Trickle Down: Thinking of Pogo

While I know that the bearers of bad news are simply reading the scripts before them, I stopped listening to or watching the news except for the weather which really doesn't vary much around here. I do still read the newspaper, a lifelong habit that I believe will be with me for the rest of my life.

I know the economy is bad, and I don't need anyone telling me as much several times a day. I no longer monitor my 401k or my IRA for fear that I'll have confront the truth that people of my generation or those that follow will be able to think of "retirement" only when it is teamed with "home." I picture myself joining my peers as a Wal-Mart greeter, the old stooped-over man who bares his remaining teeth in some kind of demented smile and talks about what used to be.

There are, I believe, many people responsible for the mess we're in. Ourselves, of course, for our greed and materialism, and for our ability to permit politicians to work for the benefit of corporations, and for corporations to work for the benefit of their shareholders. And when someone suggest that perhaps workers and citizens deserve some consideration, that someone is labeled as anti-freedom or socialist. People who remember Ronald Reagan--a man who was senile well before he left office--remember that he and his ilk worshiped the idea that money given to the wealthy would trickle down to the middle-class worker. Maybe there's some truth to the concept, but George Bush the Elder had it right when he used "voodoo economics" to describe Reagan's ideas about the economy. George Bush the Junior thought Reagan's ideas were the ones to emulate, and though President Clinton is a smart man his interjection between Bush 1 and Bush 2 didn't matter much.

I have one brother-in-law who has lost a job because of this economic slide, and I would not be surprised if in the very near future I join him on the unemployment roll. I've been there before and though it was not pleasant I did survive, and I figure that as long as I can make my house payment, everything will be fine. An article in today's newspaper, though, described the sometimes days-long process of simply filing for unemployment in California, the governor of which has mandated that state workers take 2 days off unpaid to help the state heal its budget sores. This will make simple acts such as registering a car with the DMV--already a tar pit of government bureaucracy--even more aggravating. Our state legislature cannot even pass a budget but has yet to volunteer to also take 2 unpaid days a month.

So many decisions are being made by people for whom we have voted, and I cannot help but think that when we look at them, we are looking at ourselves. We do not seem to hold our elected officials accountable for much unless they sit with wide stances in the bathroom of the Minneapolis airport, and in such cases they refuse to hold themselves accountable. These are people we choose to trust, and in that trust is the hope that they will use their nearly unlimited access to "experts" wisely so that their decisions are based on facts and not their beliefs or simplistic ideas.

Though I have worked hard at being optimistic about most of life, that hard work does not seem to be paying off. We have chosen to allow our "leaders" to lead us astray, and as we look at our reflections in them, we have met the enemy.