When I look at certain practices some pithy words are sure to come to mind. The shorelines of our country should belong to all the people. But, they are reserved in many accessible places for those who got there first and then for those who had the foresight to buy them up and then sell to the rich for their exclusive use. This is patently UNFAIR. But, neither you nor I will do anything about it. The conservationists (as opposed to conservatives) try to get us to see how this is unfair for the land belongs to everybody. The conservatives try to get us to sympathize with the rich for they are not rich enough.
When I think about taxation, rent and costs for necessities I think about INEQUALITY. For the life of me I cannot see what is wrong with taking from the rich to give an above the starvation level support to the poor. Well, this isn’t really what taxation is all about. Everyone should share equally in supporting PUBLIC services that are meant for all. What I see is the rich not paying their share and the middle-class being taxed down to become part of the lower class.
What is galling is that the share possessed by the few who are rich is far greater than the many who also want to use what used to be for all. Looking at it more closely you can see that the Rich can and do afford to snap up private enclaves in the most inaccessible but beauteous land that once was open to all. The unfortunate thing about beauty and singularity is that it can become the private enjoyment of a few who can afford them. This applies to possessions – buying the rare, the exclusive name brand and the one of a kind item. The rest of us get a glimpse in pictures.
Rent is a great idea. Say a young person receives a bequest from a grandparent. Instead of living it up and squandering it he has a savings bent. So, he buys up properties, creates apartments and then rents them. People who can afford what he charges move in. Those out of luck are thrown out. There is an inequity here and it equally applies to acquisition of public lands for private exploitation – the same as that young man who builds and rents.
When I go to markets and am prepared to buy necessities my 60 year old memory says that a loaf of bread should cost $.25 and a gallon of milk about $.79. But my ¾’s of a century incarnation declares today’s prices are not what my 1990 pension can afford. There is something wrong here. Prices go up but my income does not and my ability to pay does not increase.
Our system is IMPAIRED. The 1880’s Populists had it right when they thought up the term “ROBBER BARONS”. They tried to curb interest rates at the banks and lower rents for rail cars bringing their produce from the west to the teeming warrens in the east.
A huge mistake was made in breaking up the telephone monopoly which was actually a public service. We have replaced TRUST BUSTING with encouraging monopoly and destroying small enterprise. We now go about screwing little devices into our ears. They go everywhere with us and we can and do talk with everyone all the time. The impairment is in all the invisible electro-magnetic waves that pass so easily through walls, forests and US. And, the hole in the ozone layer doesn’t worry us either. Our impairment goes deep.
We live with the knowledge that we are unequal and it hurts only when someone is more equal than we are. We are witness to unfair practices, unequal treatment of and exploitation of the less fortunate than we are. The uneducated mass grows more massive and is augmented by the arrival of hordes of the destitute and despairing. Opportunities, once free to all, are held private by a few.
Our society is impaired; its values are distorted and appropriated by perverted leaders who do not value anyone who does not share their compassionate, conservative and “lets help the needy rich” philosophy.
(Sorry. I should have been writing about where I was on December 7, 1941. It was in Schiff Reservation in a mountainous part of New Jersey on a Boy Scout weekend.)