And the National Colors Are… Grey and Green (at least for the moment)

In this week’s grist, there was an article that overviewed job tactics and career ideas for the New Year. One aspect mentioned in the article touched on the wish of graying Americans to increase the civil rights umbrella to include the elderly. As the largest growing group in America, the elderly are becoming dependant upon their retirement plans (many of which are small or non-existent). Those relying upon Social Security are realizing that it “is not, and was never meant to be, and adequate income, and not all workers have good pension plans.” In “Remake a Living: New Year, new career”, the pensions and social security plans are also mentioned as “becoming quaint anachronisms in many industries” and as “more than a bit shaky”. The article even relates to a quote by Lily Tomlin saying “We’re all in this alone”. It seems that the creation of Social Security, although a good idea in theory, has been misinterpreted by America as a means of reliable resource after retirement. It might have been more beneficial in the first place to avoid social security to some extent in order to prevent any reliance upon it. In other words, if someone knows that they will get something for “free” later in life, why would they work hard for it? Advice given in the article is somewhat unhelpful stating frugal living and friends as a means of coping. It also ends with a blunt “but you’re going to need money, too”. Ideally one could live a life of non-materialism and would never have to worry about the trifling comforts of the rich and middle class, but hey, this is America and we like what we have and are unwilling to accept the inability to get more.
For those willing to continue work and put off the reliance upon outside aid, it has been made somewhat easier to continue a profession. The restriction of funds to institutions that discriminate based upon age has helped middle aged employees, and it has also benefited the “housewives and veterans who want to return to school”. In our constantly changing modern world, there is a constant influx of information and in order to keep up, it is often necessary to intermittently continue one’s education. This had been difficult as graduate programs often were hesitant to accept those in their thirties, but lately, it has been easier due to the government’s reminder to institutions that they hold the purse strings. As for the older generation, the Age Discrimination Employment Act that rose the compulsory retirement age to 70 has made it easier for the elderly to continue working (if that is something they wish to or still need to do). Overall, America’s increasingly aged population has seen adequate success in gaining equal rights in the workplace.
Another issue that recently surfaced was the introduction of the Green party into the presidential campaign. The party has no official candidate yet, but it did hold their first presidential debate last weekend in San Francisco. The event (reported as a “Debate that Matters”) was relatively calm: “the candidates spent much of the time visibly agreeing with each other (as opposed to the major-party candidates mostly agreeing with each other but striving to play up minor differences).” This seems somewhat out of character when considering the recent jabbing that has taken place, but it also resembles the current political stance on the environment. Each candidate only has a given solution that their lobbyists have provided and because that given solution is the only one that any political or other expert has been able to develop, each candidate has a very similar platform. Other candidates who have taken a more radical stance have proven that such a platform will not be successful. Joe Biden was a strong proponent of strict environmental reform; something that played a part in his lack of support. Few can argue that a cleaner environment is a bad thing, but many could argue that Biden’s ideas on how to achieve the clean environment would require too much interference from government.
The Green Party still has to choose a candidate, but Cynthia McKinney is believed to be the current favorite. If she were chosen, it’s possible she could negatively affect the Democrats by pulling some environmentally focused Democratic votes in for her campaign. Because of an increase in environmental awareness, the number of voters supporting her could potentially create a Ralph Nadar-esque effect. Either that, or McKinney will end up dropping out in the later stages and putting her support (and subsequently her votes) behind another candidate.

Articles “The Third Party from the Left” and “Remake a Living: New Year, new career” from Grist.org along with the text were used as sources