Choices

You know that we could save everybody right? I mean...everybody. 

Every broken veteran that our endless wars have created; every struggling addict the opioid companies created; every cold, hungry, sick child and family that we've kicked out of the social safety net; every immigrant or asylum seeker at our borders that we've criminalized; every homeless, helpless soul who wanders among dumpsters because we closed the shelters; every senior who has to choose between medicine or food each week because they can't afford both...every single one of them.

(December 2020 Covid-19 update: And since this was first written, a pandemic has torn around the world. 300,000 Americans are dead. We couldn't have saved them all but we could have used our vast power, treasure, knowledge and skill to at least try. We could have saved so many but we chose not to. Thousands of people instead chose to argue over masks and closed bars and if it was even real. It became a political hot button and states that didn't vote the right way or say the right things got cut off. Hundreds of our 'leaders' decided it was expedient to ignore it outright and do nothing. We abandoned the sick and dying for poll percentage points and posturing. The powerful let them die. HB)

We are the richest, most powerful political construct the world has ever known and yet we choose not to be the most compassionate.

We choose not to. We have the money. We have the ability. We choose not to.

We have decided collectively if not individually to to leave the weakest and poorest to fend for themselves while a select few accumulate wealth that most of us cannot even comprehend. Consider...

There were 621 billionaires in the United States in 2019. The highest number ever. Can anyone honestly picture a billion dollars? That's one thousand times one million. $1,000 X $1,000,000. 

Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon is alone worth 13 of them. That is simply an unimaginable number.

He made 130,000 times more than I did last year. At a rate of approximately $3,715 per second. And he does it year after year. Don't get me wrong...there's nothing wrong with being successful...they worked at it or got really lucky or both but how much is enough? How many tax breaks does someone who cannot conceivably spend their income in a hundred lifetimes need? 

Even those like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, who are allocating billions from their personal fortunes to charitable work, continue to accumulate wealth faster than they can constructively give it away. 

Individual wealth aside, remember that our own federal government took in $3.3 trillion dollars in tax revenue last year. $3,300,000,000,000. Another unimaginable amount. And 80% of it came from individual income taxes. Corporate taxes came in at a whopping, uninspiring 9% of the total. (CBS News data)

We allow at least 60 Fortune 500 companies in this country to skate by without paying a single cent in income taxes on $79 billion in profits. If they paid the 21% federal tax rate, they would owe $16.4 billion in taxes. Instead they received $4.3 billion in rebates. (Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy data)

And we're in debt. To the tune of $22 trillion dollars. (I can't even imagine what it is now. I cost a bundle to bail out corporate America...again) Those who could contribute the most contribute the least and those who need the most can't keep up.

We're in red ink at the highest level in history but we decided to spend $13 billion dollars on another aircraft carrier. We have 10 of them already. More than any other Navy in the world...but just to make sure...we better build another one. 

Think of it like this. If the companies that paid nothing paid only their share...no more...like most of us, it would buy the Navy's shiny new carrier and lo and behold...there's $13,000,000,000 just kicking around to actually help people who desperately need it.

Or consider this...54% of federal spending is spent for defense. $598.5 billion dollars. Twice what is spent by the entire rest of the planet. We have by far the most powerful professional military in human history...but we decided we needed a new branch..."Space Force"...just in case. And by the way...we still have enough nuclear weapons to mostly eradicate life on Earth should the occasion ever arise. Just like personal fortunes; how much is enough?

But back to helping people who need it. A depressing percentage of the population are convinced that the vulnerable are the enemy. The stereotypical view that people who need help are somehow lazy or choose to be in the predicament they're in or refuse to work or whatever...is not at all typical. Yes, there are people who abuse the systems...but by far the majority are not nor are they looking to have everything handed to them for life. They are not the cause of our financial woes. We are.

Immigrants are not the enemy either. We all came from somewhere else. Unless your ancestors were here before the Europeans, you're an immigrant. Period. Stop calling yourself American if you believe otherwise.

People seeking asylum from Central America are not terrorists. Neither are the African or Middle Eastern refugees. Anyone taking on the danger and hardship of leaving their homes, especially those with families, is probably pretty desperate. They're not animals, not diseased, not bent on stealing 'our' livelihoods. They're looking for hope and we should be proud that they come to us to find it. Building literal or administrative walls to deny it to them is just evil.

They need help. Simple as that. And a society that claims to be a civil one needs to provide it. That's supposed to be who we are. Many working together to help a few to make us all better. Each of us who can putting a little bit in a big pot. It's stone soup. Everybody adds a tiny bit that they can. Those who need a hand now will be able to lend a hand later. It's not Communism or Socialism or any other '-ism' of the week...it's what makes us a country. It's supposed to be what makes us human.

We have the wherewithal to take care of everyone...or we would if we only decided to use it.

But I guess it's easier to just keep on keepin' on. Stay in the bubble where helping anyone is weakness. Where strength is more and more weapons. Success is for a few and power is for the most successful of all.

Hide in religion that preaches 'prosperity' while living in a tax shelter. Where the concepts of love, forgiveness and hope for the most vulnerable are lost in hate for anyone who is 'not like us'. Seek comfort in piety but lock the doors when 'the least of these' comes knocking.

Feed the lobbyists and starve the homeless. Hand out corporate welfare but cut SNAP. Roll out the red carpet to the shareholders and hedge funds but pull the rug out from under a retiree who depends on Social Security. 

Keep saying all is well because Wall Street is on a roll while millions...from WalMart employees to serving military families need public assistance just to eat. 

Cut staff and cut budgets. Build walls instead of homes. Buy another missile system with the money that would feed a thousand families. Save the banks and automakers and airlines with our money while personal bankruptcies skyrocket. And protect the health insurance providers' profits while real people die.

It doesn't have to be this way. We choose for it to be this way. We make a choice.

What happened to us?