Thread: How do other nations see us?

No, this is not a thread apologizing about how other nations see us badly. No, this is about reality, versus what commercials and TV portrays the "all-American lifestyle"......

For instance. A commerical just on for Comcast (now calling themselves "Xfinity"). They are promoting basically more service and more equipment in order to have start a movie in one room and finish it in another...this commercial says the bathroom! They show this large bedroom like bathroom with a flat screen TV on the wall. Really? Do people really have a TV in every room of their home, including their plush bathroom? Why would you be in there long enough to finish the movie?

Then there is the whole Christmas season...We all know how that is, the main reason so many people seek out mental health professionals more that time of year than any, and unfortunately, more instances of suicides. Depression caused by unreasonable expectations made impossible by all the advertising for everything to supposedly make you have a nice happy family and home, but.....

Then watching HGTV for the heck of it lately, and it is all about selling homes and buying, except it seems we're talking about it during a time when so many have lost their homes, maybe have none. These homes being sold or talked about are in the millions, in NY city, posh places with it all...not my reality, how about yours? I used to watch HGTV when it was about decorating on a dime, re-using your stuff to make it nice, creating a nice patio place with things you had, but not anymore.

I know these are just miniscule examples, and know many of you can think of stuff you have seen on TV that does not fit the reality of everyday working Americans lives.

So I had to wonder if this is the way that illegal immigrants and legal immigrants, think their lives are going to be when they come here? Do they truly believe that we all have 36 inch flat screen TV's in our bathrooms? I know I don't, it would get knocked off the wall for the sheer lack of space when someone was flinging the towel around their body (our bathroom is about 7 feet by 8 feet, no I am not kidding, I have seen wheelchair accessible outhouses bigger).

Do illegal aliens come here from their nation, mainly Mexico, thinking we are all wealthy enough to have what they see on TV? So do they think upon coming here they will get rich enough to live like the TV shows them we supposedly do, and then when reality hits, they believe it is somehow us keeping them from having it all, like some secret club we are just not letting them into?

Where we live, we have actually had kids who were friends of our kids, say that we were "rich". My son would laugh and ask what gave them that idea. Most said it was passed along by their parents to them, that all white people are rich, and just don't share it with others..... Then my son would say "so if we are rich, then why would we be living here?". We actually had one kid say he was told it was because we were hiding it (wish someone would tell me where).....OK.....

I truly think others come here thinking what they have seen in advertising and on shows out of the U.S., that we are all well to do and have all manner of money at our disposal, and then the groups such as LaRaza grasp that and lead them to believe we are just trying to cheat them all out of that. Propaganda to get them to jump on the ethno-centrics groups bandwagon.

Reality is, we work our backends off, we barely pay the bills, we hope to be able to actually have enough to get the kids food and needed shoes or clothing, but in the end the parents almost always put off needed things for themselves. We do not always own homes, or sometimes even cars, and having a "savings" account is a dream (maybe someday..).

That Comcast/XFinity commercial really made me wonder, do people really have TV's like that in their bathrooms? They made me even question if we are just a backwards American family, or is this just their advertising? Then if I can be made to question this reality, surely someone not from here see's this kind of advertising propoganda would be convinced it must be so, and this adds fuel to the fire for someone contemplating coming here illegally.

Yes, just like some people think that stealing from large corporations is OK, they think that even if we don't have it our family does and that our family will pick us up after they take all we have. Most of us are assimilated into contemporary culture so much that we don't have much family anymore or our family is just as broke as we are. They also think that just as they have access to charity just for them - we must have the same just for us. I don't think that they believe how alone and on our own so many of us are with no support, no back-up.

What gets me is all the kidnappings and ransoms in Mexico. If they are so poor how do they come up with $50K to pay a ransom? I could not come up with that here. Do the banks have much looser lending policies there in order to accommodate that problem?

I do not understand it, how can a group give out charity to just one ethnic group? I have often thought about walking in and asking for help, and if they refused me, I could bring charges of racial discrimination against them, just to prove the point that they are giving help based on one issue, ethnicity, and how ludicrous and biased it is.

Our own brainwashed society hears of these groups, and they go "oh, that's nice they help them", not realizing how backwards it is. We would simply never be allowed to have an "Anglo-American Charity", you know that, no one would stand for it, yet we have charities which cater to the Latino communities....

As for the family connections, it can depend on your own families closeness. I am from a very close family of six, and although we are all in our seperate homes, with kids, we do help each other out always. If one family within ours is struggling we all chip in to make sure they have food for their kids. But...we simply cannot and will not live with each other as the illegal aliens do, that is the difference. I feel bad for families who do not feel the same about aiding each other in tough times, I find it sad and it leaves me feeling lonely for the person who is experiencing it.

LOL! I don't have to see it on tv - I just go to Facebook. I'm not big on posting on Facebook - I think it opens the door to a lot of drama that doesn't need to be.

However, recently I got back in touch with an old friend of mine from 9th grade. She grew up in a house that was only half as nice as mine was. Now years later, turns out she married a fabulously wealthy older man.

They have homes in WA state and Rancho Santa Fe. They recently acquired the home in RSF that belonged to the owner of Cobra golf. She has posted pics of it all over Facebook and Classmates.com along with her prize show horses.

The place looks like a luxury resort. While Im happy for her good luck, part of me was thinking "my goodness girl, have a little humility! People are losing thier jobs, homes, businesses, etc and your flaunting what you got all over the place just to have everyone gush over what you have. I wouldn't doubt that out of all the kids of our graduating class from that little desert town that she was the only one who truned out that wealthy.

Originally Posted by SicNTiredInSoCal

LOL! I don't have to see it on tv - I just go to Facebook. I'm not big on posting on Facebook - I think it opens the door to a lot of drama that doesn't need to be.

However, recently I got back in touch with an old friend of mine from 9th grade. She grew up in a house that was only half as nice as mine was. Now years later, turns out she married a fabulously wealthy older man.

They have homes in WA state and Rancho Santa Fe. They recently acquired the home in RSF that belonged to the owner of Cobra golf. She has posted pics of it all over Facebook and Classmates.com along with her prize show horses.

The place looks like a luxury resort. While Im happy for her good luck, part of me was thinking "my goodness girl, have a little humility! People are losing thier jobs, homes, businesses, etc and your flaunting what you got all over the place just to have everyone gush over what you have. I wouldn't doubt that out of all the kids of our graduating class from that little desert town that she was the only one who truned out that wealthy.

NuVoRich

SicNtired, it is a passing thing for people like that. Something will happen and it will be lost.

Reality is what most of us live daily. I do have one "theory" about those who will be able to survive should (maybe it is a when) our nation completely collapse. It will be the blue collar people.

The ones who can turn soil and grow something, the ones who can chop down trees and build something with it, who can chop firewood, fish, hunt and could stomach butchering something to eat.

The people who live like your school mate, will undoubtedly suffer because no one will come along to take them to where the government will take care of them.

People like your school mate, and her very public gloating, are the reason I think many people in other nations think we are all like this, wealthy with two homes, TV's in our bathroom, 5 car garages.......truthfully it is not. Too bad we cannot get the word out how hard it is to survive in this nation as it is right now, we'd surely have a whole lot less illegal aliens.

Our environment is so polluted and most of us do not have education on how to determine threat. I always wanted to learn to hunt - too old and sickie now but I didn't want to go with a bunch of guys who were getting drink and being stupid - I wanted to learn how to know if the animal I caught was infected with bubonic plague - that type thing- always been a big thing here in the southwest - they used to report it on the radio. Anyway, the right teacher never came but I watch anyway.

I remember the depression era housing that I saw growing up - that has since been eliminated for various reasons. I remember the children that used to sell things by the side of the road - also illegal now. I have read that big game hunters must wear gloves up to their armpits and face masks and send the head into the state to be checked for the mad cow prions prior to ingestion of any of the meat. You can't dig clams because of a permanent red tide situation and fishing in most areas is highly dangerous due to contamination in the waters. I don't know much in the "wild" that is safe to catch, hunt or harvest anymore honestly. Those of us who do try to fend for ourselves a bit in our suburban settings find that there are laws prohibiting us from doing anything like gardening vegetables or having a couple of chickens in our backyard. Plus the illegals throw rocks and destroy or try to destroy everything you have planted - the chicken coop with its corrugated plastic roof and your animals themselves.

I do investigate this idea of diet a bit for survival purposes. For example they tell us that we must have fish oil or eat lots of fish but our sources are always questionable. Then I look at inland cultures like Afghanistan or the Navajo Nation and they weren't made ill or stupid due to not having fish.

The economy is so bad that my 16 year old is working for fast food meals. He is the only one of his friends who has any employment at all. Many of the children in this neighborhood have no phones and no internet so even applying for a job in a local fast food place or Walmart or Safeway is beyond their means. Not only that, the large chain stores have computers in the store where you can supposedly apply for a job - but none of them work. The employees always tell us that we must go to the library to apply or a home computer. The only time my son got paid $ so far it worked out to about $2 an hour. My only hope is that eventually the woman pays him and that other people see that he is a nice kid and they will hire him and that eventually he will build self-confidence to know what his help is worth and demand payment. He is helping this sick old lady move a lifetime of possessions and sort out for sale. When her husband died she became suicidal and I don't think that she can handle being in her old residence by herself plus she mostly has to sit in a chair and direct. Starting yesterday she was too broke herself to even buy fast food for him. She tried to go to a bank and get a loan using her vehicle as collateral but was denied. They just made the Payday Loans illegal in our state I heard on the radio. Absolutely everybody I know is on this same edge.

I think that the people who will survive are those who will be slaves to the rich.