Episode 56: The Dickensian Aspect

2008-02-11
By DeAngelo Starnes

Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents were written in the early 90s but foretold a future where the natural result of today’s poverty, among other societal problems in America, would take us.  One of the enduring images and driving forces of those books was the overwhelming number of people living a nomadic lifestyle because they didn’t have stable homes or money.  Being forced to do more with less led to living in fear that caused most to prey on each other for survival.  Symbolic cannibalism, instead of collective cooperation, seemed to be the mirror of a crystal ball that mass poverty produces.

Anyone who told you this economy has been in anything but a recession since 2001 is full of s**t.  Fact is amnesia seized the country after God gave our president a gift on September 11.  Immediately preceding 9-11, a recession resulted from Bush’s tax cuts and his corporate buddies stealing the future of their workers.  With obscene amounts of our tax dollars being poured into his military adventures against a country that had nothing to do with 9-11, the recession became permanent. 

Bad economic times beget restriction.  Restriction often begets ingenuity, e.g. the slaves and their descendents.  However, you can only squeeze so much juice from the fruit until it becomes a dried piece of its former self.  And even then, the George Washington Carver in us finds ways to extract flavor from the dried fruit.  It’s when the ingenuity dries the fruit beyond tasteful that you find the state we, as a society, are in.  I call it a chewed-up dried fruit economy. 

Have you noticed how the prices of fixed expenses like gas and food are rising?  Which is a body-blow if you are one of the unfortunate who just lost a job due to downsizing or reorganization via lay-offs.  Overall, unemployment is up with rising numbers in lost white collar jobs and the service industry.

And if you thought that debt collection is a growing industry with the guilty chasing the guilty, how do you feel about the IRS becoming the elephant in the room via a financial boost from Congress?  Kind of restricts your cash, limiting your ability to buy food and pay for gas.

The most disheartening trend is people losing homes they just bought in record numbers because of “shell-game mortgage lending.”   This scam deflects its complicity by blaming the victim with the term “sub-prime mortgages.”

No job, no home, no money.  That’s poverty-in-waiting.  What scares me is the blindness the policymakers have towards the instant-poverty-tsunami on the horizon.  How is the economy going to survive on One Percent Have More money if the Ninety-Nine Percent don’t have the cash to patronize all those businesses they own? 

With injection of the homeless into his doing more with less storyline, did Simon throw some s**t in our face while we were focused on Marlo, Omar, McNulty, and Templeton?  Until recently, how many of us have looked at a person living on the streets and asked, “There but for the grace of the Creator goes me?”  In this economy, I ask myself that question often.  Because who can you turn to when everyone is in the same boat?

A long time ago, I made a conscious decision to stop calling people “homeless.”  Everyone has a home.  It may not be the classic “roof over your head” type home.  It may be living outside.  It may be living in a shelter.  But everyone has a place they call home, regardless of how nomadic they may be.  So, I redefined the term “homeless” and thought of them as street-people because these people lived a nomadic life-style outdoors and don’t call a shelter their home.  These are the people Templeton depends on to gain Bob Woodward-type fame.  These are the people upon whom McNulty figured he could build a lie. 

Why?  Because they are seen as throwaway people and are classified as Apathetics in our collective minds.  As Carcetti said in his press conference they have fallen through the cracks and demand little attention.  As Apathetics, “They don’t vote.  They don’t contribute to campaigns.  They offer little to the … tax base.  And to the extent [the] government is made aware of their existence, it responds by mitigating the existence of their presence.  We open a food bank here. A shelter there.  We try to move them away from downtown. Away from our communal areas.  Away from our schools.  Away from our homes.  If you were to judge our society by the manner in which we treat those lost in our streets, we will have cause to be shamed.”   Which makes me re-ask the question, are we born corrupt or innocent?

Doing more with less is extremely difficult.  Extremely difficult when you don’t have money in the bank and are trying to do more with less.  Hand-to-mouth and/or check-to-check is survival.  It’s not the pursuit of happiness.  It’s not living to prosper.  And the pursuit of happiness and prospering is supposed to be a primary component of the American dream.  Unfortunately, in today’s doing more with less economy, there’s a thin line between us, the underclass and street-people.  Zoo-watching won’t make us better.  Us demanding and doing better will make us better.  I pray that Octavia Butler’s vision is wrong. 

Recap:
- Opening: Last week on WHFS Baltimore’s Troy Johnson Show, I foretold Marlo’s line about Omar jumping out the apartment, “Some Spiderman s**t.”  I’ll give Marlo much credit – he’s gives Michael Corleone a run for his money.  Omar gets his p’s too.  He did more with less by avoiding the hospital.

- Doing more with less causes coloring outside the lines of inside-the-line coloring professional Detective Lester Freamon.  “I’ve reached the point, detective, where I no longer have the time or patience left to address myself to the needs of the system in which we work.  I’m tired.”  How many of us are similarly tired?  Doing more with less will exhaust you.  Doing more with less will cause you to take short cuts and discard the rules.  Doing more with less is a beast of a burden.

- When those in charge require you to do more with less, you find yourself boxed in.  And you might find yourself discarding rules.  Don’t blame yourself.  The Rulers discarded their rules and morals a long time ago.  It’s just taken some time for their greed to catch up to the point where they need you to become part of their conspiracy.

- When we last saw Randy being sentenced to that boys’ home, he was getting his ass beat for being a snitch.  Now, Bunk is trying to get him to snitch again.  I ain’t mad at Bunk or Randy for their respective positions.  But seeing where Randy is touches me in a personal way.  He reminds me of my lost nephew.  Too many kids’ lives have resulted from a night of condomless cum-on-the-downstroke fifteen minute, if that long, thrill.  And then a young human being suffers that irresponsibility with no guidance.  Then are doomed to live in homes where they can’t express their natural personalities but have to wear the mask of predator in order to survive.  Another episode of children being corrupted before they’ve reached the level of maturity to attain the conscious to do so.  Tragic.

- This show loves parallels.   Marlo using Omar as a scapegoat, much like Stringer Bell did.  But my money’s on Omar.  As Michael Corleone as Marlo has been, Omar’s the Giants to Marlo’s the Patriots.

- Carcetti’s potential run for governor on the back of reducing homelessness.  Much like he ran for mayor on reducing Black murders.  Actually doing something about either of those issues demonstrates it’s easier to talk about carrying the water than actually carrying it.  Remember that as you listen to the fluff these politicians speak while they aspire for the presidency.   Don’t hold their feet to the fire because they might withstand that heat.  Hold those alleged brass balls to the fire – and not being a woman I wouldn’t know the equivalent – and then we might see politicians living up to their word.  Prediction: those weren’t balls, which Hillary should have no problem saying.  Simon’s showing you, if you didn’t already know, politicians have no conscience and no principle. The best talkers win.

Finally, back to Carcetti, his speech in the middle of the episode was deep and really drives home the point of this essay.

“I believe there is a different way of governing.  I believe in the end, we will be judged not by the efforts we make on behalf of those who vote … or who contribute to campaigns or those who contribute to [the] tax base.  We will be judged by what we provide to the weakest and the most vulnerable.  That is a test.”  

Not quite Richard Pryor’s ultimate test, but a helluva test, nonetheless.   And a test we must demand of the next person who sits in Bush’s chair, regardless of political affiliation.  The immediate test: Are you ready to go beyond how good a political candidate’s speech makes you feel and get down to repairing this country?

DeAngelo Starnes is a freelance writer and attorney who resides with his wife and son in Denver, CO. He welcomes direct constructive feedback at deangelo_starnes@hotmail.com.