Common Interest

If you grew up in a small town in the 80’s your local paper was the news. If that’s the way someone said it was, it was. Even if you possessed the academia, Encyclopedia Britannica was the Google of its day. With a minimum wage of $3.35 an hour the financial challenges during those “Trickle down Economic” years left little time for leisure. Begs the question of how so much was done with so little. Wondering, I ask myself aloud; are the lives of my loved ones better, their futures’ more secure today? With inflation and poverty rates basically the same, factor in the political insurrection and social unrest and a case can be made that it’s not. Democracy is indeed a slippery slope, but common interest enables the privileged to gain their footing. Common interests create a binding perpetual relationship. Common interests are why this “Great Experiment” exists in the first place. These commonalities foster loyalty and commitment to a shared goal rather than to an individual and this, is “where the rubber meets the road”.

The Federal minimum wage has increased $7 since its inception in 1938. Seven dollars in 83 years and it took 22 times to do it? It took one vote to send 50 billion to Ukraine. Shameful! Wielding the power to “yea” and “nay” themselves a wage increase, the last time the Congress or Senate saw a pay cut was during the Great Depression. When’s the last time you got a raise? They can count on a minimum of 12k hitting their bank account’s monthly. Three months of this is more than half the workers employed in the United States see the entire year. Our elected officials enjoy the best health care, comped expenses, and lifestyles of luxury accessible by you only in your dreams. Despite their ages, they look fantastic! A few got it goin’ on! But do they represent our interest?

While we’ve been marching for the same inalienable rights since the 60’s the top 1% of our nation is busy controlling the lion’s share of the wealth. This is made possible by us, the bottom 90% who facilitate the re-elections of those who find us relevant only when votes are needed. For this reason it’s high time we re-evaluate the effectiveness of our playbook. In a world where the narrative is technologically advanced the preferred operating system of our chosen leaders is MS-DOS. Everything around us is evolving, only we can’t afford it! When you own the land that produces the grain which feeds the animals it makes it easy to set the cost; especially when your buddy provides the transport because his sister who bids the contracts went to college with a representative who just happens to sit on the overseeing committee. This is more like hitting a homerun than a stand up double! The Cheetah doesn’t always catch its prey, the Yankees don’t win the World Series every year, we work hard, why is parity conspicuously absent from our lives? Producing prodigy becomes effortless when the outcomes are pre-determined. What is the “American Dream” if 60% of the country’s residents live below the poverty line? Unattainable, that’s what! Family members don’t just become drug addicts. Our beloved didn’t awake today and decide to rob a bank, commit suicide, become alcoholics, or vow I want to suffer from anxiety. These are the offspring of a cumulative effect born of generations of suppression, oppression, and depression exponentially fueling the rise in mental health cases within our communities. Undoubtable, what occurred on January 6th was traumatic. As alarming as it may have been, it was a one-off. These realities are faced by residents within your district's daily while you willfully invoke ignorance at taxpayer expense. Where is our PTSD diagnosis? Unprincipled politicians, the assault on women’s rights, mass shootings, voter suppression tactics, higher prices at the pump… all while your “slaves to the grind” scramble to make ends meet perilously treading water one emergency away from drowning. Upwards of 95% of these individuals hold Bachelor ’s Degrees and more than half of all U.S. Senators have law degrees’ to include a third of Congress. They hail from the likes of Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Georgetown, and Brigham Young Universities. Arguably a collection of some of the finest minds in the country, their children are gifted lives of privilege as well benefiting from generations of nepotistic practices as the burden of student loan debt encumbers those of us who endeavor the same. It’s a lot easier to score when you start on 2nd base. Most of us understand that despite our best efforts some inequity will exist, but my daughters aren’t fighting to start on 2nd base they just want an opportunity to bat! From Ethics to Education, Intel to Ways n Means, there is a committee which governs every aspect of life as you know it. These men and women are aware of every decision they make and who will benefit from it. If they’re not, what are they doing there? Private contracts, preferable treatment, passing constituent friendly legislation; these deliberate decisions are made based upon loyalties and common interest. Since when does not recognizing the cancer make you exempt from catching it? No, it just means that when you do it is usually too late. We’re there people, still think politics don’t affect your life? The latest Gallop Poll suggest you do because our elected officials boast some of the lowest approval ratings of any profession on the planet. Nice to have a vote isn’t it? Be even nicer to use it to collectively enact meaningful legislation for positive change. Our children’s futures are being mortgaged away as the outstanding bill for perennial negligence comes due in plain sight. The blind eyes we are turning toward our existing “moral crisis” is the same spoke of by John F. Kennedy in June of 1963. Often quoted are his famous “Ask not what your country can do for you”, rarely mentioned is his “Every accomplishment begins with a decision to try”; what will you choose? We must deal with the people and things adversely impacting our lives as they are, not as we wish them to be. These rules don’t work for us!