Let them eat cake, maybe

"If they have no bread, let them eat cake!" ("S'ils n'ont plus de pain, qu’ils mangent de la brioche.") –Marie Antoinette. The original quote comes from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions: "I recalled the make-shift of a great princess who was told that the peasants had no bread and who replied: ‘Let them eat brioche’." ("Je me rappelai le pis-aller d’une grande princesse à qui l’on disait que les paysans n’avaient pas de pain, et qui répondit, qu’ils mangent de la brioche.") He was referring to an incident in Grenoble, 1740, ten years before Marie Antoinette was born. It has been speculated that he was actually writing of Maria Theresa of Spain or one of various other aristocrats though no evidence has ever been offered for this. In the meantime, Marie Antoinette's attribution to the quote was current in her time in antiroyalist propaganda, most likely to hasten her way to the guillotine

Usually my drive to work is filled with the news in depth on our NPR station in LA, KPCC. I enjoy listening to both sides of an argument, and as they say on KPCC "no rant, no rave". NPR tries its hardest to present the whole version of the story and limits a reporters version of the story. I respect that.

On Thursday, however, I almost had to turn off the radio. I grew physically angry and felt so upset listening to a speaker from the Rand Group a conservative so called "think tank". The social scientist representing the Rand Group spoke in his I only know this from theory not practice voice, insisting that the poor of this nation are really not that poor. He added that those living in poverty are really not THAT impoverished, and that the federal governments poverty level of $22,000 for a family of four is not so bad after all. He added that sure there are some really poor people in the US, but most who consider themselves poor are just whiny spoiled people who want more and deserve less.

Recently we have heard that workers who demand a minimum wage or better benefits or a decent work environment are the culprits and reason for the recession the US is facing. We have heard that older Americans are selfish because they want to receive their social security entitlements they paid for their entire work life. We have been lectured to that unemployment benefits make a person lazy, and that food stamps encourage people to not seek work because they can eat better by using government money. And now from the mouths of a Conservative "think tank" we are told that poor people are not so poor and living off of $22,000 for four is more of a luxury then a consequence.

Once again those who are employed, who make a six figure salary, who don't live in the neighborhood as a soup kitchen, who have a first and second home, who look down rather than among, are making statements based on their own theory and not on the reality of those about whom they speak. Once again it the poor, the elderly, the impoverished, the middle class who are cause for the economic collapse of this nation. Once again those with the resources to make change, make a difference differ to solving the crisis and look for convenient scapegoats to blame.

It has become so frustrating for me when all I see gathering around the table are powerful people who have no idea about choosing food or rent or health care. I am growing so tired of this committee or that ad-hoc group made up of CEO's, billionaires, financial managers and no one from the communities infected with the greed and gluttony of the wealthy. I am becoming so leery of politicians deciding on the welfare of the poor, unemployed, elderly, minorities, disabled by checking first with their financial contributors to their political careers or the lobbyists who have come to own them.

The talking head from the Rand Group has probably never been hungry, never had to eat just one meal a day, not go to the doctors office because the rent was due, not buy his kids new clothes. He has probably sat in the same tower with a moat surrounding him drinking an aged brandy as all of the people in this nation who would rather point fingers at others without ever recognizing his/her own responsibility in making life better for all of us.

"Crisis? What Crisis?" – attributed to British Prime Minister James Callaghan. "Crisis? What Crisis?" – was the headline in The Sun on January 11, 1979. Callaghan had been asked what his policy was in view of the 'mounting chaos' and replied "I promise you that if you look at it from outside, and perhaps you're taking rather a parochial view at the moment, I don't think that other people in the world would share the view that there is mounting chaos."