I thought I would write my first post on the day of the Buffett Rule vote. A small special occasion I'm using to emerge. I've been thinking a lot about the Buffett Rule, our hodge-podge economic policies, and whatever happened to us psychologically as a people to allow for so much exploitation and silent discontent. If there is a certain etiquette or tradition to first diary posts, I am unaware of it, so perhaps you could forgive my sloppy transition past the fold.
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
That's a quote commonly attributed to John Steinbeck. He may not have said it, or said it that way, but it actually doesn't really matter. I should also mention that I'm not talking about socialism. I'm talking about America.
I grew up in the upper-middle. We were always just fine. Nice, modest sized house in the suburbs. Wanted for very little. I went to a good, expensive university. During the worst of the recession, I left school mid-way through because we were simply unable to pay for it anymore without going in to an unworkable amount of debt.
I was ok with it. I'm an actor. I can do my work without a degree and I did. And I'm still just fine.
Just like any job, you start picking up on the parts of the business/trade/career that most of the people in the field complain about or have issues with. Some of actors' major complaints: constantly unemployed, daily rejection, which results in perpetual lack of self confidence (in a career where self-confidence is required both to get the job and to do the job), strange hours, bad pay... the list can go on, just like any career. And when I complain or hear others complain about this, I have little sympathy for us. We knew what we were getting into when we got into it, and that's just the way it works.
The one complaint, however, that gets me every time, the one that I can't get over and bothers me every single day, is the profound lack of respect we're given. When I tell someone "I'm an actor", there is a short moment of surprise, a question about if I've ever been in anything they've seen (no, I wasn't in the Hunger Games, sorry to say) and then pity. A condescending, slightly confused, pity. At such a point, I would love to say "Yes, I am poor, probably I always will be. And I don't need your sympathy."
All the other actors I talk to have similar stories. What's so fascinating about that whole exchange is if I had said "Yeah, I was in Hunger Games, I played the dude with the nose" it would have catapulted the conservation to the entire other end of the spectrum. I would have been adored. Revered. They would have asked questions about the process and thought I was more attractive because of it. Sometimes I want to answer this way. To see how it feels. To see the way people look at me. And at those moments, I am a temporarily embarrassed millionaire.
The income inequality in this country is vast. And it's growing. And the majority, an outrageously large majority of the voting public are being negatively affected by this inequality. Considering this, you might find it absurd or bewildering that this issue hasn't become a major talking point (until now, perhaps...?) in the presidential campaign. How have the very wealthy managed to scrape through a major recession with no tax increases? That's just it. We'll never vote for the Buffett Rule when it raises taxes on our future selves and our future peers. Problem is, our future peers want fewer peers.
[edit: Buffett spelling]