Think about your childhood. You may have dreamed of becoming an astronaut, a police officer, President of the United States. What you probably did not dream of was selling out. So why are we doing it?
Lame Childhood Dreams
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The TMI Show" talk show. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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Other choices too «radical» ? Not sufficiently «moderate» (unlike in the Salafist armed groups which the US creates and supports in various parts of the world when they come in handy and then fights – or hires others to fight – when that becomes opportune) ?…
Henri
At some point, just about everyone has to get a job. The police have a few openings for officers who will bring in more in fines than their salaries. Insurance companies are hiring people who will deny claims. Getting elected president one has to be like Obama or Clinton or the Bushes or Trump (and I can’t see that much difference if one goes by actions and not words). And even if you promise to be just like Clinton or Trump, only one person gets that job every four years, and it probably won’t be you.
Fail to issue enough citations, or approve too many claims and you get fired, and how will you pay the rent and feed your kids?
Surely one can take a job doing good, can’t one? I couldn’t find such a job that paid. So I took what I could get. Like just about everyone else, Boomer, Gen X, Gen Y, Millennial…
“Surely one can take a job doing good, can’t one? I couldn’t find such a job that paid.”
Many people hate people who get paid for doing good. They know their own pay is earned by carrying the burden of Moral Conflict and think it unfair that some can be both happy AND paid.
When so many people are morally compromised by their jobs, those who manage to be morally unconflicted (aside from sociopaths) are subject to moral envy.
Do see Ted Rall’s excellent column “Trump Gets Away with Stuff Because He Does” for the costs of being true to one’s vision.
David Graeber makes the moral envy argument in his book “Bullshit Jobs”.