Let the chips fall?
A comment I made over on Askville in response to a post someone made about stopping the bailouts and letting the chips fall where they may.
I'm afraid that it's easy to talk of "chips" falling. That way, you don't have to think of them as people. Hard-working people, most of them, many with families...children. Children who, when the "chips" fall, will lose their health care, if they ever had it to begin with. Their homes. A decent education. All the things that any child needs to grow up to be a healthy, happy, productive human being and citizen.
The problem is that when the "chips" fall, it won't be the corrupt millionaire and billionaire executives who suffer. It won't be the crooked politicians who pay the price. No, it will be the ordinary hard-working Americans and their families - for generations to come! - who will pay, and pay, and pay.
No question, the bailouts suck. Taxpayer dollars are being shoveled out by the trillions to the very people who caused the disaster in the first place, by the very politicians who willfully and deliberately closed their eyes while all this was going on. No matter what happens, it's the working class and middle class who will be screwed for it. Because that's how the world works.
I have no happy solution to offer. It would be nice to believe that there are honest people of good conscience in government who might work to serve the people and the nation as a whole, rather than just the wealthy elite that pull the strings. Doesn't sound very likely, though, does it?
But at the least, if millions of ordinary working Americans are going to face years, perhaps decades of fear and poverty...if millions of children's lives will be forever blighted and ruined, for generations to come...please do them the courtesy of remembering that they are human beings, not merely "chips" who somehow deserve to fall.
I'm afraid that it's easy to talk of "chips" falling. That way, you don't have to think of them as people. Hard-working people, most of them, many with families...children. Children who, when the "chips" fall, will lose their health care, if they ever had it to begin with. Their homes. A decent education. All the things that any child needs to grow up to be a healthy, happy, productive human being and citizen.
The problem is that when the "chips" fall, it won't be the corrupt millionaire and billionaire executives who suffer. It won't be the crooked politicians who pay the price. No, it will be the ordinary hard-working Americans and their families - for generations to come! - who will pay, and pay, and pay.
No question, the bailouts suck. Taxpayer dollars are being shoveled out by the trillions to the very people who caused the disaster in the first place, by the very politicians who willfully and deliberately closed their eyes while all this was going on. No matter what happens, it's the working class and middle class who will be screwed for it. Because that's how the world works.
I have no happy solution to offer. It would be nice to believe that there are honest people of good conscience in government who might work to serve the people and the nation as a whole, rather than just the wealthy elite that pull the strings. Doesn't sound very likely, though, does it?
But at the least, if millions of ordinary working Americans are going to face years, perhaps decades of fear and poverty...if millions of children's lives will be forever blighted and ruined, for generations to come...please do them the courtesy of remembering that they are human beings, not merely "chips" who somehow deserve to fall.