I just finished a fantastic book called Tomorrow Will Be Better. It is the story of a young woman Margy Shannon set in Brooklyn in the 1930's. The book is full of wonderfully flawed characters who are victims of their own circumstances. The book really captures the feeling of helplessness and the circle of poverty in a working class American city. Great works of fiction often serve as social commentaries of the age in which they were written. Invisible Man, The Grapes of Wrath, A Tale of Two Cities, Uncle Tom's Cabin, these are books that have come to define the eras they were written in. To this day all those books are still taught in high schools and colleges everywhere. Tomorrow Will Be Better, though not as well known as those books, defines 1930's Brooklyn. Sadly, it also defines 2009 [insert any American city].
They were worn out, beaten down. They had to conserve themselves every nonworking moment in order to replenish their strength for the next day's work. And their killing work brought them nothing except enough rest and food to enable them to work. Time did not march on with them; it went around in a circle.
Yet each has been a tremulous young girl once, full of dreams and natural vanities. But they had had to fight poverty and they were licked from the start.
"People like us can't afford to be sick. We've got to keep well. If we lose our health..." she knocked on wood, he followed suit, "we're sunk."
These are my favorite quotes from the book. Betty Smith, in beautifully simple language, describes the hardships of a life lived in poverty. She shows how vicious the cycle of poverty and harship is. Each generation hopes that the next will be better. Parents work hard to make sure their chilren will live a better quality of life than they did, but they often do it in vain.
The entire time that I was reading this book I realized how prevalent this is with the debates going on in Washington. Politicians, on both sides of the aisle, argue about what is best for the American people, but how often do they really think about the people that their policies are affecting? How often do John Boehner or Nancy Pelosi try to understand what is going on on the ground. Why is it that a book that was written over 60 years ago still strikes a chord today?
I guess I'm writing this diary to get a discussion going. Some of you here on Daily Kos are older than I am (I'm 24). Most of you are wiser. So I wanna know your thoughts. Why is it that in the 60 years since this book was published, not a lot has changed? Through both Democratic and Republican administrations the fundamental unfairness of our economic system has not changed.