Breaking News

I had a dream last night.  I dreamed the morning newspaper today was filled with stories of great hope and cheer.  Jobs were being created in unprecedentedly large numbers.  Wages were zooming.  Universal medical care was finally being implemented.  The retirement age was being lowered so that people could actually enjoy the balance of their lives, doing the things they really wanted to do and developing talents they were heretofore denied the time and opportunity to pursue.  The ages of progress in science and medicine and social relations were finally paying off for the average, regular, work-a-day man and woman, and their families.

Then I awoke to the usual, mostly empty Monday morning Times-Picayune.  What little was offered up was really nothing new; things are about the same, no sign of improvement to speak of.  And I wondered, when did we become so inured to the routine of no improvement, so accepting of no hope of real advancement in society for the lot of the average Joe?

I don't know the answer exactly, but I suspect it more or less coincides with the change in the media from fact digging and news reporting to distortion and propaganda spreading for the corporate class.

So, I think from now on, we ought to have at least one day a week of the straight scoop from the newspaper.  Monday is a good day for it, they really don't do anything else with the paper on Monday anyway. From now on, use that empty news day to tell the truth.

Here's a start.  The average working person in this country is hurting, and hurting badly.  There are not enough jobs, and what jobs there are don't pay enough, not nearly enough on both those counts.  They cannot afford to educate their kids like they need to be educated or to pay the rent.  They have little or no retirement savings or any other kind of savings, only debt.  They have no or insufficient medical insurance, and this is threatened daily by job separation or increasing costs.  At least, most are eating, but not that well.  And they are told the solution to all their ills is to get along on less.

Meanwhile, this is the richest country on the planet.  But the top 400 people own more wealth than the bottom half 150 million of the population.  We are told this is normal, and the way it should be; greed is good for the rich, pain is all there is for the rest.  When did we start to really believe this nonsense?