i would make several points of that. let me just say sto start, i m incredibly sorry to be talking about this issue in 2012 in the united states. it s almost beyond belief. there s a long history in the literature talking about learned helplessness. people feel disconnected from a system, they feel the system is not taking care of them. ironically, in the psychology literature, that s a risk factor for depression. people are trying to treat that saying you we want you to be engaged and focused. we learned about learned helplessness. used as a method. they re trying to produce this sense in people that the government doesn t care about them. that the government doesn t isn t concerned about their issues and in a way they re focusing on people who i think have the most to lose in a way. sort of the most vulnerable people. when you say things like yesterday with ohio, the felony language and you ve got the
the nonreality-based politics we had back then. the poor youth right now, they re so desperate out there. there s really a generation you feel is getting completely cut out of the job market, the future market. they are seeing new kids come into the market every year and they still haven t gotten their job from three years ago when they graduated. i think you re right, i don t know they re going to go to the polls and vote for anybody. they re sitting at home eating ice cream on bed. in their parent s home. you re right. youth is obviously a broad word. what i m seeing with a lot of young people is learned helplessness. i m going to get a job. they ve been taught it s okay to maybe not have a job. that s kind of like, oh do you think so? no, no, no, i ve seen it with a lot of people.
go through the process of fighting and losing. they re going to lose. the reason is that the republican party is more ideologically coherent than the democratic party. and the tea party was right. i don t know that democrats are out of sync. that depends. that depends. the intelligent political party for progressives would be to say, okay, maybe he s very conservative district, in a more liberal democrat could win this. we re not going to deal with that. so and so is much more conservative than is necessary for that district. so we re going to have it there. can i make a response? i think i understand what you re saying about the learned helplessness and the despairing
we will launch political attacks on democrats who don t meet them, and support democrats who do, they can have a tremendous impac impact. part of the problem is the way they attack democrats is the tea party wanted to take over the republican party and has taken over the republican party. that s been kind of the right wing m.o. since the start of the religious right. where as i think one of the huge tragedies and problems with progressive politics since the 60s is the tendency to despair of electoral politics in general and say it doesn t work. the system is screwed and we don t want any part of it. we don t want to sully ourselves and we re going to fight it by creating an alternative counter cultural society. when i was in college we called it learned helplessness. when you couldn t do something about it, you found a va to avoid engaging so you wouldn t
$9 trillion of wealth lost since the peak. that s incredible. how are you supposed to think about your house, jeff? well, what you need to do is hold on to it as much as possible. and i think all the real estate experts will tell you now is not the time to sell, now is the time to buy if you can get the bank to give you a loan. but the bottom line is i work with so many patients who are depressed and they do not take advantage of mortgage restructures. their homes are going into foreclosure, they have that learned helplessness that we talk about. and there are many programs that are out there. you can save your home. you have to get the right rep, the right program, but you can do it. and you can get that mortgage restructure. it can happen for you. it s true. it s very difficult. we are just seeing a reluctance to lend, a reluctance to restructure. i m a hoper this will come back in a big way. i think more realistic is to say what can i do to lower my cost of living in this house?