And my conservative friends always bring up the fact that Redding, a poor area, has one of the largest personal giving percentages in the state.
That's right, in spite of grinding poverty, the haves up here are overall very generous in their giving.
So why not just let it be like it used to be? Before the Great Deprression personal donations and church benevolence was what took care of the less fortunate. Why can't we just do that?
Then mean old Mr. Roosevelt came along, and socialism in Russia, making government a wet nurse.
Why then can't we just put it back, like Conservatives want to do.
Its a matter of scale and population.
Our church had a series of meetings on what to do with the poor and homeless in Redding. We strategized for weeks trying to maximize resources to make a difference.
With over 3000 homeless the task is daunting to say the least.
And everytime, I mean everytime, we ultimately turn to government to do something.
Ok, this is why conservative philosophy regarding social welfare will always fail: numbers.
That's right numbers. There are over 300 million Americans now. They mostly live in huge metro areas that depend on large scale infrastructures for everything. They can't grow their own food. They can't provide their own roads. They can't be "rugged individualists".
Inland the smaller population numbers live more individualistic lives, but still are hugely dependent on each other for support. In short, we ALL need each other, working together, to maintain our wasteful and climate endangering lifestyles.
Years ago the United States made a serious mistake. We allowed Big Oil to run our politics. We are so enamored with automobiles that we tore down our passenger rail infrastructure; we did away with trollies, we even reduced Greyhound Bus Lines to a shadow of itself.
We now drive everywhere, we depend on the personal automobile for our economic existence.
And that individual freedom has fooled us into believing that we are somehow separate, aloof from the rest of us.
People are isolated in our cars, until someone swerves into our lane or heavan forbit, we have an accident. Then wham, the government is right their in the personage of the Highway Patrol, Judges, Lawyers; etc. In a heartbeat we realize we really were not alone in our cars.
And everytime gas prices spike we flinch; because the vast majority of us now live paycheck to paycheck. The vast majority of us drive over 30 miles one way to work in citiies where only the rich can afford to live close to work.
Meanwhile the gap between the rich and the poor grows. The homeless grows and we begin hearing from the demogogues who tell us all we have to do is "Make American Great Again" and we "Can Fix This".
And everyone of them on the right are USING us against ourselves. They cater to our panic when we slow down and realize we are trapped. We are trapped in our myths in our yearning to be free of one another when it is just impossible to be free from one another.
It always has been. The rugged invidualist is a myth. In the "Wild West" the only thing that kept settlers safe was the United States Army. That is what "won the west" by a system of brutal genocide toward Native Americans and out and out land theft. That's right, your great grandparents stole the land, they DID NOT earn it. The military protected them. That's right, government won the west!
Today it will be over 100 degrees in Redding, California in the middle of September. In the next week we will see temperatures that will set, once again, records for heat along with a drought that is endless.
Our California Dream is quickly becoming a nightmare of heat, crime, homelessnes and a sense that we can't do anything about it ourselves.
It's the "ourselves" part we HAVE to address. WE ARE NOT IN THIS ALONE! We have to fix it or it will fix us: we are talking species survival here.
Rugged invidualism is a myth; never have been, never will be. We have to realize that teamwork and working with not against government is the ONLY way we can get out of this one way trip to hell.
That's right a one way trip to hell. Global warming is on us, poverty is on us, and yes an unfair distribution of wealth is on us. It will destroy democracy, encourage fascism (the Republican Party has become a fascist poltical party by any political science measurement) and paralyzes effective refroms to solve problems.
There is a reason why the Congress can't solve or do anything. It is by design, it protects the gas, coal and oil industries who have decided to ruin the planet to protect their profits. And they use our love of the automobile against us.
They are sly, they are very well funded, and they will never quit. They have pledged to win this no matter what the costs. Just like Germany in the 30s, coroporate power has thrown its power to the right wing, gambling that "at the end we can control them".
That was crazy then, it is crazy now. Fascism ultimately leads to conflict and leads to warfare. And that warfare ultimately leads to ruin.
And that is a reckoning that none of us can afford. We can turn this around, but it will take those of us who are mesmorized by the right to blink, shake their heads and see. It is the only way we can stop this madness.
I pray every day that this will happen.
