I love that Hermann Cain said, “If you’re not rich blame yourself!” That’s the sort of mantra I grew up with in my house. I’m from a lower middle class family and lived my childhood in Oakland, Ca. I’m white and went to mostly black schools. Before I go further, I grew up with great friends, and have absolutely no complaints about my community.
Anyway, when I was growing up in the late 70’s and early 80’s I was peppered with quotes from my favorite uncle who said things like:
“In life you make excuses or you make progress!”
“In life, you’re going to find what you’re looking for. If you look for happiness you’ll find it but, if you look for mysery you’ll find that, too.”
“You don’t tell people how good you are, you show them.”
“If you are really that good, you won’t have to tell people, they’ll tell you.”
“There’s nothing to anything but, do it”
“The more people whinning and complaining about the system, the fewer people you have to compete with for the next job that comes up.”
Anyway, you get the point. There was no excuse making in my family. As a result, I worked myself through college (75 hour work weeks and no sleep some nights) and I made it. I thank god I had such a wonderful uncle instead of Barack Obama as my mentor.
My kids are both high school age, now. We look at the occupy Wall Street crowd and I tell them, “Guys, it’s tough in the world but, the bigger this crowd gets, the fewer people you’ll have to compete with for a job.
Sadly, the youth of today are getting their values from TV talking heads.
I feel blessed to have been born before TV and the Internet - didn’t know it then;) Sounding just like my Mom now - although she told us ‘When I was a kid we didn’t have running water, electricity etc.,’
Will tell my children how lucky I was to have ponies, well water we had to pull up on a rope, oil lamps and no TV - only Sunday School!!!!
I think this is also why Cain appeals to me. I made it pretty well in life and yet I come from NOTHING. I worked against the odds to get through college, to succeed in a career and in my personal life as well.
I was given nothing, EVER. (Scratch that ...my dad did give me $500 dollars ONCE to get through my first sememster in school. After that, he didn’t give me another dime.)
Cain is a totally self-made man. Doesn’t even appear that he took advantage of affirmative action crap, either. He just worked hard and had a bit of smarts. He seems to have attitude, mostly — and that is exactly what anyone needs.
There are a LOT of smart people, yet most don’t have the right attitude towards life. Namely, liberals and young goofballs of the sort that are camping out in NYC.