The little man gets littler

Every day, someone in America files for bankruptcy
after suffering a major illness or because they lost
their job. Soon, thanks to "our" legitimately elected
Congress, anyone who tries to file for bankruptcy will
be screwed. Unless "they" are a huge corporation, of course.
We aren't talking about criminals, well, they are talking
about us as if we were criminals, we are talking about
hard working Americans who need a break once in a while.
Lose your job or get sick and you can lose everything,
but soon you won't be able to start over again. The
next thing you know, corporate whores will lobby for
the return of debtors prisons.

Being an American who doesn't have shit, but suffered
a major illness that, luckily, laid me out just enough,
I can relate. According to a Harvard University study,
the above scenario happens more than once a day, it
happens about once every 30 seconds. We are talking
about people who were otherwise financially solvent
going about their business when an act of God laid
them flat. Many of them do indeed have insurance, but
because medical bills are too big for even insurance
to cover properly, they were screwed any way.

Now, I am a secular humanist and proudly so. But I
do have a spiritual side. I'm kind of the opposite
of the guy born and raised Catholic who is an agnostic,
doesn't know if he believes in God or not, but is
still culturally a Catholic. I used to be an atheist,
but the more I learn about the nature of the universe,
the more I believe in certain governing moral concepts.
The universe is a hard place, an infinite place and
we are small, infinitesimally small ... and soft.

Our business isn't making money, our business is
humanity, it is life. Some 98 percent of us believe
in God, but most of us don't live like it. It is one
thing to see the suffering of our brothers far away
and not know what to do about it. One could argue some
problems are too big to solve or too far away to seem
real. We are short-sighted. It is quite another thing
to live in a wealthy country that is the envy of the
world and see that avarice and greed can't live hand
in hand with basic middle class survival. Americans
are so greedy, they will kill off the middle class
even, a group that most Americans belong to.

I am working class and have always seen the middle
class as my enemy, frankly. They are comfortable enough
to not give a damn about anyone living below their level,
but smart enough, rich enough and influential enough
to get things done when need be. They use this ability
to enlist the lower classes to their causes occasionally
then go right back to helping the upper classes exploit
the working class when they are done. Revolutions are
always about the middle class getting the lower classes
to go to war for them. The American Revolution, the French
Revolution and even the overthrow of the Czars in Russia
were led by people somewhere above the working class
who wanted power.

But Americans are about as big a bunch of spanked asses
as you could meet, whipped into obedience by any number
of factors: poor education, wage slavery, media-induced
zombification. We gave up trying to make things better
for anyone a long time ago because "that's what commies
do."

You would think that for our efforts to maintain the
statues quo, that the powers that be wouldn't let us all
rot on our feet from health problems and poverty. But if
Orwell taught us anything it's that those in charge will
put their boots on our throats and grind and grind and
grind. It isn't about how much is enough, it's about how
much is possible. The more you let people take from you,
the more they will want to take from you, the more they
will try to convince you it's necessary.

Go to Moveon.org to find lots of ways to get involved
easily and quickly.