Everything's a Competition in America

                                                   [picture source] Life in America today!

"When you look at how competitive most Americans are with each other to be "successful" with all the one-up-manship going on in this country even in families, it becomes a dog-eat-dog environment. America is a breeding ground of competition to be the best at all costs. When this fails, violence and mayhem result. "

Seen as a comment on website discussing economic collapse.

There's a reason narcissism and sociopathy are increasing in American society. If anything the system trains one to become one to survive.


My high school years were during the Reagan-Bush era, and everyday we were indoctrinated that only "winners" count and that everyone else was a loser. This was promoted via the top 20 and constant pep rallies that celebrated the top 5% of jocks, where they ignored most of the rest of the team. The teachers backed this stuff up, but in the halcyon 1980s there was the air of a teacher being a job for a "loser" even though obviously I found out the hard way getting a high paying teaching job in a suburban school district demanded a state of health and connections I didn't have. Only the stock brokers counted and the BMW drivers back then. I wonder how many young suicides occur in modern American high schools like this where the idea of "never measuring" up is pushed every day.

This is the training for the micro-cosm of the world sadly. Society is like that high school of mine, where 3.5 earning me who loved art and history was a "Nobody" among the ranks with the attention seekers sucking it in like a drug. You think the movie "Heathers" was dark comedy? Sadly it was reality in terms of representing an American high school where the aim was to destroy all your foes, sometimes literally in that movie.

Families today all compete, and if someone slides through the cracks, even if they are disabled, the family is disgusted and throws them away. Unemployed Uncle Charlie is an embarrassment. One sees 20 something lives virtually destroyed as that bonifide job never comes through. Every job must be competed for and unless you have a lithe body, perfect health, aren't too old, have great clothes, and a conformist personality or one they consider a "good fit", you are tossed in the unemployable bin. This is why you see people with very slight differences who seem to end up forever in the poverty pile. They can't hide their shaky hands, or their old age and wrinkles, or the bags under their eyes. Sure some healthy competition and standards are good, I don't want some guy with an alcohol problem flying a plane or someone with festering sores all over their hands putting fruit on the grocery store shelf, but there's a problem when only the most "fit" and "elite" can get jobs that actually will pay the bills.

Why is work now a weeding out process? I want you to think in your head right now, about all the people you know who are actually GOOD at something and at the same time are poor and have no opportunity to utilize these skills.  They could do well at a job using these skills but because of the endless gate-keepers and hoop jumping are left out in the cold!

How many humans now live lives of quiet despair, knowing their skills and talents don't fit in anywhere and where there is no place for them because competition and "in groups" and "connections" run the show? How much human talent is being WASTED in this rotten system? Why are we getting millions literally of THROW AWAY people?

This is one reason the most corrupt, the most lacking in the morals, those who can put on an appearance are the ones rising to the top, leaving normal people with morals, and desire to help and care about their families and communities behind. Our builders of day to day commerce have been replaced by competitive blood-suckers. That is a problem that is going to haunt this country and one that is going to majorly bite it in the butt.  The problem is when competition is taken too far, and the "winners" no longer care about the rest of humanity but only themselves and being selfish. That is a problem. I'm not preaching Communism as the solution or collectives, but how about some of the sharks getting a clue about life? How about some of the masses rethinking what is important in life or seeing through the narcissist games. Maybe they will throw up along with me at all the disgusting shallow celebrities who put themselves on display.

What happens if you don't succeed? You are cast onto the trash heap. You are considered a non-person. This is one sick society where human beings have been made into literal cogs in the wheel, to be disposed of or shut out. Humanity is being drummed out of people when the bucket lists and resumes full of corporate activities matter more then their very soul.  --The Squawker