Apology - was RE: [Rhodes22-list] Politics Geraldo Rivera reports

[Rik Sandberg]

Slim,

No....I think I said that.

Sorry, but I spent my time as poor folk too, working my way up from the 
bottom of the ladder. Nobody (at least very few) get to start from the top. 
We worked our way out of being broke by working however many jobs it took, 
day, night, weekends, whatever. Many's the time 80 hours would have been a 
short week for both of us. Still is, many weeks in the summertime, even 
yet. Where is it written that we are all supposed to be prosperous, just 
because we work 40 hours a week. In my case it took a heck of a lot more 
than that. No Slim, it really doesn't take more than ambition and half a 
lick of good sense to succeed. I don't consider the guy that is only 
willing to work 40 hours a week, even if that isn't enough to keep him in 
sno-mobiles and fishing boats, particularly ambitious.

One has to do what it takes, nobody (surely not me) was ever told it would 
be easy.

Rik


At 03:13 PM 4/5/2004, you wrote:
>On 4/5/04 12:55 PM, "Rik Sandberg" <sanderico at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > Most poor folks are that way because they either have little ambition, make
> > bad choices, ot both.
>
>Didn't Archie Bunker say that?  Most of the poor I see are "working poor"
>who hold min. wage jobs bustin' their butts because that's all that's
>available.  Or they're young people right out of college--neither lazy nor
>stupid--who borrowed money for tuition and now looking for work and can't
>find it.  And they have this giant debt over their heads and they're gonna
>be poor for a long time.  Or they're immigrants who are just learning how to
>be Americans.  They're trying to better themselves, learn English, etc., but
>it's a long, hard road to success.  Or they're small business owners who
>work 80 hour weeks to pour every dollar back into their biz just to keep it
>up and running, and have nothing left over for health ins, for example.  I
>know there's no shortage of lazy, stupid people on the dole, but to
>characterize "most poor folks" that way is wrong.  It takes more than
>ambition and good choices to succeed.  Dare I say, this is especially true
>if you're non-white.
>Slim
>
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