America has always been a land of contradictions. It was created to be the land of the free...unless you were black. All men are created equal...unless you were a woman because, well, you're not a man (DUH!). There's enough land for everyone...unless you were Native American. Everyone has the opportunity to make something of themselves...unless you weren't already rich.
Lately, however, these contradictions have reached a point where they are impossible for anyone with eyes and any sort of sense whatsoever to miss. We have arrived at the Age of Willful Ignorance.
The wealth inequality in our country is worse than it has ever been. We are losing ground when it comes to seeing people as human beings instead of stereotypes. We're falling back into the time of the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts. This was a time when the rich believed that they deserved their money whether they had earned it or not. It was a time when the vast majority of Americans struggled to achieve even the most basic needs and a powerful few wallowed in luxury. The rich bought and sold politicians like stocks or bonds. Laissez-faire policies led to massive deregulation of industries. Pollution levels soared, giving those who were not wealthy even more reasons for ill health as they couldn't escape the cities for the countryside or afford doctors to treat the various health results of dirty water and smog-filled air.
“If they would rather die, . . . they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
We have returned to the time when those few oligarchs at the 'top' of the heap have stopped considering their fellow citizens to be human beings deserving of basic human rights. The masses are now viewed as interchangeable cogs in the never-stopping machine that exists only to make the rich get richer. Many of the wealthy don't care that a man can die because his crowd-sourcing efforts to raise money for diabetes medication fell $50 short so he had to ration his medications which led to his death. They don't care that people who have cancer have to stop (or never start!) treatment for the illness because the crushing medical bills are beyond their resources.
All around us people are suffering but the politicians are happily passing more and more legislation that will make things worse because their owners demand it of them. Congress has become a place where one of the best compliments you can give is, "He's honest. Once he's been bought, he stays bought." They take health care away from children in order to fund bigger tax breaks for the already rich. Our so-called representatives think nothing of blatantly lying to the face of the public about how their legislation will effect the average person. And they do it while going on about what good Christians they are and how they wish everyone else were as pious as they are.
They turn around after making these lies and do their best to rig the system so that there is no way short of armed revolution for them to be voted out of office or removed from power. Gerrymandering has become the norm instead of the exception. Any attempt to create a situation where the true will of the people is reflected by those in the government is destroyed before it can bear any kind of fruit whatsoever. Obstacles are put into place that ensure only the 'right' voters will make it to the polls. A large mass of those 'right' voters have fallen into the trap set for them, voting regularly against their own interests in the unrealistic hope that someday THEY will 'pull themselves up by the bootstraps' and become one of the elite whose lives are untouched by the need to decide whether to buy food or pay the rent this month.
“Man," said the Ghost, "if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die?”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Every day men, women, and children die from causes that could have been resolved. Illnesses go untreated because medical care is too expensive. Hunger is a regular companion to a much too high percentage of the population. Over here a child walks to school and shivers because they don't have the clothing to keep themselves warm. Over there a man sobs on the corner because his family is in the street. He tried to find work for over two years, but there was nothing to be had. In that building there is a woman who falls exhausted into bed to get three or four hours of sleep before she has to be at the first of three jobs she'll work the next day in the hopes of putting food on the table for her family.
We are surrounded by people who live on the edge of survival, people who are only a short step away from complete disaster, and yet our country does nothing except encourage people to believe that these victims of circumstance have it coming to them because they are somehow unworthy. Americans are encouraged to believe that there aren't really people who NEED help, but rather everyone who asks for help is simply lazy and greedy, trying to milk the system without putting in the work that goes with being a success. We are fed the propaganda that people who are honest and do a hard day's work will ALWAYS have enough food to eat and a roof over their head, because this propaganda makes it easier to believe that people who need help just didn't try hard enough.
“You fear the world too much,' she answered gently. 'All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off, one by one, until the master passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Greed and self-interest are the defining traits of our time. Americans talk a good game when it comes to charity and generosity, but the practical truth is that if it doesn't directly effect us, the vast majority just don't have the ambition to make any changes to the system. There is a fear that if there are changes, things will be worse, so it is better to do nothing and just keep complaining about life.
This breaks my heart, because I know that on the individual level most people ARE caring, wanting to do the right thing. We take casseroles to the neighbors when they are sick or have had a loss. We pay for the person in line behind us at the drive through, just to make someone's day a little better. Some of us ask the homeless what they would want if they could have anything for Christmas...and then get them those things. There are moments of beauty in our country and our world, moments that serve to remind us all that there ARE good people, there is a sense of community out there.
Unfortunately, however, these moments are special just because we don't see enough of them, at least on a scale that makes a large difference to the whole. Helping others on an individual basis is wonderful, and something we should all strive to do, but the thing is that when we work together to make positive changes, our power is exponentially increased. We just can't seem to get to the point where that increase of ability weighs more on the scales than "What's in it for me?".
“They are Man's and they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance and this girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Ignorance and Want define our country right now. Willful ignorance, a choice made by many to deliberately ignore what his happening out of any number of emotions is our bane. We turn a blind eye out of fear that it could be us. We look away from injustice because we don't dare admit that it could be us on the receiving end next if we speak up.
The problem is that if we don't speak up and start righting the wrongs that surround us, then we are not just observers, but we are part of the problem, a BIG part of the problem. There's only one way to make the world better, and that is by rolling up our sleeves and putting in the work to do so. If that means making the time to work a soup kitchen, then make the time. If that means those who have more wealth need to put that money to good use rather than hoard it, then they should do so. If it means running for office and remembering WHY you did so once you're in, then make that commitment.
“Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
It is our decision whether to strive to change the end of the story. Working together we can change it for the better for everyone, not just ourselves. But we have to find the courage to face our fears. We have to find the resolve to keep going even when our own lives are better, because there are others who have not had that good fortune yet. There is nothing we cannot achieve if we put aside selfishness and we share all that is good with those around us.
Change the story, America. Become everything that the Founding Fathers envisioned we COULD be, and put the caricature that we are now to rest once and for all. Let's re-write the ending...together.
