By Steve Lane
I don’t disagree with the President: we should rein in consumption. But that is certainly a departure from the new era of prosperity that he campaigned on. And it demonstrates the disconnection of Privilege from what normal people experience. Yes indeed, there is a lot of fat to be trimmed. But is my access to healthcare part of the fat to be trimmed? Is it the everyday person’s access to affordable housing, or a career? A pension? Food and transportation?
Why does the weight of the belt-tightening always fall upon those who are already struggling?
Why are we attacking our field workers, taking away their basic human right to due process, liberty, and justice?
The huddled masses want to know.
Who has 30 dolls, anyhow?
It is the height of gluttony to rendition legal AND illegal residents to the prisons of a foreign dictator. The fat does not reside within our migrant workers and their children, it resides within Elon and Trump and their ilk. It resides within those who steal the futures of hard-working laborers.
I went to elementary school in the early 1970s in McAllen, the deep south of Texas, 7 miles from the border with Mexico. At school, we white kids were far outnumbered by the children of migrant workers. Nobody batted an eye. We were good friends and our parents were fine with educating the children of those who brought us our food.
When I was 18 and married, I worked at the produce terminal in San Antonio driving and unloading trucks. My mentors were Mexicans. The guy I worked for had come to this country from Mexico decades before, illegally. He lived in a dump and worked hard and gained legal status and prospered. He provided for generations of his family and created jobs for multitudes of others. He appreciated hard work as much as anyone, ever.
Celebrate labor. Reward it. Respect it. Do not worship Privilege, you are not a part of it; the Privileged know this better than you do. All that Privilege will do is incite honest, hard-working, everyday people to fight with other honest, hardworking, everyday people. Because if we are busy hating each other while the Privileged steal our future, soon enough it will be you with your future stolen.
When there are food shortages, it will be the fault of the family farmers. When there is not enough water to sustain the lawns of the rich and famous, it will be the fault of those who drink water.
The script that these folks are following is the same narrative that informed the National Socialists in the 1930s and 40s in Germany. Almost verbatim. Instead of questioning the guy who inherited $400 million and never worked a labor job in his life, they want you to question those who are least able to protect themselves.
Don’t ever listen to cowards who could not have survived your life. They are selling you snake oil and they are carnival barkers.
They are the Pied Piper.
Don’t buy into the fear. Don’t buy the crypto coin. You are here to stand up for those who can’t. That is life, and it’s better than what they are offering you.
