Unselfish or Just Plain Stupid

We have now worked against our own best interests so long that the Census Bureau now reports one American in two is either in poverty or scraping by with earnings that would classify them as low income. With such a horrific scenario, why do we continue to fight against a health care system that could protect our health and our assets (62% of personal bankruptcies occur because of medical bills)? Why do so many of us endorse policies that only insure the continued prosperity of the very wealthy while destroying middle class jobs and disrupting the safety nets put there for our protection? What steps can we take to make us less stupid?

I have long suspected that we are not really naive enough to believe the corporate take on things even though corporations have enough money to spin their messages in very clever ways. This most recent recession and its aftermath have certainly allowed us to see that the problem is not “Big Government,” but rather the problem is Big Corporations having enough control over our politicians that we are left with ineffective government. Likewise, we are not seeing high unemployment because the rich have not been able to hold on to their wealth so that they could use that money to create jobs. The rich have only gotten richer during this recession and from their standpoint have no need to create jobs. We are not so naive as to buy into these corporate myths, but somewhere deep in our souls each of us “knows” that someday our ship will come in and we, too, will be among the very rich—in which case it makes sense to be unselfish to the rich even though we are working against our own current best interests. So our first step in being less stupid must be to divest ourselves of the notion that we are going to enjoy that kind of prosperity. The way things are going now, we have a much better chance of winding up poor than we do of winding up among the one-percenters.

Finally the steps we must take to make us less stupid must involve education and action. First, we must educate ourselves by examining closely why we have chosen in the past to act against our own best interest. Have we fallen into the trap of letting catch phrases, such as “socialized medicine,” be substituted for rational thought? Have we let ourselves buy into the myth that one day we, too, will be very rich? Then, after examining why we have chosen to work against our own best interests, we must take action so that we are no longer doing so. Let’s collectively drum up support for reforming our health care system in a way that puts patients, and not insurance companies, first. Let’s vote out of office or demand the recall of any politicians who would protect the interests of the rich at the expense of the rest of us. Lets demand the preservation of our safety nets, such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, because we know that in spite of all the spin, we know the private sector could not “do these programs better.” Let’s stand up and say collectively, “We’re not going to be stupid anymore!”