To Change a Life. To Change the World.

 “…she’ll live up to just what you demand of her and no more." -Annie Sullivan, to Helen Keller’s Mother, in The Miracle Worker

The task of educating and retraining a human being when the human has already become an adult is a monumental undertaking. The education process is slow and repetitive at any age, but an adult is an especially difficult pupil if they are steadfastly against the lesson to be learned. This is what we are up against in our need and desire to change our way of life in the US away from an economic and social system that has become unsustainable.

If you have never seen the 1962 film called The Miracle Worker it is well worth looking for. It is the story of blind and deaf Helen Keller as a child and Annie Sullivan, the young visually impaired woman who becomes Helen’s teacher. Helen’s parents seek out a teacher for her as she is becoming more difficult to manage as she gets older. The Keller’s also have a new baby in the home, and they are fearful for the infant’s safety as Helen is completely undisciplined. It may not seem as if capitalism and a blind and deaf child have any factors in common on the surface, but I can assure you that the task of educating a populace that has grown up a certain way, as Helen had been growing up with no rules for behavior, have much in common when you understand that Helen had no frame of reference as to what Annie was trying to teach her any more than most Americans understand the concepts of sharing power and authority when all we have ever known is capitalism.

In the film, Annie’s attempts to gain Helen’s trust and get Helen to accept her authority are hampered by her parents who do not understand Annie’s methods of teaching and want to protect Helen from the difficult lessons that she must understand and have respect for or it will not be possible for her to make the connection that the things Annie is doing all have a meaning and a useful purpose. Each new experience has a true benefit for Helen, but to her, it only seems that there is a new person there who is taking her freedom away. It has been a freedom that literally allows her to bully everyone in the household and get whatever she wants whenever she wants it. The capitalist mentality does not differ very much. Capitalists pay large amounts of money to get their own way such as offering it up to lobby political figures and paying for perks and incentives to assure that things go their way. This is acceptable to the capitalists because they spend all of their working lives in the pursuit of high profits which guarantees them the ability to buy a situation that suits them. Money is gladly given away to assure them the comfortable position that they can only hold by buying it. What socialism wants to teach them, which is sharing and a rethinking of the balance of power in the world, is fought against tooth and nail because rank and entitlement keeps them from having to consider how their desires affect those around them. Empathy has no place in the high stakes pursuit of profit. Superiority is the only barrier between them and the miserable masses who have no choice but to do what they say. Anything less means that you are subject to truly human experiences which are pain, fear, want, hunger, loss, illness, etc. which can be bought in to submission if you keep a tight-fisted control over others. At the bottom of everything is the ability to pretend that you do not have to be human.

At the center of The Miracle Worker is a very lengthy scene at the family breakfast table in the Keller home. Annie is horrified to see how Helen is allowed to walk around the table taking food off everyone’s plates to eat. Annie refuses to let Helen take food from her plate. The chaos that ensues as a result of Helen not being able to help herself to Annie’s breakfast becomes a gigantic contest of wills which goes on for hours necessitating the removal of everyone in the room except student and teacher and all the doors to the room being locked. It is shocking to see how hard Helen will fight in order to keep her power to get what she wants and believes that she is entitled to. Make no mistake, this is what we have coming when the transition comes. Those who have no desire to share are going to be infuriated and uncooperative as hell. Nobody likes to be told that they cannot have something that they want, especially when they have been allowed to take from everyone to suit themselves for a very long time. Strong willed and determined teachers who know the importance of changing what has been for far too long have the task of showing what we must now understand is the way that we reform a corrupt system so that no one is cheated and left out of what is fair. It is our only hope if we mean to guarantee these human rights for the entire family/society. We can expect that there may be no peace until the lessons of how we must now function are learned and understood and put in to practice.

We hope that all of the lessons will eventually be absorbed, as they were with Helen, and we will see order and a peaceful coexistence come from the struggle and pain that is always required of us to adjust to a new way of being, but the rules must be clear and strictly enforced by those who are tasked with teaching them. They must be laws or too many will continue to believe that the rules do not apply to them. Ironically, we already have many laws that should have stopped or curtailed the rampant gorging on the masses that we are experiencing right now. Antitrust laws were put into place many decades ago to stop the “Robber Barons” such as railroad owners and others who made fortunes on the backs of everyone until the Government called a halt to their unfair practices. After that, there was a period when the middle class in this country saw opportunities for better jobs, better wages, and the ability to buy their own homes. People prospered for the first time in a long time. It did not, however, reach all our citizens equally. People of color and many immigrants were not necessarily the beneficiaries of the newfound prosperity. Those laws did not cover everyone and are not being enforced now. It was probably the closest that we ever came to Socialism but it did not last, and as a result we are being taken for just about everything that the corporate fascists can get their grubby hands on from our plates. It is no different from what Helen Keller was doing, but Helen was a child who was never taught not to do it. The corporate masters know full well what they are doing and they know the devastating effect that their behavior is wrecking in our world, but if no one steps in to stop it, it will never change. Many people are fed up and angry about it but without calling in the Annie Sullivans to correct and redirect the behavior this is what we will always have. A set of rules for some and a complete lack of them for others has gotten us to the point where we now stand.

It does not help matters that most of our political leaders come from corporate/capitalist backgrounds. They are well versed in the profit over people mentality that governs just about everything in America, so even though their job is to represent all the people in their states and in the country as a unit, they seem to forget about those of us who are not from their own peer group. Forgetting is easy when you want to keep your position and you depend on the rich influencers to make sure that you do. A total revamping of our political system and a revamping of how we vote for these people is desperately needed as well as in our judicial system which has in many cases turned away from the scales of justice in favor of the few who can afford to tip the scales off balance to favor those who strictly speaking have a minority view but have the assets to stack the deck against the majority view of the citizens. These are situations that prevent any real change in where we now stand, but they must be addressed or the Annie Sullivans coming in to teach will be severely limited in how much they can accomplish as the real Annie Sullivan was in trying to breakthrough to Helen. Helen’s parents were a severe barrier to that breakthrough because of their lack of understanding about their daughter’s needs and how her learning process had to take place. Annie had to move to a separate household to get anywhere with Helen, because as long as they were there to undo whatever successes were built, there was never going to be a true and lasting change in Helen’s behavior. The possibility for a relapse in all that Annie might accomplish with Helen was always a threat as well if Helen’s parents allowed any laxity in the enforcement of the new situation.

To achieve our goals of balancing this country into a place that works for all of us we desperately need a  Miracle Worker. It remains to be seen whether or not we will be able to find one. Valiant attempts at this are being made right now but too many times those who are chosen to lead and to teach are ultimately revealed to have feet of clay or they are sabotaged quickly to prevent them from getting a stronghold on the problems. Annie Sullivan devoted her entire life to the care and teaching of Helen Keller, and as a result Helen went far beyond just learning how to communicate and behave with others. She is remembered and revered to this day because someone dedicated their life to helping her achieve great things. Without that dedication and selflessness, we might never have known about the miracles that were Helen and Annie. Who among us now will try to create such a miracle for America, for the world, and for the planet? It has to be a way of life that is brought to life by those who “recognize a badly spoiled child when they see one”. Capitalism at its core is actually no more than that. It is behavior that was allowed to continue to the point where the household/country could no longer function in peace.

The Tobacco Road

“My compassion for someone is not limited to my estimate of their intelligence.” - Dr. Gillian Taylor in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

My grandfather was a very young man in the 1930’s during The Depression.  He lived about the same way as many others did during that time, possibly worse, but he was living in the rural south where things were pretty tough even when it may have been better in other parts of the country. He picked cotton and did odd jobs to support himself and his teenaged wife, my grandmother. As bad as things were, he was still able to afford one leisure time activity; smoking. This is not the case for his descendants.

In the 1980’s the cost of a video game cartridge for a home gaming system was about $60.00. In 2022 the cost of a video game disc is still $60.00. A VHS movie for home viewing cost a whopping $95.00 in the 1980’s. I couldn’t afford them. I had to either rent movies or join a video club to buy them. The cost of a DVD or Blu-ray movie now is between $15.00 and $24.00 on average. That is a substantial price drop. When you factor in that the technology, expertise to create games and films, and the cost of producing both has risen sharply, these things are much more of a bargain now than they were 40 years ago.

In the 1960’s the price for a carton of cigarettes was about $3.00. Thirty years later, in the early 1990’s, the price for a carton was around $10.00 in the mid-south region of the US. So the price had risen seven dollars in thirty years time.  Now after another thirty-two years the cost ranges from $80.00 to $100.00 or more per carton which is a jump of seventy to ninety dollars or more depending on what region of the country you live in. A seven dollar price hike in thirty years time is not unreasonable. A ninety dollar price hike in another thirty years is not only unreasonable it is also price gouging and downright robbery. My nephew who lives near New York told me that 20 years ago cigarettes were $80.00 per carton there and are double that now. I have listened to all of the reasons/excuses for why the cost of this product has risen so much but none of them really hold water in a country with no national healthcare to use as a scapegoat. The healthcare excuse doesn’t even hold water in Canada, the UK, or any other country that does provide it when the healthcare costs for illness related to smoking is no higher and, in many cases, less than the costs for automobile injuries, eating meat or high carb junk foods, drinking carbonated beverages, alcohol consumption, or gun violence. I understand that a pack of cigarettes cost appx. $28.00 in Australia and in Pakistan a pack costs $0.82.  These are the highest and the lowest prices in the world and only Pakistan has a reasonable price. Good thing for Pakistan when you look at the devastation there right now. As cigarette smoking is considered to be a stress reliever those people need all of the help they can get. We in America are being squeezed to death on absolutely everything that might make our lives a little more bearable with everything that has been put upon us. In one of my previous posts about housing I quoted Theodor Adorno with respect to the elites taking everything that the poor have left away from them. This is yet another example of that and the whole world apparently believes that is acceptable. Except Pakistan.

Since the tobacco excuse is illogical when compared to any one of the above mentioned health related problems, and these are not cited as an excuse for charging an exorbitant amount for their purchase, the outrageous prices that we now pay for tobacco products appear to actually be a penalty for being either poor, or of non-white ethnicity, or they are just using us as convenient victims for the manufacturers and sellers to pay exorbitant salaries to their higher ups. It is also possible that it is the ease of levying massive taxes on a product that has been demonized and vilified for decades. I have to wonder if there is a simple economics answer for this that I do not know about but as I learn more and more about the mechanics and philosophies in economic theory it seems that capitalist economics are whatever capitalists want them to be at any given time.  Whenever those who make the economic rules decide that they want to make more money, and there seems to have been a decision of this kind beginning in the 1970’s which has doubled and tripled and quadrupled in the decades since, you find yourself dealing with monumentally inflated prices on housing, healthcare, automobiles, gasoline, and yes, cigarettes.

So, after one has already given up other things that one might enjoy doing for the sake of spending less money so we can hopefully, continue to buy food and still pay the utility bills, is there a good reason for placing an incredible hardship on people who are already banned from smoking in public and in our cars and in some places that we might want to live? There was a video a few years back of a supporter of Senator Rand Paul who was holding his foot on a woman’s head because she was not in agreement on his political choice that was so appalling it hurt to see it. I do get tired of feeling like this country has it’s foot on our heads for daring to have a pastime that some others may not agree with or might object to. A smoker having a cigarette is not going to clog up your arteries or eat a hole in your digestive system or send you to the emergency room with a bullet in you. I do not agree with or subscribe to many of the activities that other people may enjoy doing but it is not my place to fold my arms with a smirk and say that you deserve to have to pay 10 to 20 times more than a product is worth because you have no right to the privilege when I do not approve of it.

One of the saddest things about what has been done to people who smoke is that few people other than smokers care about it. If it isn’t a problem for you then it isn’t a problem at all. A friend of mine who was a nonsmoker previously told me, “I cared about this issue even when I didn’t smoke because I know an injustice when I see one.”  This is a rare thing to hear because it is a rare person who actually gives a damn if it isn’t directly affecting them.

Smokers are not to blame for the lies and deceptions of the cigarette manufactures yet we are vilified for using their product as if we are responsible. Using a potentially harmful product is done by anyone who drives a car, drinks alcohol, uses power tools, takes prescription drugs, or buys a firearm. These things are purchased by choice and it follows that one understands that most things on the planet have a potential for harm even the foods that we eat, and in far too many places, the water that we drink is so dangerous that it can and has caused brain damage. When you think of a smoker try to remember that our use of tobacco products is not an indicator of anything more than it is something that we like to do. There are no other factors involved in it. It should not be viewed as a luxury item that one should be charged an arm and a leg for. Its potential for harm is no greater than many other products which are sold in this country. It has just been selected as one that can be conveniently used to spread some more capitalist wealth around and create a subset of people to victimize.

The ingredients used to make a cigarette are neither rare nor difficult to obtain. It is tobacco, paper, and a fiber for the filter. These things do not have to be imported and obtaining them is not difficult. I understand that tobacco companies have been sued many times over non-disclosure of the possible dangers of smoking but that is not the fault of the consumer.

To be fair to the consumer, a cap needs to be put on the retail price of cigarettes. The price of a pack of cigarettes should be no higher than $2.00 per pack and $20.00 per carton. This is reasonable. It is double what the price was 32 years ago but still affordable. I see no reason other than greed for the current cost. We aren’t buying gold or diamonds or Teslas.  Whatever the manufacturers of tobacco products have done, the purchasers of their products were not participants in it. Forcing the consumer to pay the penalty for their wrongdoing is anti-democratic and amounts to thievery.

Having Fallen from Grace

 “From each according to his ability. To each according to his needs.” -Karl Marx

When I was a teenager my best friend Jean had a sister who lived with her boyfriend and his family back when this kind of arrangement was still looked down upon as an immoral thing to do. They were a friendly and cheerful lot with a lifestyle that I had never seen before in that Jean’s sister and her child were welcome there with no moral high ground issues that I could see.  One of the family members was named Al, and he was a Vietnam veteran who never left the house.  He was a bit socially awkward but he was almost always smiling as he sat watching television for most of the day.  The only time that I saw him look any different was if someone knocked on the door.  A look of fear and sheer panic would come over him and he would freeze in his chair until it was determined by others in the house who was doing the knocking, Once, Jean and I went to their house looking for her sister.  No one answered the door so we waited.  Jean said that if we waited long enough Al might answer the door.  We waited a good ten minutes and finally the door slowly opened and It was Al who answered it.  Only one side of his face was visible to reveal one eye for which he could see who was there.  When he recognized us, he began to grin and he told us that everyone had gone grocery shopping.  He didn’t offer to let us come in and wait but that was not unexpected.  There are many more people like this now who have served in the military and came home with severe PTSD.  My next-door neighbor is one of them.  I have lived here six years and in all that time he has only spoken to me twice.  Once to just say “hi” and another to tell us that he liked our Halloween costumes and decorations.  You will not see this man outside otherwise.  Months after the Halloween hello his sister-in-law told me that he had been so thrilled to see our holiday festivities that he could not stop talking about it for days.

The same friend who introduced me to Al’s family also introduced me to a young woman who had a much different way of living that I found to be very troubling to say the least.  This woman was living with her lover and his wife and children.  The man was probably in his mid to late 60’s, the wife looked to be probably in her early forties.  He was a large man, bald and very obese.  His wife was painfully thin, hunched over and was very plain. She seemed to be in another world as she shuffled slowly around the house doing small amounts of housework. The young woman was a friend of Jean’s sister-in-law who had driven us to their house to pick her friend up and take her to her parent’s house to see her child.  Her parents had gone into court to get custody of the child having proven that their daughter was an unfit mother.  I did not hear any of the details of how she might have been unfit but she did talk a bit about how she and her baby had been dragged to a hospital by police prior to them taking her son away and how her baby had been examined by hospital staff in a rough and rude way with the baby terrified and crying the entire time. She also talked about what the situation was like in the household where she lived.  I don’t remember her having anything bad to say about her lover’s wife except to say that after the woman had given birth to her last child her “butt” had gotten longer.  She said she had heard of people’s “butts” getting “wider” but never longer. She said nothing about her lover who was a lump of a fellow that she had to ask permission from to visit her child.  When we arrived at her parent’s house, we stayed in the car and she knocked on the door. Then a woman came outside with a little boy who appeared to be about three years old.  He walked outside and hugged his mother. They stayed in the front yard and she played with him and threw a ball for him to catch.  Sometimes he was able to.  All of this was under the watchful eye of the grandmother.  We only stayed there for about 15 minutes and then I saw Mother and Daughter exchange a few sharp looking words, then the woman came back to the car and we started the drive back to her home. She was tense and a bit agitated on the trip back and said a few things about how she was going to try to get her baby back if she ever found a boyfriend who would help her do that.  After we bid her goodbye, I felt slightly sick at heart for some time.  I could not imagine how someone could find themselves in a situation such as this.  Being thirteen I had never been exposed to anything like that before.  I guess I led a much more sheltered life than I thought I did. I cannot remember the name of this young woman but I will never forget her story. My friend Jean was no stranger to being exposed to unfortunate people and situations like these. I met her when I went to a new school upon entering the 8th grade and my education well and truly began with that friendship.

Jean came from a large family who had many problems of their own such as alcoholism, infidelity, criminal behavior from one of her older brothers, domestic abuse in her sister’s first marriage and other situations that I had never been witness to before. They kept a loaded pistol on top of their TV set. I never saw anyone pick it up except Jean’s older sister once, when she was making a joke about having to tell someone to “f**k off" and leave her alone. How Jean and three of her other siblings managed to keep clear heads and still have genuine goals for themselves was amazing.  It is even more amazing to me when I look back on it now.  One trait that they all possessed, which is rare in any decade, is that they did not pass judgement on others easily.  They had more tolerance than most people and did not fall into the same troubled behaviors that those around them did.  Even now I have a lot of respect for what I learned from my association with them and I can’t help but be grateful for my friendship with Jean because it was instrumental in giving me a strong empathy for others that I cannot say I would have developed to the degree that I did without having known her.

There was an elderly woman who lived in a town in Arkansas where I used to live.  Arlene used to walk down the Main Street of this small town wearing several layers of clothes in winter and summer.  She would slowly shuffle along with her head bowed looking for cigarette butts to pick up and smoke.  Sometimes she would walk to my husband’s grandmother’s house where she was always welcomed and was given something to eat. Arlene spoke very little except say “hi” and thank my grandmother-in-law for giving her lunch. I was told that Arlene lived with her son and daughter-in-law and she did receive a Social Security check every month but her son would take it away from her and give her only $25.00 of it for cigarettes and food that she would buy at a small drive-in restaurant. He would then send her off to roam the Main Street alone.  When her money ran out, she would visit my husband’s grandmother. Some days she would sit there for hours watching television but appearing to not really comprehend what she was seeing and occasionally she would soil herself.  No one ever got in a twist about this.  They would just clean the chair after she left.  I have no idea what happened to Arlene after I moved away from there but I cannot imagine her life ever being any different until she passed away.

I used to know a woman who lived in the town where my grandparents did.  Her name was Anna May, and she had only one eye and the lower part of her left arm was missing. She was always friendly and upbeat and my grandmother liked her a lot.  Anna May made her living ironing clothes for people in town and my grandmother was one of her customers.  Anna May would come to people’s houses and pick up the clothes and she would bring them back when she had finished.  Many women in town let Anna May iron for them although most of them did not need the service.  They just knew that she needed the money and could not get a job anywhere else. The clothes that she brought back were always neatly folded and they looked as good as any professional dry cleaner would have done. It was pretty amazing how beautifully she did her work with only one hand.  Anna May was “struck,” as my family would say, on my grandmother’s brother.  He was a truck driver who would visit frequently when he was not working. He was friendly enough to her when she came over to pick up or deliver ironing but you could tell that he only viewed her interest in him as a joke.  I always felt bad about that when, after she would leave, he would laugh about the very idea that she might think he could ever be interested in her. I have often wondered what happened to Anna May when she got too old or too disabled to do the ironing.  There were no other options for her at all.

It is impossible to say whether the lives of these people would have been different if we did not live in a Capitalist society, but a society that prides itself on expecting everyone to uphold an ideal of self-sufficiency and praises only those who are able to manage it typically shows little tolerance for those who cannot. The few people who do show tolerance for those who are unable to fit the ideal are by and large not much better off themselves. As long as the majority of us don’t have to see those less fortunate it is unlikely that these situations will ever be effectively addressed. In the 1950’s film Giant, there is an extreme prejudice against the Mexican people who work for the family central to the film. The patriarch of the family discourages his wife from helping a Mexican family with a very sick baby, saying that “these people have a way of taking care of things themselves.” Translated this means we don’t bother with them.

Prior to the 2020 Presidential election, Democratic hopeful, Andrew Yang, said during one of the debates that we need to rethink what is considered to be work in this country because many people do a multitude of work for no pay here in America, and these contributions are highly valuable in society but we look down upon them as useless because they garner no wages and they proffer up nothing to Capitalism in the narrow view of too many people. He believed, as many do, that we need a basic income for our citizens, and it needs to be one large enough to cover a decent standard of living.

How we treat other people is a choice that we make, but I do believe that Socialism and Marxism have built within their structuring a more humane approach to dealing with the people who fall through the cracks, in ways that Capitalism never has.  I once heard Noam Chomsky say that animals and elderly people are not entitled to rights in this world because they contribute nothing to society, as in they do not work. I beg to differ. I have always thought very highly of Chomsky but I have never stopped being troubled about this statement from him.  It is the one thing that I heard him say that I could not disagree with more.  He said that it is up to people whether or not they want to help others who cannot or do not contribute to a society by having a job outside of the home.  Women like Arlene and Anna May are usually much worse off here than the men who at least had some coverage for their disability from having served in our military, with the exception of an elderly man named Rob that I knew.  I do not know his situation as to how he became so destitute, but if I had to guess I would say that he was probably a farmer who fell upon hard times in the rural south and there were no family members who cared or he lost everything at some point and no one bothered to help him. He lived in a shack next to some of my family members and he had no electricity or running water.  The father in the family used to take a plate of whatever they were having for dinner over to Rob every evening.  As far as I know, that was the only food that he ate all day.  Yes, helping others is a choice that we make but I have seen the choice to do so become less and less prevalent by the day. And I do not see this improving unless our social and economic structure makes an enormous change in how we take care of our own.  As many people have decided that they are not their brother’s keeper in any way I see nothing improving without a stable government ideal that would promote a mindset of caring about the welfare of its citizens.  The stories that I have related here were things that I witnessed as a child but in truth I do not remember ever hearing about anyone being homeless back then, even though what passed for a home was sometimes pretty substandard, the current statistics on the amount of homeless people in our country now are staggering.  We have made a choice to do very little or nothing at all about this issue, and it follows that we are doing little or nothing about the situations that create homelessness, such as the kind of  problems of the people that I have talked about here which I believe will only be solved by involving all of us in the processes which go into making the lives of people less terrifying when due to some unfortunate circumstance the people who have “fallen from grace” cannot see a way to get and keep the things that make the continuation of life possible. We are today denying millions of people a standard of living that should be their right to have. Basic necessities to sustain life should not be considered a privilege for only those who are still in the good graces of Capitalism.  As a society, we have proven that we cannot be bothered with those who are unable to keep up with the status quo so it will absolutely take a government and social structure that demands that we must be bothered. It is much too late for Al and Arlene, Anna May and Rob, but it is not too late for the people who need help now.  It will not happen though, unless we manage to redirect the current mindset of not hearing and not seeing and not believing that this is a failure of the people of the United States.  I had to see many things first hand myself when I was very young by being friends with someone who saw them every day to realize that comfort and wellbeing are not afforded to everyone like I assumed they were from where I stood.  We will have to make sure that someone like Jean or someone like the three spirits who visited Ebeneezer Scrooge come to us and make these tragedies impossible for us to ignore any longer. Why is it taking so long?

Uncle Sam Needs You, But Uncle Joe Needs You More.

Shortly before President Bush left office, I had a dream about him. He was standing in a room in the White House with a very high ceiling looking at an enormous pile of dirty laundry.  He was considering telling the American people about the laundry but he decided against it.  We know what happened after that. Barack Obama took office and there was a rapid collapse when the housing bubble burst.  I have wondered many times if things might have been different if President Bush had told the people how much trouble the country was in and had taken a stand to possibly prevent it or had used his power to change the course of where we were headed before he left office.

I fear that we have a similar and more catastrophic fate ahead of us with President Biden.  We hear the reports every day that the pile of laundry that we have accumulated since then is much larger and dirtier. It should be no shock when it all spills out, but it won’t matter very much to just know that it is coming. A systematic robbery of the people’s power in America has been hacked away at for many decades and trying to rally the people to take a stand and make a difference is almost futile. I have been writing this blog for the past eight years trying to tell people that they need to take stock of who they are and what they could be capable of if they could turn away from the brainwashing that is heaped upon them every day by media, advertising, and well meaning (maybe) but ill informed people.  I fear sometimes that I will always be preaching to the choir but I cannot stop trying as long as the need is there.

I can’t help thinking that the people who report on these dire issues every day and realize probably more than we do how critical what is happening right now is might need to be speaking directly to President Biden himself instead of making videos for the American people. I know that he has to be aware of where we are as a nation but I doubt that he is listening to the right people as far as how to solve the kind of problems that we have now. They are an accumulation of problems that have occurred as a result of inaction on old ones that no one wanted to admit were happening. People always prefer to let the good times roll and hope that troubles will sort themselves out eventually.  If learned and pedigreed people were to go to him with the unvarnished truth that we hear from them every day with solid answers to what might still be done to make a difference in the downward spiral that we will not be able to pull ourselves out of without a massive effort on his part, such as what President Roosevelt did during the depression, it would be much harder to ignore. A more effective argument for action on President Biden’s part is many times more likely than waiting for the people who are only half listened to by the government to make a stand. The buck stops with the President once again, the people are much too divided and distracted and fearful to make a difference now.  January 6th showed us how inept and wrong thinking people try to get a point across, and those who may be thinking more intelligently are not necessarily equipped to do much better when they now fear for their very survival. 

Another perspective needs to go to the very top because just speaking to the citizens will have a slow and uneven effect on those of us sitting at home watching, and while we may be believing every word that they say and we may be repeating those words to others it cannot reach enough people or motivate them to a revolution as many hope that it will because we still have enough to manage on (just barely) unlike the people in previous revolutions who had nothing left to lose.

It seems that our government may not be visiting the room full of dirty laundry as Bush did in the dream.  They appear to be as distracted and focused on their own aspirations and grandeur as the majority of our people are, even though they are paid a much better salary for a job that they keep forgetting to do.  President Biden may know all about Socialism and Marxism but I doubt that he ever finds himself in a room with several experts in the fields who are making highly effective arguments every day for how badly we need to take a look at the alternatives to a capitalist system that does not have sense enough to come in the house and redirect the fallout that has put this country in the outhouse. The ability to clean up the gigantic pile of laundry that is sitting in front of them could still be done if you call in the right kind of cleaning people.  There is a phrase on the internet that pops up occasionally that says, “If capitalism is so great, why does socialism have to come and bail its ass out every few years?” The cleaning people need to come now, with the expert cleaning tips that I don’t think Mr. Biden realizes are so badly needed. Without the intervention of alternative facts and advice that comes from scholars who understand what Socialism has tried to teach us for more than 100 years we will fall back into the traps that were set for us in the previous administration.

The time has come for direct contact at the top with the people who are educated in economics and social structure who can show that there is another way. I seriously doubt that the President ever hears the critical information that YouTube watchers have daily access to from the top minds in analysis regarding how and why our country is on the brink of collapse. What he most likely hears daily is strictly geared toward saving the current dying systems that perpetuate an imbalance which cannot be sustained any longer without the destruction of the middle and lower classes and democracy itself. There must be hope that even a President can be taught to rethink the world that he lives in when the stakes are so high that if he loses this hand, it truly will be Game Over.

A return to the past as in the conferences that President Roosevelt had with Socialist and Communist leaders during the Great Depression that turned in to a major wake up call for him is our only real hope. We must believe that this is at least possible, and more importantly, those who have the knowledge and the skill to convey their critical wisdom must believe in their own ability to persuade and reshape the prevailing thought in our government in the same way that they believe that the American citizens can comprehend their message to us or they wouldn’t be pushing it toward us every single day.

I believe that it will take a attitude change on the part of the promoters of alternative thought to get them past the notion that their insight will only resonate with the average citizen. They can make speeches and write books conveying a wealth of great information but unless these words are heard by the people who actually have the power to change our situation it is information that goes no further than the fan club who is already convinced but lacks the ability to do any more than admire. The office of the President may seem impenetrable on its surface but that is a façade created to intimidate by a government that does not want to be bothered by anyone other than those with whom it wishes to be bothered with. Academics stand a better chance of getting a foot in the door than anyone else ever could. A former supervisor of mine once told me “Always cover the boss’s ass.” But the asses of too many leaders have been covered by people who live in fear of telling them that their asses are now too exposed to find a blanket big enough to keep the ineptitude from showing. That blanket is in the dirty laundry room at the White House and cleaning the thing is going to require a new cleaning staff. Since no one will let us in to do it, recognize that you, as educated experts, can do the job by having the audacity to submit your resume and request an interview with the boss. Your qualifications are far and away more likely to get your foot in the door than anyone else can. You ask the people to believe in your wisdom every day. Try to believe that the wisdom that you impart is important enough to persuade at even the highest level.  If this administration fails, the next one will have no qualms whatsoever about throwing us over the cliff. Whatever standing we might feel we could lose now will matter not at all when the loss of our very foundation is gone.