mighty American Empire that would rule through military might and power and would create a ruling class of elites who would accumulate most of the wealth of this country in order to squelch the peon middle class, the root of all evil as far as they are concerned, because it was middle class kids attending college who fomented so much of the protests against the VietNam War. Ah, well, don't even get me started - I could go on at length about my thoughts on the NeoCons and how evil they are.
Another summer vacation that has fallen into doubt is the annual Pennsic War, the major event of the year of the Society for Creative Anachronism, of which I have been a member for 31 years now. This annual event attracts tens of thousands of SCA folks from around the world, and for two weeks every summer, we are the second largest city in Butler County, PA. Like anything else, it's become far more expensive to attend as costs escalate, and I suspect that owing to runaway inflation, attendance will be down sharply this year. Gas prices are doubtless going to be sharply higher the closer we get to Labor Day and the end of summer, so I consider myself lucky that I live a mere 85 miles from the site, making my drive a not very gas consuming affair to get there. It's the other costs that can get tough to shoulder, like food, water, etc. Food prices are up sharply as well, leaving me to wonder if I can make this event this summer. That my normal summer sojourns are in such doubt this year angers me to no end, because it's due mainly to the fact that food and gas prices have doubled in one short year and for what? The media insists that speculation on oil futures is not to blame for high gas prices and that the Iowa floods this year is to blame for the ridiculous food prices we're paying. How flooding in one state can so deeply affect food prices is beyond me, but then, I don't know everything about economic stuff works. All I know is that an income which used to easily sustain me doesn't anymore, and I am being forced to make choices that aren't pleasant to me at all. I feel like a victim of something so much larger than myself that I can do nothing to affect. I can make changes, make sacrifices, etc., but that's not going to do squat to change the situation at large. We're being held hostage by Wall Street and we can do nothing to change what can't be changed, no matter what we do or say. None of the Presidential candidates, should either of them win in November, are going to be able to do a damned thing, either, once they take office. They're largely powerless to do so. There are an elite few who are making all the rules and setting all the prices and we're basically at their mercy. In other words, we don't really live in a democracy at all. We haven't for a very long time now. We basically live under an oligarchy that would set our Founding Fathers rolling in their graves. How it got to this point, I don't know. How we can restore our country to what our Founders wanted, I don't know. All I know is that this isn't the country I signed up to live in. May we use this upcoming Independence Day to declare our independence from the elites who are in power and to begin the restoration of our once democratic country.
1 comment:
Yes, I have lot's of plannings for summer vacations including the trip to Hawaii.
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