Stop! I Think I Want Off

Like a carousel whose horses have rebelled and taken control over the microchips, my world is spinning faster than I can handle.  The momentum is picking up speed and the outcome seems more and more inevitable: I will either be thrown from my underpinnings by the mere centrifugal force or I will make my peace with whatever drives me and jump off.

What has happened to us, someone among you will respond, happens to all powerful nations when they become intoxicated by the headiness of that very power.  There is never enough.  It goes to the head of the head honchos and they won’t rest until they claim it all for themselves. And eventually, it all comes crashing down.

Our colleague toritto has an excellent post today about the huge numbers of Americans who are subsisting on food stamps.  These are not people who are simply malingering, too lazy to rise from their overstuffed sofas to seek employment.  These are people like you and me who are not able to feed themselves or their families.  Fifteen percent of us, or 45 million Americans would starve without food stamps.  Yet, there are also Americans who sincerely believe food stamp programs are not sustainable, that they should end.

I cannot help but wonder how long it will be before the photos like the ones we are seeing coming out of Kenya begin to surface here.  Famine is not entirely out of the question in America, given the wildly fluctuating weather patterns and the impact the economy is having not only on consumers, but also on the farmers who grow our crops.

The weather has wreaked havoc on so many American communities in recent years, there are families who are reduced to nothing in the few minutes it takes a tornado to flatten their houses or a rising river to sweep their very foundations right out from under them.  What becomes of these people?  Does anyone who supports the slashing of so-called entitlements  ever wonder that?  Can these people ALL be so short-sighted and self-involved that they can’t foresee the devastating effects of such measures?

I woke up this morning feeling overwhelmed and tired, too weary to access my usual reservoir of hopeful ideas to help make things change.  The Birthday Boy in Washington will celebrate his 50th surrounded by his healthy young family who have only to ring a bell to have a snack delivered.  Has he forgotten us?  We are the communities he was busy organizing not too long ago.  We are The People.  What about us, Mr. President?

I am too weary, too disillusioned to be bothered with the retorts that will inevitably come my way.  And no, it is not because I have a particularly vicious dog in the fight.  My chances of being okay are better than many, with a little more luck and frugality.  I just don’t recognize the world I woke up to this morning, and I don’t know how to exist in the one I’ve found.