What is so misanthropic about being glad that some the opportunities enjoyed by the first world inhabitants stat trickling down to the third world dwellers? You certainly do not subscribe to the "those damn foreigners taking OUR jobs" spiel by some reactionary elements in the US labor.
IMHO, the biggest obstacle to the labor organizing in this country is that mental workers do not see themselves as workers but as "middle class" in the same league as their bosses and owners - and thus being exempt from the pressures experienced by manual workers. I recall my TA experience from Rutgers when I discussed Harry Braverman's thesis on deskilling - only one student who worked as a cashier at a supermarket saw the relevance of it, the rest of them though they were exempt.
As for my dislike of the in-your-face-arrogant people - that is schadenfreude not misanthropy - a feeling very familiar to the conquered people but virtually unknown to the aggressors, hence the virtual absence of the concept from the English language.
Chuck0:
> Perhaps Wojtek can drink a toast to my situation. I've been out of
work
> for 2 1/2 years, got myself evicted, and had to move halfway across
the
> country to live with my parents.
Not really. You are not a guy who went through college on government-subsidized loans, made his money by access to government-developed technologies and government-enforced protection of property and monopoly rights, lives in government-subsidized suburbs, drives a gas-guzzling SUV that runs on government-subsidized fuel - but otherwise is a libertarian who hates government programs that benefit other people. It feels really good seeing such people fall from grace.
But otherwise I feel really sorry for the people who try to make a living by honest work and just ain't making it because of the general suckiness of the US system.
Wojtek