Reaching out

As anyone who reads my reflections (probably no one) will have realized, I'm 1) talking to myself, and 2) becoming more liberal with age. This of course defies the old adage that in middle age a broad mind and a narrow waist change places; with me it's all getting broader.

Anyway, I digress. Over the last few years I've responded to email invitations from Democrats to support their re-election campaigns; the President and Elizabeth Warren, who I admire enormously, specifically.

However, it dawned on me today that of all the email I've ever received (and these days I'm getting four or five a day from the President, or the First Lady, or any one of numerous of his campaign staff), none, not a single solitary email has sought to sound out my opinion on the issues. Each and every one is simply an invitation to open my wallet.

So, I'm feeling increasingly disconnected and in an odd way disenfranchised.  Voting for the lesser of two evils, neither of which one has had any had in shaping, doesn't give one a sense of connection to ones elected representatives.

The country is being boiled slowly and hasn't realized the water is getting hot.  For the 99% it's a loosing battle. First, the cost benefit is not nearly as attractive as it is for the 1%. If you can invest $1M in lobbying to get legislation written as you want, you will make out like a bandit. For the rest of us, the ROI is nothing like as attractive.

And with increasingly favourable tax treatment and decreasing government oversight, the 1% can easily afford to redouble their lobbying.  The 99% can't keep up, the the median income of the two groups continues to diverge.

"For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath."  Mark 13:12

Some things, it appears, never change.