Hey tom, I think you have toooooootally
missed the whole reserve army of labor
thing. The whole idea is that they are
supposed to be poor because it works
better for us that way. Monica, I think you
missed the boat too.

Tom I loathe your "so and so did it"
attitude. I loathe it because those kind of
attitudes refuse to look at the big picture.
The matter of the fact and by statistics as
well is that many members of our society
do not have the ability to make their own
destiny. Yes, many individual stories do
come out, but the majority is stuck. In the
colony days it was those that could not
get away from unfair taxes and laws, for
slaves it was slavery, for settlers in the
west it was sickness and life tragedies,
for Native americans it was white settlers,
for Mexican immigrants it is their race and
language and immigrant status, for
blacks and other "minorities" it is race, for
women it is gender, for poor people it is
jobs.... and the fact that they are in the
RAOL. They are perishable goods. Not
because they will not work hard enough,
but because we only use them when we
need them. Why should someone have
to move all around the country just to feed
himself or his family? Many of these
people are not in the reserve army of labor by choice but
because corporations would rather pay
cheaper wages than pay workers here,
because we need someone to blame
when the economy is down, because we
don't want an economy where everyone
has a job.

I am not sure if you live from the
assumption that lawmakers and people
in high places want everyone to have a
job, but you might want to take time
during this class to really look at that if
you do. I don't see that as the case...