We are smart enough to know better. But somehow, we are not smart enough to do anything about it.
Welcome to America. Home of exploitation; retaliation; constrained freedom; blame.
According to power, I am in my circumstance because of choices I made. If my circumstance is bad, my choices must have been bad. Power sets traps then blames the individual for stumbling into them.
According to power, I am free to choose to change my circumstance. Yet power actively constrains that freedom by threatening my security; making me fear the potential loss of food security, the loss of warmth, the loss of home, the loss of safety, the loss of health, the loss of sanity.
Power can always find a legality, a loophole, a bureaucratic technicality that can be used to further punish those it blames.
Exploitation is necessary for capitalism. Exploitation is any wage labor in which someone else profits. Power exploits exploitation stretching it thin but keeping it taut to support blame, constrain freedom, encourage retaliation, mock sympathy, discourage empathy, and quash any potential for resolution.
To resolve a problem, there must first be a problem. According to power there is no problem. According to power this shroud of exploitation protects and enables. And it does; it protects and enables those above the shroud; the powerful. Those beneath the shroud are invisible; no problem.
According to power I have made many bad decisions in my life. I chased dreams instead of settling. I held money in contempt believing it was merely a vehicle for the moment and not the made-up affectation it is; not the God worshipped by the powerful. I loved and I cared and I told my truth and I worked hard instead of manipulating and gaming and pretending and taking advantage. And now forty years later here I am day-to-day, week-to-week, paycheck-to-paycheck, unable to help those I love, those I care about; continuing to work hard despite dashed dreams, in a bad circumstance, with limited options, on the verge of more “bad” decisions undoubtedly (according to power) blameworthy.
Welcome to America.
I read a headline from The New York Times this (Wednesday) morning: “Breaking News: About 89% of the federal funds meant to help renters avoid eviction during the pandemic has not been distributed, the Treasury Department said.”
Invisible constituency.
Welcome to America.
Headline and excerpt from Washington Post, August 19, 2021: “Ex-Purdue Pharma head Richard Sackler, seeking legal immunity, denies responsibility for opioid crisis. The billionaire family has vehemently denied wrongdoing that followed the 1996 launch of their blockbuster product OxyContin. The opioid crisis has claimed more than 500,000 lives in two decades in the United States.”
Trap set. Victims ensnared. No problem.
Welcome to America.
Headline from The New York Times this (Friday) morning: “Breaking News: The Supreme Court rejected the Biden administration’s pandemic eviction moratorium, putting hundreds of thousands of tenants at risk of losing shelter.”
Boom!! Another nail!
Welcome to America.
Headline from npr.org, August 24, 2021: “Many Americans Are Reaching Out For Mental Health Support —- But Can’t Get It.” Excerpts: 1. “Getting access to therapy and other kinds of mental health support remains complicated, hard to navigate and expensive.” 2. “These [insurance and access to provider] hurdles to getting mental health care produce a lack of parity between insurance coverage of mental and physical health, despite the 2008 Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, which requires insurers to cover mental health the same way they cover physical health.”
Go Team!
Welcome to America.
Headline from my recent (July) performance appraisal: “Bryan Consistently Exceeds Expectations.” Fact: I have not had a pay increase in more than two years and my pay is below average compared to 60 others with the same title, 44 other hourly staff in this same department, and 26 others identified as performing the same essential duties in other departments. There is a disconnect.
Yet I am one of the fortunate; straddling the front edge of working poor.
Welcome to America.
Headline from salon.com, August 23, 2021: “Why Americans hate and fear the poor.” According to this article: “Billionaires have seen their wealth surge by over $5.5 trillion since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, a gain of over 68 percent.” And: the working poor who “occupy a type of liminal space in America's social hierarchy, often holding down multiple jobs that do not pay a living wage… are employed by some of the world's largest and most profitable companies.” And: “During the coronavirus pandemic, the working poor were temporarily elevated… to the status of essential workers. In practice, this fake honorific was used to disguise the reality that the working poor were being asked to die for capitalism while being underpaid and otherwise exploited.”
We hate and fear the poor because we have come to realize they are us.
Welcome to America.