Like everyone else, I experienced shock and awe when it took only days for the US Government cut a 750 billion dollar bail-out check to the banks. Over the last weeks I have been wondering how come the US Government could never, across the decades, find a similar amount to help the lot of the poorest citizens of our country?
The question, so simplistic that I was unable to conceive of it for weeks, leaves my faith in our Civilization shaken to my core, and I am starting to wonder if we have been going about this civilization thingee the wrong way. Did we jump off the track somewhere down the line?
Now when I listen to the economic pundits it all sounds like gibberish, whereas before the Fall I was impressed by their concise expertise.
Now I wonder what was it all for?
Why are we so obsessed with the work ethic?
Wasn't the concept that machines would alleviate the drudgery? That the soul-killing repetitious labor would be removed from our lives?
How did we get to this point in time where we expect politicians create jobs to put people to work instead of the other way around?
Over the lost few weeks, wage-earners can literately watch their retirement savings dwindle.
Why do they work hard, why do their wifes work hard, their young children stuffed into holding pens, love on hold until their parents, almost too tired to care, return from offering up their labor?
To what purpose?
Why is it that the labor unions who in the 1930's fought so hard to insure than men and women received a living wage and freedom from want, are now so desperate that they are falling over themselves to cut back on basic standards that decency demands?
And at the end of the day, what will we be left with?
Miserable fellow beings hammering their short lives away in work houses pursuing the illusion of security?
Why do I only now see their plight in every one of us who is tied into this construction we call a civilization, going to work, returning home, fulfilling someones mad desire in a nightmarish dreamscape?
To what purpose?
In trying to look at this for what seems the very first time, I find myself asking - has all this been worth it?
Was there no better way?
Could there not be a better way?
Is it too late?
And yes, you would be right to criticize me for stating these thoughts without offering any alternative solutions. I can only reply that, in the light of this massive infusion of cash to the banking system, you could get no more reason out of me at this moment in time than you could from a deer in the lights of an onrushing car.