During the recent tragedy in Japan, a very old man described his experience in escaping the tsunami that dealt such a terrible blow to his country.
At first, he said, people were knocking each other down, scrambling to stay in front of the rising water without regard for the safety of children or the old or injured.
But coming immediately behind this group were people who stopped to aid and help others get to the safety of higher ground, even at the risk of their own lives.
I believe this narrative is a perfect analogy of the political split in our society between those who are only concerned with themselves and those whose spirit transcends selfishness.
I don’t mean to minimize the tragedy of the Japanese tsunami, but there is a terrible tsunami now raging in America. The water is not rising as rapidly as it did in Japan. It is slowly seeping into our nation, rising almost imperceptibly, a millimeter at a time, but this tsunami will eventually have a profound effect on our middle class and a large, disadvantage segment of our society.
The tsunami that is ravaging our country now is surreptitiously lurking in the shadows of tax breaks for corporations and the rich under the guise of reducing the deficit with spending cuts in programs for the poor and disadvantaged.
The people spreading this American tsunami are corrupted by greed. They attempt to avoid paying their fair share by focusing their spending cuts on the weak, the poor, disadvantage children and the aged; yet they are safe from the rising water on the high ground of their affluence.
While they stay well in front of the rising water, they offer no helping hand to others coming behind them, struggling to get to the safety of higher ground.
How do we stop the corporations and rich from destroying us with this great American tsunami?