The Sage Observer

Where Do We Go From Here?–Part 2

Especially in the past thirty-some years, we have seen the utter failure of the far right and the destruction it has laid upon our country–just look at us now, on the verge of freefall. Oh no! Don’t go there. Don’t start blaming our current condition on someone else. All one has to do is look at the record–the real record, the real and true history, not the propaganda put forth by some. No one came into office in 2009 ready to deal with our financial collapse and impending state of economic depression. That happened in 2008, just before the elections–just before. I don’t have to be a resident of the oval office to believe that the plans of both parties, Republicans and Democrats alike, were geared toward winning the election and going forward from there. Our economic crisis, the largest since the Great Depression fell like a nuclear bomb out of the blue. Unfortunately, and arguably, no one expected it, not those in leadership anyway. It was a bomb dropped right in the lap of the new party elected to power, a bomb so immense it had to have almost completely demolished any plans which they previously had for governing in the immediate future. I don’t think anyone could think otherwise. Surely, their planning wheel had to be reinvented.

          Digressing ever so briefly, I want to make a point which I think we should keep in the back of our minds as we proceed in this discussion. In his book, The Benefit And The Burden, a book about taxes and reform, Bruce Bartlett briefly discusses the history of the income tax in which he says, “Historically, governments did not tax incomes. The main reason is that until the Industrial Revolution, incomes were too low to tax. The vast majority of people made barely enough to survive. They had no significant surplus from which to pay more than a small amount of taxes.” And what is my point? Our standard of living has come, as they say, “a long way, baby”. It surely has, and I don’t want to go back there, and neither do you. Also, I don’t want a government that will take me there either. It would seem, however, that there are some, if not many of those who would lead us in that direction, the purpose of this writing.

          I was born in 1932 smack dab in the bottom of the depression. For some time, years, we were homeless, living with relatives. Even though very young, I still remember the grinding poverty. I remember the very hard labor of my family eking out a living on a hillside farm in West Virginia in the thirties. I understand the concept, “survival of the fittest and let the devil take the hindmost.” We experienced it. There were no safety nets then. I know what it is to live without them, and I don’t ever want to see it again, for me or for the people of our great nation. I also understand, and care about those who lose. I remember, too, our recovery from that Great Depression brought about by the progressive programs of the left (the opposition of the right notwithstanding) and aided by the advent of World War II. I’ll never forget the difference in my family’s standard of living when I left home for the U.S. Air Force during the Korean conflict from that when I returned home after the armistice. Given our mini-recessions in the meantime, I remember our great period of prosperity between then and now.

As I proceed further, there will be those who don’t agree with my point of view. I ask you to consider one premise. God created this world for all of us–not just for the rich and powerful elite among us (and certainly not for the corporatocracy which are and should be tools for the service of man rather than to rule over him). Perhaps you don’t believe in God. All right–even if you don’t believe in God, surely you know this universe and our planet came from somewhere. That must surely be true. Do you think someone else out there just sat back and said, “Let us make our world only for the benefit of the rich and powerful? Let them rule and everyone else serve them. Let only the fittest survive.” I’m sorry. I can’t subscribe to that. For such to be true would require a world without feelings either for self or others, and we know that isn’t true. Everybody, even the lower of the mammals among us, have a sense of self, pain, and emotional feelings. To decide in which direction you wish to go, it seems to me, requires a knowledge and realization of who you are and your personal values. Do you want to be enslaved and poor or do you want to be among the rich and elite? Now that you’re thinking about it, what makes you think you will ever come close to being among the elite, that rare one, two, or three percent of us all–especially in this land which has lost its gift of equal opportunity for all? How many of us can even come close to winning a lottery, let alone be part of the elite?

Ronald Miller

mtss86@comcast.net