I read the long, but wonderful, biography of FDR by Conrad Black. In it, the author comments that, despite FDR’s wealth and privilege, Eleanor had made sure he took trips to New York City’s lower East Side, which, at the time, was a wasteland of open sewers and one-room, six-story walk-ups, full of non-English-speaking newcomers struggling to stay alive. FDR is said, “How can those people live like that?” It is said to have become the main reason he could sympathize with every American, instead of having the Darwinian arrogance of Republican, Christian, rich conservatives, who think: “I earned this. I’m smarter and stronger than those fools, who should lose out [read: die].”
It’s all too similar to the “Saint” Reagan’s wife Nancy, who, locked in her bubble of wealth, far away from the horrors that life offers to most of its humans, simply said, “Just say ‘No’” to drugs, and pushed no charity until her beloved Ronnie died of Alzheimer’s disease. Having experienced horror first-hand, she THEN became a STRONG advocate of a charity-the charities for and research against that disease-because they involved her and, thus, broke into her ego-stronghold.
I once worked within the fortress of Wall Street that OccupyWallStreet has targeted and grew up with grandparents and parents who walked the narrow line between life and death during the Great Depression I. And having walked the line of poverty now, I “get it,” understand-the disconnect between persons who have had jobs since Fall 2008 and still speak adoringly of the capitalist money freaks and of vacations in the Alps or in Aruba and persons who can’t pay their next rent bill.
This fall, the musical “Annie” is being produced by local theater groups all around New York City (because it returns soon to Broadway and production elsewhere will be prohibited). Its focus is on the empathy rich Daddy Warbucks develops for Orphan Annie. The timing is perfect as America is still being eviscerated by conservatives’ anti-tax, budget-cutting religion – a religion whose high priest is New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. It appears that the Hoovervilles described brilliantly in “Annie” may return to Central Park, Riverside Park, and areas under the 59th Street Bridge.
Bloomberg and other politicians who champion this pervasive tax-cut/budget-cut ideology will certainly employ rhetorical spin to distract from this cause-and-effect story and the OccupyWallStreet protest ongoing and growing in newly renamed “Liberty Park.” But with New York more and more resembling the post-apocalyptic world of Mel Gibson’s “Mad Max” movie series, it’s clear the growing danger of Peak Resources can’t be spun, and even more clear that conservative capitalist ideology will probably deliver more shanty towns all over America.
How can such a bankrupt ideology persist in the face of such terrible consequences? Welcome to plutocracy. We all know that American politics is dominated by money. The U.S. Senate is a millionaires’ club, and the politicians who aren’t personally rich are typically bankrolled by corporate interests. Billionaire Mayor Bloomberg personifies this plutocratic order – and his declaration last winter that ‘the city is going fine’ during a huge blizzard because ‘Broadway shows were full’ demonstrated what plutocracy means in practice. It means that when an emergency does not hurt the Bloombergs of the world, our government does not see any emergency at all.
So, Mike doesn’t want to pay for snowplows because he, himself, doesn’t need them. He has the finest ER care and health care the world offers. But unlike FDR, and more like Nancy Reagan, he doesn’t have empathy with the have-nots.
When I was 7, I thought that if my teeth touched the flat circle of bread in my mouth at Roman Catholic communion, I’d physically hurt Jesus Christ.
When I was 33 in 1987, I flew to Moscow and Kiev with friends and saw beautiful couples walking their new babies around a park and sharing ice cream cones. I said to myself, “THESE are the people we want to obliterate with nuclear weapons? THESE people belong to the (Reagan-termed) ‘Evil Empire.’?”
When I was 49 and was recovering from a month-long medically induced coma, I thought I could see Jesus between my hospital room and my neighbor’s-in a sort-of different universe only visible at that time to me.
When my mother died of myelofibrosis no doctor or nurse told her she had only one month to live. When the doctors stopped coming to see her as often, she buttonholed one and asked “Am I dying?” He said, “Get your affairs in order.” She said, “Thank you!” She preferred the stark truth to a cover-up.
My father died two years later of a massive stroke, paralyzing him so he could only move his left arm and curl up the left side of his mouth. He couldn’t speak. No one told him that the tubes plunged into his skin contained only saline and sugar solutions-that he would starve to death in less than 10 days. One of his children had to tell him. His eyes blurred with tears, but he relaxed with the truth. I’m sure he began to pray more then.
President Barack Obama has refused to release photos of torture afflicted on non-Americans in worthless attempts to gain terrorism information or because of just-plain sadism.
The Nazis knew how to lie to people. The sign above Auschwitz’s gate was “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Sets You Free). Prisoners marching underneath that sign into the camp STILL believed that it was just a “work camp” even as they walked past a bonfire into which Nazis were throwing screaming, flailing babies and toddlers.
The truth is tough, but leads to breakthroughs. But evolution has given us incredible defense mechanisms, such as denial and delusions and hallucinations. We differ from the mammals just below us on the evolutionary ladder mostly because our brains allow us to “read other humans’ minds”–to read intent. Our brains–even though we are not in the fire, remember matches we’ve touched or stoves we’ve gotten too close to–and re-enact that pain with representations that send weak signals to our muscles, so that we actually flinch when we see someone else getting burned, even though it may just be in a movie.
Still, though, there is NOT enough empathy. It’s so hard to empathize with others or see their point of view, even though we CAN read intent or “read minds.” Just ask any husband or wife, no matter how long they’ve been married.
While It seems that 99 percent of people lack the U.S.’s wealth, 99 percent also lack enough empathy. With stronger empathy, most conflicts could be avoided, such as the deluded terrorist pilots of the airliners on 9/11, who had no realization that nearly 3,000 unsuspecting people would be burned alive, crushed, or forced to jump 100 stories to their deaths.
When I was 17, a 15-year-old fellow high school mate of mine was paralyzed from the neck down for life while making a tackle in a football game. At that time, I “sure felt bad” for him and his family. But try as I might, I couldn’t imagine the horror he must have felt when full realization of his dilemma kicked in.
It took a month-long medically induced coma when I was 49 for me to understand that high school mate’s experience. My muscles had atrophied and I could neither move nor speak for nearly six weeks. Only then could I empathize with that 15-year-old football player.
Our lack of skill with our empathy, I suppose, is an evolutionary trait that helps people survive the horrors of this world-and to commit some of the horrors of this world.
Empathy-humanity’s greatest aid in taking over the planet from other animals remains in its infancy. Only a rare person has too much empathy, such as Alexander Hamilton’s daughter who went insane when she learned her brother had been killed in a duel (still popular only 200 years ago).
If we could place ourselves in the other persons’ shoes, disputes would be settled more quickly, in the Middle East, between sex partners, or about nuclear arsenals.
Perhaps Big Pharma should take its gigantic profits and do more R&D on a drug to induce empathy, to speed its evolution. Surely, hiding the truth that someone is dying is immoral. Hiding our recent dirty, torturous deeds as a nation also is immoral. Not prosecuting the brutes who brought back torture is immoral. The truth hurts, but would lead to breakthroughs in the evolution of our arrogant species.
Everyone seems to like Michelle Obama, but, unfortunately, apparently she never took Barack to the urine-smelling “rehab” hospitals that NYC provides for those without health insurance. Nor has she shown him what poor people eat for supper-the lucky ones-highly processed carbs with a touch of synthetic seasoning and a hint of the ammonia used to preserve the “100 percent pure ground beef” of their hamburgers. It is now obvious that Barack and Michelle are no FDR and Eleanor. Too bad-for the world.