Fiddling the Figures
As I read and watch comments on our financial situation, I am constantly startled by the bold lies and manipulations of who has what.
It is pretty obvious that our superrich are getting more so -- and perhaps even more than any of us know. If one can afford clever accountants and lawyers and has access to where the global monies lie and/or can be hidden, one can really make out big time.
But official reports from various sources indicate that most of us are losing income with some facing extinction with no income or homes for themselves or their children. Or imagine the frail elderly person who is evicted from his/her home with no place to go and personal possessions scattered on the sidewalks to be collected by whomever or trashed?
I certainly remember the horrors of racism in my childhood. I had been taught to be polite and one time with my mother (not a racist) on a bus I stood up to allow an African American lady (presumably on her way to a household job) to sit down and I recall my mother's embarrassment as other passengers indicated their disapproval. This was in West Hartford, CT -- not the South. One family scrap metal business (where I worked one summer) gave fair employment to African American men in Hartford. They were Jewish and sensitive to prejudice -- it was near the beginning of WW2. They were the only employers to my knowledge of African American men and even sent some of their workers on to college. African Americans lived in a small ghetto in Hartford, I discovered by accident, when we boy scouts were taking bundles of newspapers nearby for the war effort.
Needless to say particularly African American men are suffering the most from the job shortage today. Many have prison records rather than high school degrees.
What really scares me is the apparent return to similar attitudes and the indifference of many in this country to the suffering of their fellow humans. The figure fiddling comes in at this point to cast blame on those who need it least. Remember Reagan's welfare lady picking up the check from her Cadillac? Republican lying about such things is not a new phenomenon.
Any suggestions as to how we can cope with this moral monstrosity?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent [blind copies]
It is pretty obvious that our superrich are getting more so -- and perhaps even more than any of us know. If one can afford clever accountants and lawyers and has access to where the global monies lie and/or can be hidden, one can really make out big time.
But official reports from various sources indicate that most of us are losing income with some facing extinction with no income or homes for themselves or their children. Or imagine the frail elderly person who is evicted from his/her home with no place to go and personal possessions scattered on the sidewalks to be collected by whomever or trashed?
I certainly remember the horrors of racism in my childhood. I had been taught to be polite and one time with my mother (not a racist) on a bus I stood up to allow an African American lady (presumably on her way to a household job) to sit down and I recall my mother's embarrassment as other passengers indicated their disapproval. This was in West Hartford, CT -- not the South. One family scrap metal business (where I worked one summer) gave fair employment to African American men in Hartford. They were Jewish and sensitive to prejudice -- it was near the beginning of WW2. They were the only employers to my knowledge of African American men and even sent some of their workers on to college. African Americans lived in a small ghetto in Hartford, I discovered by accident, when we boy scouts were taking bundles of newspapers nearby for the war effort.
Needless to say particularly African American men are suffering the most from the job shortage today. Many have prison records rather than high school degrees.
What really scares me is the apparent return to similar attitudes and the indifference of many in this country to the suffering of their fellow humans. The figure fiddling comes in at this point to cast blame on those who need it least. Remember Reagan's welfare lady picking up the check from her Cadillac? Republican lying about such things is not a new phenomenon.
Any suggestions as to how we can cope with this moral monstrosity?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent [blind copies]
posted by Ed Kent at 10:25 AM
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