problem, squared

I used to have a friend when I lived down South years ago, who got to go to college job-free because her folks paid for it. After graduation in the late 80s, she got a good job in insurance with a small, caring agency and still has the job now. I lived near her between 2000-07, much of which on my part was spent technically unemployed (but functionally employed in various odd and part-time jobs). Every so often she would complain about things like "deadbeats" who wanted taxpayer-supported health insurance (while she enjoyed employer-paid insurance), "hippies" who opposed two wars (that many of them were helping pay for - instead of their tax dollars going for their own insurance), lazy jobless folks who simply didn't want to work a menial job (often because they were told they were overqualified when they applied, and "would just leave for a better job before long").

In case you couldn't guess from context, I fell into all three of these categories (the last to an extent, since I did work multiple jobs at any given time, but no full-time job for 6 years). But of course when I would point out I was in the population she was criticizing, I was "different." I knew some other people in my similar situation, and they weren't lazy or unpatriotic or Communist any more than I was. They were just caught in bad situations, sometimes by their own choices - my troubles actually were a direct result of moving and seeking career advancement and better pay (as it turns out, with the wrong employer), all things we're encouraged to try.

Compared to the jobs situation now in the U.S., at least, those years were somewhat fat and happy for our country. I'm actually financially better off than I was then, and more than a lot of people now. So when I see the 99-percent protesters, I think, sure, there are some granola nuts taking advantage of it to be weird and be seen. But I also see people in business suits, middle-aged people dressed normally and not leaping at cameras. I see elderly people, who can remember what REAL hard times are like and worry they're nearly here again. Most of what I see look like normal people who would probably rather be sitting in an office or building something, or generally being paid and earning insurance, or able to enjoy a peaceful retirement, instead of standing or sitting outside where it's cold and probably kind of stinky. But staying home and applying for jobs and being quiet and obedient to the system hasn't worked in several years to persuade the people who CAN make decisions to outlaw credit usery; to penalize companies who outsource jobs; to impose higher taxes on those who can afford them and should be paying them (and should be happy to do so, to show gratitude to the country and society that made it possible for them to be that wealthy in the first place) to do so.

I saw a political cartoon the other day that indicated the protesters are basically whining about first-world problems, when there are people doing worse in the world. The rage this stirred in me cannot be expressed adequately here. I have two chronic medical conditions that really affect quality of life that, had I had access to affordable insurance/preventive health care 8 years ago, I likely could have stopped in their tracks or minimized, instead of having to treat them for the rest of my life ... and I know I'm lucky. I'm lucky I didn't need tumors removed in those 6 years; I'm lucky I never broke a bone; I'm lucky I didn't develop cancer. This is just a small part of the anger I felt; I've worked as hard since I was 18 as many people with great sums of money (and more than some), and I don't appreciate some asshole's straw man that because I always just managed to NOT end up living in a mud hut drinking feces-laced water, that I ought to be happy for the way things are right now in my country.

By the way, that was a newspaper staff cartoonist who I'm sure has health insurance and benefits, and don't you think he'd be happy to keep working if he lost all that and most of his salary and had to live in a box on the sidewalk? Sure he would.

My point is, I think things are far worse now than they were when things were bad for me - and I think these protesters have a right to do what they're doing. The great majority aren't nutjobs, any more than the great majority of the general population are nutjobs. What happened in Wisconsin is a good microcosm of the root problem, overall - basic lack of respect for the majority, from the minority that derives their power from the votes of the majority and/or their wealth from the sweat of the majority. Those public workers weren't largely upset that their pay might be cut; they were upset that the state was telling them they didn't have any right any longer to try to negotiate about it (even if it meant losing), period - you know, the state that wouldn't exist without taxpayer dollars, including what public employees pay into the coffers?

My broken wrist hurts, but I thought this important enough to try to type out, is all.