My daughter got her first job and we are very proud. She will be working at a theme park until she goes to college in the middle of August. And we, as a family, are very relieved. But she tells her mother and I that many people who were interviewing did not get a job. They were in the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s. They were willing to take anything at any wage. But there were no full time jobs, no part time jobs. And the company was only hiring students for summer work. Some of the applicants turned up in blue jeans, some wore suits. Their benefits are either close to running out or have run out. I live in a very stingy state when it comes to benefits. And so our joy and pride for our daughter is tinged with guilt and empathy for those for whom the answer today was no.
Who speaks for those who are suffering? Who can help ease the fear and doubt and worry that the families of the poor and unemployed are feeling? Who can help the damaged and dented spirit of our country and teach us that we are all in this together, that when you hurt, I hurt.
I hear and see quite a few people who belittle the suffering of others, who blame those who are suffering for their circumstances. I see and hear a lot of judgmental harshness and cruelty. It seems that cruelty is a requirement to be a modern day Republican. But where are the voices of compassion among my fellow Democrats. We have campaigned for the past 32 years on the needs of the middle class, whatever that is. Bill Clinton said "The era of big government is over" and then signed welfare reform and bank deregulation into law. President Obama's stimulus plan was half tax cuts for business and too small by half even if the stimulus was all spending. He did not fight very hard for a more complete stimulus. Even if he lost that fight he would have been seen as a fighter.
Wall Street was protected, their losses guaranteed and yet they arrogantly spit at working America and poor America and the Occupy movement. The Tea Party movement was started by a diatribe of selfishness on a business news network. Yet some in our party believe that we can work with and cooperate with these selfish bastards. And that to me seems like battered spouse syndrome.
And we continue to ignore the real suffering out there. We have lost the American value of community. And that is tragic.
