A tale of two economies

“I’m sick and tired of people going to congress in Washington D.C. and making a living out of it while we starve to death.”

Those words were spoken by a resident of Newton Iowa during a segment of CBS’s 60 Minutes titled “Anger in the Land,” which aired on October 31, just days before the 2010 mid-term elections. The words were simple yet as savage as a sledgehammer striking at the foundation of the frustration shared by citizens across the land.

Newton is one of the small towns in America that has been decimated during the Great Recession. The 60 Minutes segment was devoted to capturing the mood in the country just before the elections that would be taking place in the midst of unrelenting economic hardship. A CBS/New York Times poll was cited that revealed that 80 percent of the people polled said they want most incumbents out of Congress regardless of whether that incumbent is a Democrat or Republican.

Though understandable, much can be said about the unsophisticated and suicidal aspects of this sentiment, which speaks to just how deep in the dark the majority of Americans are as it regards the jigsaw puzzle that is governance in this country. But in fairness to those of us who are languishing in the darkness, it’s extremely difficult to connect the pieces when we’re disconnected from the process. Note this exchange that took place during the 60 Minutes segment:

“What’s surprised you the most about this recession?” correspondent Scott Pelley asked business owner David McNeer.

“I think the depth of it, and the length of it. I think what surprised me the most about this one is it doesn’t wanna end,” he replied.

“You know, the economists say that the recession’s over,” Pelley pointed out.

“Really? They should come to Newton, Iowa,” McNeer replied.

But of course they won’t be coming to Newton because the people in Newton really don’t matter. They are no more a part of the economic recovery process that truly matters than they are a part of the political empowerment process that truly matters. And that goes for the majority of us living in America.

Robert Reich, former secretary of Labor under President Clinton, put it this way in a recent article:

There are two American economies. One is on the mend. The other is still coming apart.

The one that’s mending is America’s Big Money economy. It’s composed of Wall Street traders, big investors, and top professionals and corporate executives.

But there’s another American economy, and it’s not on the mend. Call it the Average Worker economy.

Simply put: There’s the American economy that matters to the folks that matter in Washington D.C. That’s the economy that’s composed of those that have the wealth and power to shape policy to their advantage. They are the ones that, for example, rule Wall Street and were able to contribute 15 million dollars to presidential candidate Barack Obama’s campaign and have the monetary muscle to lobby against any meaningful legislation to regulate the Wall Street investment banks “whose missteps caused a global financial crisis and economic slowdown two years ago,” as pointed out in an article that appeared in Bloomberg.com the other day. These are the people responsible for the economic catastrophe that has produced the suffering that is taking place in Newton IA and throughout the country and the world. 

Then there’s the Average Worker economy. The majority of us are plugged into the one that doesn’t really matter. Well, at least at the moment that’s the case. I’ll simply close with the ominous warning that Mr. Reich issued at the end of his article:

“…if nothing changes in the Average Worker economy, there will be hell to pay.”

last night in the vestibule

i was hoping that it was the wind again

pretending to be an old senile actor trying to

carry a message

a warning

between forgotten lines

wanting to be born again

but giving up and dying

in the form of this man

whose features i had often given

to the night

whose voice i had often given

to the darkness

who was at my door…at my door.

he rang the bell as if all of his blood

had surged into the one hand, the one finger

like the one that pokes our chests or our foreheads

after each utterance of why

after each scream of why

like the one that belongs to grandmama, to granddaddy

or their grandchildren who don’t know any better

the finger that seems to always separate the blood

into explanation

blood that was about to be set free

flowing like declared independence

after alley-crack dialogue

filling lies where rock and sand have failed

no, the wind’s freedom is not the same.

maybe his blood was Ashanti…as mine became Dogon…

there were shadows standing along the drawn-up boundary

hearts beating like hands against a hollow log

he was a wanderer seeking refuge from the shadows

like an unplanted seed needing one last embrace from the sun

not caring to take root beneath infertile rhetoric.

he was a stranger

seeking refuge in a vestibule…in a village

Senufo…Bateke…no…yes…no…we were both african

but he could be conquered

his hand fumbling through the boot-legged images

that could bring death from the shadows

that could conceal death

but he could be conquered.

hearts beating like hands against a hollow log

a shared dialect heard above the babble

of fading shadows

…Ibibio…Yoruba…no…we were both african

i could feel it in the wind.

Money in Politics: The High Price of Democracy

Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.  ~Oscar Ameringer

After witnessing the 2010 mid-term campaigns I seriously doubt that any sane observer would describe politics as a “gentle art.” And according to a recent article in the Washington Post, getting votes from the poor these days is an art form that has gone the way of participatory democracy in this country.

In the Post article Deborah Weinstein, executive director of the Coalition on Human Needs, an alliance of national organizations that advocates for the poor, commented on the reluctance on Capitol Hill to address the issue of poverty in this country, which she says is “a national emergency.” 

Weinstein noted that there are people in Washington who realize that “…poverty is important and is a blight on our nation.” She goes on to say, “But we are also up against a general recognition that poor people don’t vote in great numbers. And they certainly aren’t going to be making campaign contributions. That definitely puts them behind many other people and interests when decisions are being made around here.”

Which leads me to the video clip featuring Robert Kaiser, who coincidently is associate editor and senior correspondent of the Washington Post. Mr. Kaiser was on tour, promoting his book titled So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and The Corrosion of American Government.

During his talk Mr. Kaiser makes several points that pretty much echo what Ms. Weinstein said as it concerns the lack of representation for the poor on Capitol Hill. But there was one particular point that he made which was staggering in its summation of just how much of a factor money has become in politics. Kaiser said that in 1974 the average winning Senate campaign cost $450,000. In 2008 the average cost of a winning Senate campaign had risen to approximately $10,000,000.

What that suggests to me is that not only the poor, but every other economic class except for the wealthy has pretty much been priced out of what we have been made to believe is the premier model of democracy in the world and it’s a price tag that both major political parties are responsible for attaching to the system of government that impacts our lives from the cradle to the grave. It’s no wonder that we have the level of disillusionment and rage that we have among the electorate in this country…

Welcome to the Circus: Jimmy McMillan

Even a circus has its serious moments, where the entertainment is underlined by the dangers associated with acts that thrill and excite us. I have no idea who this guy is, where his candidacy is going, or what may be revealed about him down the road.

But I do know that the danger underlying this latest viral sensation is that the issues that he is bringing up, the issues that really matter to everyday people whose voices are being drowned out and who are also dying from the condition of being unheard, will merely continue to serve as props for the same old tired acts…

a garden segue

In the beginning there was…

i can’t imagine

asking the sea to accept me

as it’s kin

to reach out and embrace me

like the framed blackness

that lies before my

baptized eyes

as I peep through this

window of smoked pain

watching finales exchange

cold and ashy hands

that are wrinkled like

the breath that is vapor

like exhaust

from rattling machinations

or maybe even

emissions

from virgin serpents

…even eternity

had to start

somewhere.

Storro: Burning Our Faces To Spite Our Foes

Maybe the screams that they heard were echoes of their own, their own skin still aflame from the condescending stares of the sidewalk saints that mockingly danced around them as they descended into yesterday’s story…

These thoughts were triggered from reading that homeless witnesses stated that Bethany Storro, the woman living in Vancouver, Washington who claimed to be a victim of a vicious acid attack was “alone when she fell to the ground screaming.” (Vancouver Voice)