The Boston Globe today has a pair of stories that highlight the different worlds that many in the United States live in.First, there is a piece on the falling life expectancy of women in eastern Maine. While Americans extended their average lifespan in the past few decades to around 80, there was a significant decrease in 3% of counties nationwide. Only one of those -- Washington County, Maine -- is in the northeast. Here is one woman's story:
Dolly Jordan matter-of-factly described a lifetime of poverty -- swiping her former husband's pocket change to buy food for her five children; making macaroni-and-ketchup suppers when tomato sauce cost too much. These days, the 61-year-old is obese, with high blood pressure and diabetes. Badly hurt when her car was hit by a drunk driver 16 years ago, she said, she is dependent on a wheelchair and in chronic pain.Jordan sees her doctor less often than she should, because it's hard for her to get out, she said, and she doesn't exercise because she can barely stand. With $97 in monthly food stamps, she stocks up on hot dogs, hamburger, and chicken, hunting through the freezers for the cheapest packages.
Meanwhile, another article in the Globe tells us that Red Sox owner John Henry is going to tear down a mansion that he just bought for $16 million, even after the previous owner renovated the structure in the 1990s. The problem with the existing building?
The larger house, a red brick Colonial revival with ivy-covered walls, contains seven bedrooms, eight bathrooms, and two half-bathrooms. A separate wing houses the pool, a media room, a playroom, and staff quarters...Henry, who I'm sure owns other houses as well, seems like a nice enough guy, but it is depressing -- even vulgar -- that he gets to play with houses as though it's a game of Monopoly while so many others struggle to get through each day. Our system of capitalism is unjust to the point of criminality.
It made more sense to build a new house rather than to try to add one to the site of either of the existing houses, both of which sit on either side of a ridge. Henry wanted his house atop the hillside.
5 comments:
It's his money. He EARNED it. Think of all the jobs created for both the tear down and the rebuild. What are you, a communist?
Its not about it being 'his'money or not. Or whether he earned or not. Its about the stark difference between classes of people, their priorities, and of course choices they make. Those who are poor, try to get the most for their money. While those with money, think in terms of, saving money between choices (build vs. remodeling). In the end, its not whose right or wrong, but its about opportunities. Those who get them, and those who don't.
I am not communist, but I do like many of the features of European socialism. I believe in universal health care and other programs that support those on the lower end of the economic spectrum, even if it means that I have to pay higher taxes.
Oftentimes those who are wealthy have become so via the exploitation of others. There are endless examples: Fleet Bank, now part of Bank of America, evolved from a company that made money in the slave trade; IBM worked with the Nazis; Dole's pineapple empire was secured by the US Marines that landed in Hawaii and made it an American territory, though it had been an independent kingdom; Chiquita dominated the banana trade for decades, changing their name in the 80s from United Fruit, a company that killed striking workers in South and Central America, bribed government officials, and assassinated unsympathetic heads of state; so much of the Colorado River is diverted to Los Angeles and Las Vegas that it doesn't reach Mexico any more, depriving farmers there of a traditional source of irrigation; currently thousands of farmers in India are being forced off their traditional farmlands because Dow Chemical wants to put a giant factory there. And the list never ends.
Even those of us who do not own or work for those companies likely own stocks or mutual funds or pension funds that are invested in companies that exploit people and the environment. The earth's resources are a zero-sum game, and those who have benefited have done so at the expense of others.
I was right, you ARE a communist.
wow uneducated people throwing around communism when they dont understand something, so sad.
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