Quid Est Veritas

Bail Out The People

By Patrick Weadon

Over the last few weeks the 24-hour news cycle has trained its guns on the “Occupy (Insert City)” Movement. Many of my conservative friends believe that those who have taken to the streets to protest the economic inequities of the present day are, like the hippies of the 60s, malingering parasites who, rather than wasting everyone’s time, should be getting a haircut, taking a bath and finding a job.

This is not 1969 however, and there is no mystery as to why we are beginning to see people protesting on the left as well as on the right. Apparently, if you believe the polls, 72 percent of us believe the country is headed the wrong way. The key question is, why do so many of our nation’s citizens have such a bleak view of things?

I believe the answer can be found in the recent statistics issued by the Social Security Administration. Unlike statistics issued by partisan organizations with an agenda, the SSA is solely about letting each of us know what we are making in the way of income. Well, here is the story. There is apparently an ever-growing chasm between the rich and the poor in this nation. Widening income disparity is the order of the day.

According to the SSA, 50 percent of all American workers made less than $26,364, while the incomes of the wealthy (those earning a million or more) has jumped 18 percent since 2009. The cold hard truth is that unless you have a time machine that can take you back to 1965, 26,000 dollars and change qualifies you not for the American dream but for the American nightmare. That’s not enough money to pay the rent, purchase food, and pay the costs required to keep a vehicle on the road. Your kids can forget about college, and if you happen to work for one of the many filthy rich companies that enjoys propagating wage slavery (e.g. Wal-Mart), you will not even have access to adequate health care.

Conservatives like to say that a job - any job - is to be treasured and that those who disdain low-wage positions are attacking the concept that there is dignity in work. I concur in that belief, but even Ayn Rand would agree that it’s hard to maintain your dignity when you don’t have a roof over head and your spouse and children are starving.

It was not always this way; in 1964, if you lived in the city of Baltimore and wanted to work, you didn’t need a college degree to make your way in the world. If you knew someone at Bethlehem Steel, General Motors, or the Sweetheart Cup factory, you could find a position that would allow you to buy a home, a Ford Galaxy and send your children to the University of Maryland. Those days are gone, and the young men and women who are manning the barricades in countless cities across the nation are demanding that our leaders find a way to bring them back.

The truth is that, in a general sense, capitalism may indeed be the best way to provide a high standard of living to a society, but because of the innate propensity for capitalism to produce inequality, at times, the system needs tweaking. This is one of those times. The late Arthur Miller, one of our nation’s greatest playwrights, once noted that “People who are able to accept their frustrated lives do not change conditions.” He was so right.

Tea Party activists have refused to accept their frustrated lives, so we should not be surprised that those on the left are equally concerned about restoring the American dream. They understand that this land was made not just for the banks and rich people; it was, to quote Mr. Woody Guthrie, made for you and me.