As I watched the rant of CNBC analyst Rick Santelli concerning the proposed housing bailout of the Obama administration I couldn't help but think is this where we have evolved to as a country? Where our chief concern is what's in it for me. Have we gotten to the place where we are taking our moral cues from the same greedy, profit at all cost mentality that got us into this mess? According to this crowd it is now immoral to help those who have become unemployed, sick, or homeless because they have had the misfortune of working for a company that had lay-offs and didn't have golden parachutes. Because these people are still fortunate enough to be employed and have homes then the rest of the world be damned?
I am honored to present the work of Ralph Brauer. For some time I have marveled as I read his research and reflected upon his work. Today, this author of note shares with readers at BeThink. I welcome Ralph Brauer. May I invite you to peruse his prose. Please ponder; then share your thoughts.
There is an elephant in the room no one wants to mention when you bring up the housing crisis. It is the same elephant that has occupied the room since the very beginning of this nation. Yes, it was there that hot Philadelphia summer when they drafted the Constitution. Maybe that is what Ben Franklin is gazing at as he sits in the center of the famous painting of the signing of the Constitution by Howard Chandler Christy that hangs today in the House of Representatives east stairway. Certainly the elephant had haunted Franklin much of his life causing him to call it "a constant butchery of the human species" in an anonymous letter written in 1772. That elephant that haunted Franklin and continues to haunt us today is racism.
Why is it that when we encounter poor or homeless people they make us cringe? Why do we want to make them disappear into shelters or remove them out of our sights? Since the Reagan revolution we have instead of being at war against poverty, we have been at war with poor people. They litter our streets like so many abandoned cars at a salvage yard. Why has it been so easy to sell the false narrative that people are poor by choice and that if they would just work harder they wouldn't be poor? I think that our reactions to the poor says more about who we are than who they are. Let's face it there have been poor people throughout recorded history, so what's the big deal? The big deal is not that there are poor people, but that there are poor people we could help and don't.
Subscribe to Site [RSS]
