They Can Make Our Lives Miserable, But They Are Never Going To Break Us, 4

Today, Gentle Reader, we are going to talk about money.  We are going to talk about those who have money, and those who do not, why they do and why they do not and why this whole situation stinks worse than an outhouse that hasn`t been cleaned in over a century.  I just read in this weekend's Globe and Mail that Donald Trump and the members of his half-filled cabinet so far have a net-worth of eleven billion dollars, and this is exactly the way Trump supporters like it.  Yes, they may, themselves, be poor, but with a rich asshole like that in the Oval Office they feel somehow reassured that the possibility of themselves becoming rich assholes just like President Dump, will always be there for them.

This is the problem with the American Dream.  It's all about money, accruing wealth, and through wealth, power.  It has always been this, and Canada has also been infected by the greed virus, though in many cases we still remain relatively asymptomatic.  Our prime ministers have always been individuals of means, if not obscenely wealthy like their American counterparts.  Campaigning for political office is itself an expensive process requiring substantial sums of money for a basic platform.  Please notice that no one on a low income has ever been elected to high public office in this country, nor likely ever will.

The problem with so many people wanting to become wealthy is, there are only so many resources to go around.  The generation of wealth, like anything else, is going to have its limits.  Not everyone is going to get rich, and in a highly competitive struggle, there are going to be many losers and not a few casualties.   The lucky few win the prize, get the fat bank accounts and investment portfolios and generally have access to such power as to induce misery on the rest of us, the Great Unwashed.  So this is the American, and by extension, Canadian Dream: become unreasonably rich and basically shit on everyone else. 

This isn't to say that there aren't those who try to give back, but it is always going to be on their terms.  Unlike in a system of fair taxation, the wealthy benefactors get to pick and choose, to cherry pick which causes they are going to champion and bankroll, and everyone else can go dumpster dive for empty cans and bottles.  They are also going to be expected to buy their own shopping buggies, of course.

With so much of our nation's wealth being horded by the One Percent, is it any wonder that social inequality is always the issue du jour?  The rest of us work at increasingly insecure occupations with stagnated or lowered pay for longer hours to feed ourselves and our families while shelling out to pay for food and housing costs that rise exponentially faster than our incomes.  Is it any wonder we are angry?  Who wouldn't feel betrayed?  To add insult to injury, Prime Minister Junior has approved the Trans Mountain Pipeline, hoping that his past year and a bit of offensive charm and sex appeal would seduce and lull us into giving him a blank cheque to go on kissing the derrieres and other anatomical bits of Chinese billionaires and American political and economic Godzillas hoping that we wouldn't even notice.  Quick, another shirtless selfie, that'll distract 'em.  Maybe unzip my pants, too. 

Justin, you can keep your clothes on.  The thrill is gone, for me it never was, and without adjusting or removing one single item of clothing you have successfully mooned every person who lives in Canada.

The wealthy certainly can make our lives miserable, but we don't have to concede.  We are still richer than they are.  We have at our fingertips, at low cost, or even for free, all sorts of resources for enriching and ennobling our lives.  I have always been poor, yet I have become fluent in a second language (Spanish) am well-read, well travelled and speak and write like someone with a post-graduate degree.  Not bad for a college dropout.  I cook well, bake, enjoy my friends, take good care of myself, and love nature and the outdoors.  These and many other riches that have nothing to do with money, the rich cannot take from me, because in my poverty I am far wealthier than even President Dump. 

We have to continue to live our lives as though these idiots didn't matter, while continuing to hold them to account for their selfishness and greed, for the way they perpetually betray us.  We also need to continue to summon forth the better angels of our nature so that we don't have to sink to their depths of lowness.  Gentle Reader, even if you don't believe in God, even if you are an agnostic or an atheist, I still summon you to stretch forth and touch your Highest Good, and to let your Highest Good become your leading star.  We are in this together, and together we will rise.  Together, we will win.

They can make our lives miserable, but they are never going to break us!