~a column by Colleen O’Brien
It has not been the poor or the lower- or middle-class who have refused to keep roads and streets and bridges in good repair; it hasn’t been these folks who have raised the price of…for example…insulin, a drug in use since 1921 – an entire century – that costs $30 a month in Canada and at least $300 to $400 in the U.S; it has not been the poor who raise the price of gasoline, heating oil and groceries every autumn…or whenever they feel like it; it is not the poor who up insurance premiums yearly and cut the coverage of more and more maladies or possessions.
It is not the poor who have wrestled the hard-won civil laws of this country to the ground, stomped on them and walked on – I’m talking about the laws that allow universal suffrage and peaceable assembly (that means walking down a street holding a sign and chanting without fear of tear gas, night sticks, horses, guns, and human barriers of Darth Vader-type law enforcement personnel.
But it is the poor who suffer because of the lack of enforcement for the right to petition the government for redress without being thrown in jail as a whistleblower; or the right to be secure in one’s person, house, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizure. Why is it the poor who are the ones systemically deprived of life, liberty and property without due process of law? Why the poor who cavalierly are denied equal protection under the law?
So, since the poor aren’t in charge of their quality of life, although they do pay taxes to make it happen, who is lowering their quality of life at every opportunity? And why?
Give us good reasons why you who are in charge would not vote for a nation-wide infrastructure bill? Or why you think working people just like you working representatives that you are supposed to be, don’t need as good an education as your kids get? Healthcare like you yourself enjoy? Affordable housing? A living wage? Neighborhoods that are not toxic waste dumps and food deserts?
The mystery of people in power and with money being averse to compassion, justice and moral decisions regarding the planet they live on and the people who live on it has bothered me since I was a little girl and took the side of the Indians at the movies on Saturday afternoon. I was an innocent then and realized something was awry. I am no longer naïve and know that things are even more off-kilter now.
I’ve always disliked the platitude that states “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Disheartening, isn’t it? Partly because of the daily evidence of its truth.
Still, we persevere, many of us not down and out, lots of us pleasantly content in our First World problems. And way too much like the callous individuals I’ve been talking about – I too gaze out at my crumbling planet and the people who will get hurt first and worst as I harp on and on about the unfairness of it all. And it’s not the money – I am not envious; it is lack of fellow-feeling, no spreading of the wealth to suck up unwarranted suffering that dismays me. All of us humans suffer; but some so much more than others through no fault of their own.
And not much changes, just more of the same. I do think we are born to be kind and that when we are, our own lives are better. I’ve been laughed at as naïve, Pollyanna and a sap. So be it. They all sound better than cynical, selfish and greedy.
