First, an apology: I’ve been kept busy in a new job (after 4 years of unemployment) at a statistical modeling firm. I made $75k as a Senior Product Engineer. Now I make $60k, or 20% LESS than before. I guess that qualifies me as “under-employed.” I thought about this blog entry preparing to comment on another called “The Jobless Jihad.” I worked for $6.25/hr slinging boxes for UPS. I was told I was “overqualified based on my years of experience” (translation: old). Cows have “gotta eat.”

I tried, during my four-year roam in the wilderness, taking a part-time martial arts school to fulltime. I was not successful. I had to close it and reorganize, teaching at the YMCA. I blogged my angst and depression on: http://outsourcedamerican.blogspot.com. That became a book called “Unemployed: A Memoir.” I feel your pain.

Where did the real America go? Was it ever “real” or a promise? If we were dreaming, political think tanks funded by corporate America have been fully awake and fully engaged in controlling our government to their collective benefit.

The 60s saw the Civil Rights struggle over the words “all men are created equal,” and the Warner Commission correctly identified “two Americas.” Now, those two Americas are more class than race: the “haves” and the “have nots.”

Our politicians of both parties are beholden to corporate dollars for their campaigns. Therefore, other than whom we like (a personal decision), there is little to no difference in the minutiae rhetoric of any candidate in the presidential race. Republicans and Democrats are the right and left arms of the business community, that WANT to depress wages and increase corporate profits; that WANT to increase high-end investor returns and rape 401k accounts (Enron) and WANT to send jobs overseas to places like China where they have more people unemployed than the US has employed and can depress wages for even white collar workers. “The chickens are coming home to roost” as Malcolm X said with substandard dog food, human food, drug products and GHB date-rape-drug “aqua dots.”

This is NOT an advocacy of third-party candidates, however. I think that they are brought out to give the electorate a “choice” that is no choice. Ross Perot drained votes from George H.W. Bush like Ralph Nader drains votes from the Democratic candidate.

Since a democratic republic is from the consent “of the governed,” our jobs don’t end on Election Day!

Don’t give up. It is still “our America,” if “We the People” fight for it!

I hope things have gotten better for you. I apologize also for not getting back to you in August when this posting was fresh.

No, you’re not losing it! It’s systematic of a “global economy” that rewards the upper 1% regardless of country or political parties and leaves the rest of us scratching our heads.

No, you’re not stupid. The people over you are worried that you may have the game figured out! Knowledge makes you a threat.

You are probably as I am: hopelessly sane in an insane world.

Regards,

Reggie Goodwin, Author
“Unemployed: A Memoir”

No, I’m not stupid, but I spend 40 hrs./wk being made to feel like a dunce.

Maybe that’s why they don’t offer health insurance - too many people would be going to psychiatrists!

This book began as a blog/rant about losing my job and hence, my male definition “who I was.”

I’m really quite a nerd, and was content with my contribution to the corporate good until retirement.

I hope my honesty helps some that you are not what you do, and that true self-worth comes from within.

Regards,

Reggie Goodwin, Author
“Unemployed: A Memoir”

The Cliff Walk: A Memoir of a Job Lost and a Life Found by Don J. Snyder (Author)