Tom Desrosier
Much of what we believe about ourselves, our world and our politics, we learned from someone else.
Sometimes, years later, we still cling to this stufff, long after its proven wrong.
Go figure...
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I’ve evolved…
And some won’t like the new me…
But I tell you this – I come upon it honestly. That is, just as the vernacular in which we see our world changes, so must each of us. To ignore what we see and what it means, is the lie. To embrace what we see and let it change us…
That’s life.
Oh yeah – vernacular means lens.
So lets be off – I’m anxious to share what I’ve become. In this week, we’ll speak of the center-piece of my evolution…
Socialism. An abhorrence before God and man. It says what one man accumulates and earns, another is also entitled to. It says, we are not only created equal, but must be treated so in life. All for one, one for al! Life is fair! And so on.
and of course its opposite – the free market system that has made America great! By great, incidentally, we mean rich. Rich is when we have plenty… Of course the only way we know we’re rich is when we can see others having less or worse- nothing.
Rich is relative.
Although previously a staunch believer in Free Enterprise, I begin to see a new truth. I begin to see how primordial and prehistoric such an existence is.
Attend:
A dozen ancient humans sit hunched in the flickering firelight of their dank cave; the aroma of roasting meat wafts invitingly. One large imposing human sits menacingly nearby, guarding his meal as it sizzles and spits in the open flames. The others, the gaunt look of starvation look on, pining, pleading, waiting.
But that was eons ago. we’re better than that now. After all, we are civilized!
Attend:
A small Hispanic man quickly mops the school’s worn tile floor with his wet mop. Wide generous sweeps, left and right, the sound of his mop sloshing against the hallway’s baseboard, makes a constant rhythm. He’s in his 40’s and makes $8.50/hr. Most of the teeth are missing in the front of his mouth, making his halting English almost impossible to understand. His name is Ricardo. He stops for a moment to wipe his brow with a worn handkerchief, as two young students pass. the quick of gleam of braces in their mouths, as they smile at each other. They ignore him of course; onward they go - designer-handbags and jeans.
Ricardo is seemingly content though. Seemingly. He has no dental insurance for him and his family; and when a doctor is needed, they go to a local emergency room. His wife buys second hand clothes and they share an apartment with another family in a poor neighborhood. His aspirations are this: one day he hopes to make $8.75/hr to mop this same floor. Nothing else really occurs to him. What would?
And so on. Had Ricardo been one of the ancient humans I spoke of earlier, he would have quickly starved.
Now we’ll juxtapose such a life against one of our rich! One whose life is given over to the accumulation of wealth. Lets say Oprah. Her name quickly pops in my head – she being one of those rich people with a big heart. Yes, I choose her because her compassion is legend.
Had Oprah been our ominous cave-dweller, roasting meat over a spit she would have gladly shared!
Or maybe not.
This from Wiki Answers…
Get that? Oprah is worth 2.7 Billion Dollars.
So what does this mean to me? This: that a 40 year old mops a floor at $8.50 and hour and lives a life of hardship, while perhaps just a few miles away, the worlds Icon of compassion and do-gooding still desperately clings to $2.7 Billion Dollars.
Despicable, aint? 2.7 Billion dollars, lies coldly in some bank vault, while the planet teams with misery!
Yes, it means nothing has changed.
Nothing.
America, and yet the world, still adhere to a series of precedent and laws that perpetuate our erstwhile caveman’s philosophy on life - what’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine if I am fit enough to clutch it from you (we call that competition incidentally).
Yes, our primordial and deep rooted belief that by starving others to death through our innate greed and avarice, we are no doubt fulfilling our Darwinian designs of killing off the weaklings of our noble species, thus making us all better in the long run.
Its science. And who can argue with science.
Apparently America is ready to take up the challenge with a new found fervor of socialism. No more, will cavemen wait at the campfire’s edge for a tossed morsel!
Those days are over.
Oh look here come our champions now!
Do you even begin to believe that such as these would do the right thing; that we would distribute wealth honestly and fairly; that they would not seek to horde or steal for themselves?
And this: the more a country attempts to socialize their collective wealth, the more corruption comes to the forefront.
And so on.
But just like many of you, I too feel the tinge of guilt about the less fortunate… I wish it weren’t true. I wish humanity could be more; that we could trust some group or entity, to do what we keep failing to do ourselves: that is, take away the wealth we truly don’t need and distribute it to those who do.
But alas…
I’ll close now, with the only answer I have to humanity’s most important issue facing our collective evolution to true greatness…
When should Oprah’s 2.7 Billion dollars be used to feed the poor and help the weaker among us?
Simple. When Oprah wants it to. Because no one else can be trusted… Certainly not our political leaders!
And so don’t get sucked into the Democrat’s machinations about noble socialism or wealth re-distribution, because in the end, they are no better than we, indeed, in many ways, they are far worse.
Adios Amigos.
Tom
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No Story
Unfortunately, I don’t have a story. But hey - look at this neat picture:
I found it here.
I was thinking about that childhood jingle - “weebles wobble but they don’t fall down”.
I was thinking how the web can make almost anything seem real.
even me.
Honest, I’ll be back soon.
T. G. Desrosier
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