More Greed

I have seen, in several different places--including on TV--advertisements for foreclosure bus tours. This is where realtors create an 'event' of sorts that involves renting a bus and taking prospective buyers on a tour of all the foreclosed homes in the area.

I realize that neither the buyers nor the realtors created the foreclosures, but something about it seems wrong somehow. I can imagine how someone who has been foreclosed upon must feel when they see the banners and commercials. They've lost their home. We're not talking about vagabonds or drug addicts or mean people, but families with children and jobs and friends and churches. (I realize some of them may be mean or on drugs or whatever--don't be stupid). Listen to the way that sounds in your head--they've lost their home.

Must we consistently make our way by treading on the backs of others? It makes me very sad. I fear we've lost our way in this country.

Someone forwarded an email to me recently that was very disturbing. It was quite lengthy and was basically all about how everyone who isn't like them should go somewhere else--to another country, preferably. It was cloaked in a great deal of flag waving and patriotism. If you don't like America then get the f@@@ out of it--that sort of thing. There's a lot of underlying fear in a message like that. I believe people sense that we are on the verge of upheaval in our country and, whether they can verbalize it or not, whether they are conscious of it or not, people can sense that and it makes many of them afraid. People can be very mean when they are scared.

I guess I have a bit of fear about it as well, but it's that kind of fear when you know something weird is going to happen and it will make you feel a way you don't usually feel, but the anticipation is very exciting as well. It's a bit like riding a new roller coaster for the first time, or going white-water rafting for the first time. You can see the power and feel the fear/anticipation/excitement/adrenaline rush and you like it but too much of it might overwhelm you. Your brain seems to actually crackle or hum.

But there's a real fear also in this coming change. It's that pit-of-the-stomach fear; that whistling-past-the-graveyard fear. The kind that knows if things go wrong the consequences will be dire; perhaps crippling--or fatal. My fear is that once the upheaval occurs the status quo will have won. The fear-mongers will rule completely and America will become even more egotistically committed to this nationalistic colonialism that is increasingly isolating us from the rest of the world in a way that is moving far beyond being just inconvenient.

If that happens, we will suffer and fall. It makes me very sad.

In the sage words of Spiderman, "With great power comes great responsibility". If we wield that power with impunity (and we have been), we will suffer and fall.

It makes me very sad.