all your enemies smile when you fall

you’ll take it because you don’t know what you want

suddenly I had this uneasy feeling:

“It seems like everything is changing and it is never good for the people.”

My mom said that.

I was talking to her while running to catch the metro. I had a final that night and I was running a little behind. I had been pretty caught up in my own little world of balancing school, work, and trying to get out to OWS stuff (and my computer quasi-crashing in the midst of it all).

With some news from my mom I was suddenly ripped from all that nonsense, and I just felt… uneasy.

I was feeling uneasy because my mom had just told me the company she works for had just been bought by another larger company.

She wasn’t going to be laid off or anything, but the compensation was going to change.

All this within two months of the same thing happening with the company my father works for, too.

oh yeah, my parents aren’t hedge fund managers.

My family is thoroughly blue-collar. My Dad is a welder, and when I was in high-school my mom earned a transcriptionist certification. She types medical reports.

My suspicion is my parents are a lot like most families.

My suspicion is a lot of people share this uneasy feeling.

And the truth is, I think, I had been feeling uneasy for some time…

The truth is, I am afraid so many of us are walking around waiting for the other boot to drop.

Honestly, I believe many middle-class folk keep their head to the ground, work hard, and are quite grateful.

I am afraid, though, many middle-class folk walk around with a deep sense of guilt and terror.

here’s what I mean:

Most Americans work longer hours and take fewer vacation days than their contemporaries in Northern European countries. All this to make the day to day.

All this work, and these same people know that any number of tragedies could take it all away. All this work, and these same people are afraid (for good reason) they will be the one to be blamed if tragedy were to strike.

All this work, and people can count on hearing stuff like this:

“No one made you take out those loans.”

Blah, Blah, Blah. Et Cetera

Indeed, there is a certain dimension of truth to those statements. We live with incredible choices compared to many other people of the world. We do deserve to be held accountable…

But why is it that those sort of sentiments will be the first word on people’s lips?”

Why not something like:

“Oh my god, that is terrible.”

“I’m sorry.”

“How can I help you?”

Why aren’t those the first words on our lips, especially at a time of crisis?

We’re running around with this uneasy feeling because we feel alone. We’re feeling alone because more likely than the fact that we will get any help or sympathy, is that we will be blamed.

And, while there may be uncertainty about receiving any help, there is no doubt bill collectors will have the full force of the law to send any debtor into poverty.

We’re feeling uneasy because deep down we have reason to fear that when our back is to the wall, there will be no one to help us…

it is oppressive

This pitting of marginal groups against one another is how oppression works, too.

The privileged will choose a suitable subordinate, and say this subordinate is the model. The message is that the obedient subordinate is how the every member of the group should behave. If anyone acts out of line with that imposed model, they are behaving inappropriately and subject to being vilified by the privileged and the subordinate.

You can see this at work in North America in so many ways; and I am afraid it plays right into the hands of the plutocrat’s interest.

An easy example of this dynamic is our collective national willingness to view the OWS protestors as spoiled and selfish.

Here’s a harder hitting example: The housing bubble burst.

Middle-class folk we’re virulent in their attack of neighbors who took out loans that were worth more than the homes. The idea of bailing out these mortgages was tantamount to treason.

So instead we elected to bail out the institutions that traded on these inflated mortgages. Instead we bailed out the institutions that hired con-artist to trick people into taking on sub-prime mortgages.

Yes the individuals who incurred dubious debt can be addressed, but so should the institutions that lubricated the whole process.

But they weren’t. Instead, these institutions were given loans to help repair the economy, and so far these institutions have sat on the money.

i’m waiting for the day when we stand with one another.

Yes we should be grateful. Yes we can hold one another accountable.

But we need to stop blaming one another.

We need to hold one another in mutual care.

Our first word shouldn’t be blame.

Our first word should be consolation.

Our first word should be solidarity.

I’m waiting for the day when my first feeling in the morning isn’t a dull, nagging sense that something is wrong.

I’m waiting for the day when we all realize that there are alternatives.