Are we Good? We Don't Care.

Are we good?

I heard Bernie Sanders say something a few months back during the confirmation hearing for Health and Human Services nominee Tom Price…Price answered a question by Senator Sanders by saying “We are a compassionate country”, to which Senator Bernie Sanders quickly interrupted to say “We are NOT a compassionate country. We are NOT a compassionate country." He said it twice in case not everyone heard the first time. I have caressed that line since the day I heard it and I applaud Sanders for his honesty and his courage in saying it….It’s about time we stopped waving the flag and chanting “USA, USA, USA” at every turn and really stopped to look and see who and what we are as a country…and what we have become..and apparently, where we seem to be going….

Do we, as Americans, really value compassion in our society? From even before our inception as a country we brought blacks over from Africa for the slave trade. That lasted about two hundred years. Soon thereafter we committed systematic genocide against the Native American population. Concurrent with that genocide was institutional racism, segregation, Jim Crow, misogyny, etc.. Can we stop waving the flag for a second and take note of the clearest and biggest picture of the American story?

Where IS the compassion? That should, in my opinion, be one of the most important yardsticks for what defines a great country.

Compassion is just not valued in our society and it never has been.

It would be really hard to argue otherwise…really hard in my opinion. I think in our country being compassionate is about as valued as being a decent bowler…it is, though, quite clear what we do value as a nation….celebrity, celebrity, celebrity, being wealthy, being a great athlete, being good looking….

I can’t think of any of the most celebrated members of our society who are known for their compassion. What celebrities are known for their compassion? The fact that I can’t think of more than a few doesn’t mean that there aren’t more but it does mean something….Here is a list of famous people whose compassion I associate inextricably with their characters:

Jimmy Carter

The Pope

Angelina Jolie

Oprah

Obviously there are more but they are likely known more for their celebrity than for being compassionate….Angelina will hardly grant an interview if she can’t talk about the needs of people in impoverished countries…she has made more than 60 humanitarian trips to third world countries, most notably Cambodia. She gets on her hands knees with the people of those countries, living in huts or tents in order to help. No one would fault her if she lived the narcissistic and frivolous life of Kaitlyn Jenner but she doesn't. She spends a large part of her life in developing countries…she is a true inspiration to me.

(4) people is a very short list…an incredibly short list considering all of the famous people in the world…

Of the (4), only the Pope and Jimmy Carter live a reasonably humble existence…Oprah has done a ton for the underprivileged and for that I have great admiration but she lives a life of opulence..an incredibly indulgent life….

Our President is about the least compassionate person I can imagine….he’s a “dog eat dog”, “every man for himself”, corrupt, lying, "pussy grabbing", misogynistic, crude form of human, etc…

The very fact that we elected him to be the leader of the world is no small reflection on our total indifference to compassion and character…

I’ll let you in on a secret….We Don’t Care..!!

We aren’t impressed by compassion…it’s not sexy and it’s not powerful, and it’s not “awesome”….you won’t lose any prestige points in our society if you do absolutely nothing for people…there is no burden placed on even the richest among us to give a penny to even one person. If you are worth a billion dollars society doesn't care if you walk past a destitute family on the street with a wad of thousand dollar bills in your coat pocket…we don't care if you shun compassion and show little to no awareness for the less fortunate…

Our President grotesquely mocked a handicapped reporter during a speech on national TV….it took my breath away. Do you think we care about that..? Shockingly, I realized that we don’t care about that….I would have never imagined that our collective bar of decency was that painfully low…(as low as one could get). It was traumatic for me to accept. That was about the most cruel display of compassion-less behavior that I could imagine from anyone and Trump (Your President) displayed it. He didn't apologize for it…and he got elected President in spite of it….it’s not so much a reflection of Trump…it's a reflection of where our society is at this present moment….our consciousness…..and our total lack of a conscience.

If you are famous, a great athlete, rich, good looking etc..then your compassion quotient is just about the last thing we care about….you can beat women and your brand will stay intact (endless list of rap stars and athletes, most recently Ezekiel Elliott)…you can rape them even…and your brand will stay reasonably intact…(Mike Tyson is a darling of the media now and regularly featured in movies and talk shows…he spent time in jail for rape). And, he beat his wife regularly. We DON’T CARE….if you throw a football well then we don't care what else you do….

Being compassionate will not get you on the cover of People magazine…though sleeping with one of the Kardashians might…being a posterchild for boorish and crude behavior can get you on the cover….it will likely get you a guest spot on “The Tonight Show” (think Charlie Sheen). We don’t care what you do if you are a celebrity. Knock yourself out...or knock somebody else out...We don't care!

…Mike Bloomberg was elected mayor of NYC…he is worth about 50 billion …he does almost nothing for charity…he gives about 1/2% of his wealth to his alma mater (John Hopkins University) and a few other institutions each year but that is about it……You and me don't care….

23% of children under 18 are living in poverty in this country….(wrap your head around that if you will).....and people don't care in the slightest. Do you think billionaires care? They didn’t become billionaires by caring about people who have nothing and living on a thread.…do you think they are doing anything with their time to address this issue?….…they can’t be bothered…they need to appear at galas and nightclubs and banquets.

How can we be ok living in a country (that claims to be so great all the time) where 9% of it’s population (that includes children) live in poverty? HOW….? How can rich people be so indifferent to this…? how can our leaders be so indifferent to this…..Our money is heading to the top 1% more and more every day….it is being redistributed to the top…….it’s just as dire as global warming …it’s unsustainable…yet, we don’t care about those 9%…

We don’t care if their children get educated or ever go to Disneyland…or if they have health care….we don’t care…this is vastly different from virtually all of Europe where college is free…where health care is free….where people care about how their neighbors live….where they aren’t in the business of making mega billionaires at the expense of the population as a whole. It should be clear that as more and more people acquire ridiculous wealth that money is leaving the hands of others….it isnt coming out of thin air.. …. It is coming out of the pockets of the working class and going into the hands of a few fat cats and super rich…. It's always done that but it is doing that now at an algorithm that is threatening our democracy; it’s quickly becoming a macroeconomic disaster in the making. How long before an individual in this country is worth 1 trillion dollars?

When George Clooney, an actor, sells a tequila company that no one has ever heard of for 1 billion dollars 7 years after the company is founded we have to wonder…how does that happen? They have NO market share….the company with the most market share, Jose Cuervo (by far, approximately 28%) and that has been around since 1795 is only worth 5.2 billion and you are going to tell me that a tequila company that isn’t ranked among the top ten is worth 1 billion? and now, George Clooney has extracted a few more hundred million dollars out of the economy…he had plenty of money for a hundred lifetimes before…now he has a few hundred million more..? and, like all of the filthy rich he will not be putting much back into the economy…he will be letting it sit in banks or real estate, extra tennis courts for his friends, or yachts, etc….it will not get circulated the way a 100 million dollars distributed across the middle class buying food and clothing would be distributed….Is that a victory for our capitalist system, for the American way? Should that be celebrated….a few winners…and a a ton of losers?

This is not the end of it…it’s going to get exponentially worse, ….in the age of globalization and expanding technology we are going to see this happening every day …..money is going to be distributed disproportionately to the Geroge Clooney’s of the world….to the Mark Zuckerburg’s and Amazon's Jeff Bezos of the world…..last time I checked these guys are not giving their money away by any measurable %…they aren’t flying coach or sacrificing earthly comforts in the slightest for the sake of impoverished people…some may give some money away….big deal…a billionaire gives away 10 million…leaving him 990 million. I’m totally not moved….. Zuckerburg still has about 60 billion and he seems to be one of the more thoughtful billionaires…why does our society consider him thoughtful? What kind of standard is that? Jeff Bezos has even more but he says he does his charity just by hiring poeple? Oh really, how long will that last before automation replaces all of Amazon's workers and you need a fraction of your present workforce? Then, even more of the money will be staying in Jeff Bezos pocket…..You and your corporate team at Amazon are working tirelessly to try and allow robots to administer your labor and cut out the human element of your workforce. You will surely succeed....but we don't care. We DON'T CARE. We don’t care…we just want to watch Monday Night Football and drink beer and immerse ourselves in social media.

Try and make the case that we are a compassionate country…in 2003 we adhered to a lie and we invaded a sovereign government based on that lie…..we destroyed that country, overthrew their government, killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people and torched their cities….and left it a shambles…we killed or crippled tens of thousands of our own soldiers for a lie…you call that compassion? That is criminal….a War crime of the highest magnitude…that fact that only a small % of people in this country acknowledge that is a reflection of our warped perspective born from jingoism. We did the exact same thing in Vietnam in 1964; The exact same thing when we invaded South Vietnam on a lie..a macho lie concocted by LBJ to help insure his re-election. We killed 58,000 of our own soldiers and severely crippled even more….we had no right whatsoever being in Vietnam during their civil war……we did it with libya, too…we do it all the time….

Where is the compassion? We don’t value it!!! we like “winners” and rich dudes with fancy cars with hot babes on their arms…we like Tom Brady….even though he cheats we like him because he is a good QB who has a supermodel wife….we love Ezekiel Elliott, the star running back for the Dallas Cowboys…

ESPN loves to anoint him and celebrate him even though in just a few short months Ezekiel has pulled down a woman’s top in public and committed multiple acts of domestic violence that are presently under investigation. I’ve got some news for everyone…save your investigation…we don’t care…can the man score touchdowns?….well then, we don’t care. I like sports too but I can’t stomach watching predatory creatures scoring touchdowns and making millions and being celebrated by fans and the media…it’s totally inappropriate and uncivilzed.

We have among the highest poverty rate for developed countries.. The United States is dead last on many poverty and inequality outcomes when compared with other well-to-do countries, according to a new report by the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality. Yeah, the land of Opportunity? Bullshit! Total bullshit. you can’t even get a decent education in this country unless you are rich…the US is rated as one of the hardest countries to escape poverty. The most fundamental necessities of upward mobility is an education and only people living in upscale neighborhoods have access to good schools in large part….It’s unconscionable.

The American form of Government is presently a disgrace….a corrupt and indifferent disgrace….a place where being non white puts you at a severe disadvantage. We deserve a revolution….a total detoxification of greed, selfishness, meaninglessness, “selfies”, etc…with a little luck we will get one….it’s our only hope for survival….

'I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.' – James Baldwin