Years ago, I sat in a quiet Italian restaurant with Kurt Vonnegut (the story of how I was fortunate enough to sup with him is a bit long for this format), laughing about the stock questions people ask authors when he said (paraphrasing, its been twenty years), "Most people who tell me my books 'changed their life' can't really explain what that means. All they know is that they had an emotional connection to my writing. It didn't really change them at all."
"Oh, no," I replied. "You changed me in several ways. You challenged me to be a moral scientist rather than a button-pusher. You helped me see the small ways that technology makes us lonely and powerless. But most of all, you showed me the reality of class warfare in our country."
"How so?" he asked, suddenly very intent and focused.
"You wrote about the money river and how the wealthy employ bankers and lawyers to dam it up, to make it go where they want it to. You didn't tell me the powerful were no different than the old nobility, you showed me the chains and levers. I should hate you, you know." I rushed ahead, afraid that he would be offended. "You can't know something like that and go back to being the person you were. Even if you don't do anything about it, you still know. It's always there at the edge of your consciousness, nagging you."
He nodded in agreement and we talked of other things until the hour grew late. He never did tell me, either in person or in his work, how to be free of that burden. I still look askance at wealth, at the owning of things, of power for its own sake.
Today, Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison. I'm sure there are some people out there cheering, thinking that some sort of blow has been struck for justice and equality. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Today a single cancer cell was threatened with chemotherapy. I say threatened because Madoff is 72. The likelihood that he'll serve a day of this sentence is about the same as for Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and Bush43 combined. The culture that allowed Madoff to steal from so many protects its own. If one huckster can be brought down, what's next, revolution? Can't have the proles angry that the game is rigged. Already the apologists are circling the wagons.
It's precisely this plutocratic cabal that gleefully signed on for Bush's neo-conservative misadventures in the Middle East. We don't hear the words Halliburton or Bechtel any more because they've moved on to the next scam. Who pays? Us. The middle class. The working poor. They've housebroken us. We come back from their wars shattered in mind and body, if we come back at all. We accept that health care is only for the rich. We turn our eyes from the tent cities. We let our children go to inferior schools to prepare for service jobs that only exist because they can't be exported.
Almost everyone remembers Orwell's famous quote: "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever." If you want an image of the moneychangers, consider the following:
Sadly, there isn't a YouTube video of a person's greed killing someone else. Now that might give you an idea of how much I hate Bernie Madoff. They're going to keep stealing from us, they're going to keep killing us and there's no reason behind it other than cruel selfishness.
Somehow, I don't think "150 years" makes up for that.