Are there no prisons? Are there no work houses?

As the holidays approach I realize I've been hyperaware of the plight of homelessness and mental illness our communities are facing today. It's difficult to see the lines of RVs and tents along our highways and in our public spaces, while simultaneously being told our economy is in recovery, corporations are profiting, and unemployment has dropped.

I'm posting a lot on Facebook about what is going on in the economy and how it's hurting the majority of people, and the widening gap. I understand why people are adverse to another pandemic shutdown: money has to come from somewhere, and without money, there's no roof, no food, no medical care. I've posted how I myself am struggling, and although I am grateful for the roof over my head and the food in my cupboards, I am also acutely aware of how a change in political leadership could end all that for me and I could find myself without the resources I need to live. There are no easy answers right now. The only question is, who has to give up a little of what they have in order to stabilize the current economic state? The burden has been more and more often on the poor, while the rich have been able to capitalize on the desperation and poverty in order to rake in more for themselves. I suppose there are people who really BELIEVE they need more than one home, multiple cars, and expensive experiences while their fellow human beings are working two jobs to pay the rent with their multiple roommates... or live alone in the back of their cars... while business owners joyride in space.

“How shall I ever understand this world? There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty, and yet, there is nothing it condemns with such severity as the pursuit of wealth.” 

— Ebenezer Scrooge, Scrooge

We often see Scrooge as a caricature, but his ideology (and business practices) are all too familiar today. The only difference is that today we excuse the behavior of RL businessmen as being "just good business" and their right as employers, while we can still loath the fictional version of those same men. The pandemic has widened the gap between the haves and the have nots. Is there any wonder that the nation has seen people banding together to break in and empty high end stores like Louis Vuitton and Nordstrom? They've even over-run Home Depot to steal the crowbars and sledgehammers used in the theft and destruction. This is, to my mind, reminiscent of coming with the torches and pitchforks. Are we seeing mere theft, or the start of a revolution? Politics, economy, and The American Dream are so tightly intertwined in this idea that the rich are worthy and the poor are somehow morally lacking. The myth that hard work gets you farther is farther and farther from true as the years go by. Productivity increases, prices increase, wages do not. Yet as a society we spit upon the poor, assume all homeless are drug abusers or mentally ill, and won't even look at the fact that there are cities where teachers don't earn enough money to live in the districts they work in, and live in their cars at the side of the road. It's no coincidence that so many minority workers live in poverty and are unhomed. We are, as a society, depriving the workers of more and more in order to keep them working more hours, giving up more so that the already rich can get richer. We are using race and economic class to bludgeon individuals into labor that barely benefits them. Perhaps it's time we as a nation... perhaps the entire world, need to honestly look at our past, present and future, and find some reason for fairness and compassion in our politics, our economy, and our social ideology.