by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Think of the poor whose lives, from the cradle to the grave, are blown this way and that by chance as dead leaves are blown by the wind. They cannot plan their lives. They cannot say 'John, of course, will inherit the estate, George will go into the Army and Henry into the Church.' No; they must take what life offers. They must grasp at spectral chances. They must pick up the crumbs that fall from life's rich table (and the crumbs from the rich man's table). And yet, all these lives, each so casual, drifting as tramps drift from one cold charity to another, all these lives, none of which can safely formulate its own plan – all these lives, I say, coalesce into that solid basis which is the very foundation on which the state rests, the inexhaustible arsenal from which alone we can draw for the defense of the national being. Think of the poor and about the poor, oh members of the government and those in money.
And while the poor today, in the twenty-first century, may no longer be, in the developed world, living the kind of wretched lives they lived in the eighteenth, nineteenth and even the early twentieth century, and many believe that they are in control of their own destiny, they are, in the main, still as much oppressed and kept down as in those days when the aristocracy ruled in Britain (more than now).
We even have nowadays politicians that have come from the poor and working classes and gone a long way, and many, however, great their motives and ideas to start with, have become part of the oppressive establishment, and this also refers and especially too the Labor Party in Britain of today, the so-called New Labor.
The founders of the Labor Party, such as Kier Hardy, would turn in their graves if they could at the betrayal of the ideal that they fought for and for which many of their comrades died even. The massacre of Peterloo in Manchester being but one example.
It has always been reckoned that, for instance, in America even someone born poor can achieve the “American Dream” but I think that the jury very much is out of that, especially nowadays.
Kids used to be told that they could, if they'd study hard, etc., climb the ladder and even become president of the country. He truth is that – at least today – very few will ever able to achieve that if they were born into poverty in the States. Way too much money is needed to even get onto the first rungs of that ladder to make it possible for a poor boy (or girl).
And yes, there are still poor in the richest countries of the world, whether the United States, Britain, Germany or Australia. As Jesus is supposed to have said “the poor you will have with you always” it still is, and their chances often are still as bleak, even in those rich countries mentioned, as they were in those olden days.
In fact, as far as I can see it, the gap between the rich and the poor is getting wider every day again, rather than narrowing, be this in Britain or the United States.
Now with the recession, which some keep claiming to have passed, things are getting worse still but even before it came to pass they were already headed south again.
Today the poor may no longer be villains, as of the days of old in Britain, for instance, and basically property of the local land owners, they still are not much better off than in those day. They today have to prostitute themselves for wages, wages which, in many cases, are going down rather than up, while the costs of living are rising all the time. So, in fact, the poor are getting poorer by the day.
The system, as it stands, of capitalism and consumerism, is totally slanted against those on the lower scale of income levels but, no, communism and socialism – as we have known them – will not make a difference there either, A new system is needed.
Another aspect too is that the poor often think that aspiring to this or that, in the matter of possessions, will make things better, all of it advertising led. This is not making them happier or better off; rather the opposite.
And this is a lesson that also must be learned by us all. Namely that we are not what we own and that things, however glamorous and whatever, do not make us happy. In the same way as one cannot buy love one cannot buy happiness. It is but an illusion.
© 2010
