The Sage Observer

A Wet Noodle

          How do you push a wet noodle up a hill, aka an inclined plane? Experience has taught us that there is always a super intelligent nerd somewhere out there in the woodwork who will eventually come out in the open and, perhaps, tell us how; but, for now, I don’t have an answer–not fully anyway. The wet noodle to which I am referring is not one you eat, in a bowl of soup for instance. I am talking about the kind of wet noodle who is fat, lazy, ignorant, unmotivated, or all of the above.

          As you know by now, our nation is rapidly becoming a class society, so let me begin at the top with the very rich who no longer work for their income and wealth, being fed from the productivity and income of the middle class, i.e. excessive salaries funded at the expense of those lower down the chain of command, those who are laid off–replaced by slave labor abroad (aka outsourcing), and those subsidized by lower tax rates offset by higher rates paid by others and/or offset by compensating charges to our national deficit and, consequently, debt. In times gone by, we worked hard, did the right thing, and, hopefully, progressed accordingly. But times have changed.

In recent years, wealth is increasingly inherited. In their book, Capital, Thomas Pikety and Arthur Goldhammer tells us that “capital tends to produce real returns of 4 to 5 per cent, and economic growth is much slower”. In an interview with Bill Moyer of Moyers & Company on April 18, 2014, the Nobel Laureate, Paul Krugman tells us, “When you have a situation where the returns on capital are pretty high and the growth rate of the economy is not that high (or even low), you have a situation in which not only can people live well off inherited wealth, but they can actually pass on to the next generation even more, an even higher share”; and, when you have such an economy, “which is what we now have, you’re talking about a situation in which dynasties come increasingly to dominate the top of the economic spectrum and a tiny fraction of the population ends up very dominant” (and they no longer work for what they get, which is kind of like a wet noodle).

          Moving to the bottom of the classes, we have the lowest of all, the underclass. I have discussed them before, but I want to begin by making one major observation so as to negate any confusion. The majority of the underclass may be black; but, increasingly, they are being joined by the white population as they are being forced out of the middleclass due to globalization, unemployment, a failed economy, and by immigrants–especially Latino. Accordingly, our inner city ghettos and older suburbs are increasingly being populated with the poor, unemployed, and the homeless, saturated with crime, gangs, drugs, single family homes, hunger, and hopelessness. Their schools are underfunded, understaffed, in disrepair, and the dropout rates have “risen through the ceiling”. Understandably, most do not even care anymore. They have just given up. How do you push a wet noodle uphill?

          In my mind, there are specific reasons for the plight of the blacks which can be summed up in one word, Racism. Beginning from the day they came here on the slave ships and were bought and sold in the public markets to the highest bidder, these people have been abused, neglected, and otherwise maltreated–shunned, ignored and set apart from the rest of us, the greatest insult one can inflict on any man, woman, or child. In addition, the denial of equal opportunity in education and employment has been a constant source of exacerbation to their condition ranging from, before the Civil War, being denied the right to learn to read to the present, being denied equal access to education. Before the Civil War, the rich became richer at the expense of the blacks, living off the backs of their slavery; and, now that they are no longer available, they continue to enrich themselves from slavery through globalization.

In his book, The Triumphs of Joseph: How Today’s Community Healers are Reviving Our Streets and Neighborhoods, published in 1998, sixteen years ago, Robert L. Woodson, Sr., a black conservative, points to an ever increasing gap between black haves and have-nots. If the causes stated above are holding back blacks on the lower end of the scale, he asks, why are they not holding back those on the higher end of the scale? In his book, he contends that the Pharaoh’s are the main problems in that they (These are my words, and I believe they apply to the white underclass as well as the black) enable sloth and poverty among the poor as well as protect the jobs and turf of the enablers. Since, as I have just indicated, his book was written sixteen years ago, the latter has surely been resolved by now—Not. We usually don’t solve problems do we? We just talk about them waiting for the other guy to do it.

I have watched and listened to Mr. Woodson on C-span; and I respect him very much. In my view, he is very intelligent and well informed. He strongly believes in self reliance and self help, and I don’t disagree with that at all, but his is only part of the answer. In my August 9, 2013 posting to this blog, “Who Am I”, I discussed in some detail what makes a person who they are and invite you to revisit it. In short, however, I believe that a person’s heritage includes not only their genes, DNA, etc., but, also, the sum total of their life experiences and education from conception to the present, their character–all affected and influenced by that of their parents, and the environment in which they, socially, politically, and economically were raised (Of course this includes the same factors in your parents, grandparents, etc back down the line). This is true of all of us. So, back to the question, which in effect, asks how we bring the best out in all of us–how do we motivate the underclass to rise above the rest? My answer is faith, hope, charity, and equal opportunity for all, all of which has been taken from us, stolen, by greed and avarice.

Ronald Miller

Email me at mtss86@comcast.net

Reference: My blog of March 4, 2014 Titled, Our Underclass, itemizes in detail and recommends specific                    solutions to resolve, at least in part, some of these problems.