Reply #17: My favorite part:

[TwilightGardener]

"our very nation will continue to disintegrate into indebtured-servitude, mindless consumerism, shittier jobs, and longer hours"--sorry, I don't buy that life is harder today than in years past. "Mindless consumerism" is something that WE THE PEOPLE do--nobody forces us to spend our money. If I want to buy some worthless trinket off ebay, or a new Hummer, or whatever, that's under MY control. What "shittier jobs" are you referring to: cutting chickens' heads off in processing plants? Standing at a factory assembly line? Cleaning out bins of rotten corn at grain elevators? Does anyone at DU actually DO these jobs, or do we mostly work in the safe, clean white-collar or customer-service arena? Why are our jobs "shitty", then? It's a free country--go do whatever you'd like.

My working-class parents didn't give me a dime for college. I got student loans, a solid university education, and a ticket to a middle-class income. As a nurse (not working as one now), I worked 36 hours (three shifts) a week--not excessive. Plenty of time off, enough money to pay the bills, and buy trinkets off of ebay. Many of us in America got exactly the kind of life we wanted. There's almost no excuse for not doing so. I don't blame Hillary, Obama, or any other Dem politician for my "shitty" life, because frankly, my life--in every conceivable way--is much easier than my parents' or grandparents' lives--and I'm willing to bet it's the same for most of DU. Your anger is misdirected. Get pissed off at Republicans for their warmongering that makes us unsafe and hated in the world, or their attempts to kill Roe V. Wade and send women back to the coat-hanger, or their BIG-TIME corporate-loving ways (much more so than Dems) that will poison our environment, or their "screw you, got mine" attitude.