The sad suspicion about Trump’s shameful treatment of Puerto Rico, Dana Milbank, WPO
Sadly, horrifically, the inhumanity of this, the disregard for real people and the quality of the lives they are able to live in our society is a reflection of the inhumanity of the system we are held under, that holds so many down and regularly counts scores of people out. They are simply not affordable. Their lives cannot be counted for the cost of decency would diminish the riches of those who are already rich, those who are important and whose welfare comes first even though they already fare very well already. We have a government that is not about THE people. It is about some people and we, the people, pay for that government and are constantly told that what we need costs too much.
This is about Puerto Rico because the way the lives on that island are being considered has so little to do with that good that is so often thrown out to explain America and motives. What is happening in Puerto Rico is but one manifestation of an ingrained and taken for granted ugliness that is so evidently obvious when situations like the present one arise.
Again, I make reference to of what PBS’s Vietnam series should remind people, that there is a mean spiritedness that dominates the decision making processes of this should be democracy and that mean spirit is papered over constantly with propaganda that is used to keep it hidden so that we can feel good about ourselves as a nation and keep buying the stuff that makes those few who are filthy rich even richer.
Snake oil. Drunk from Coca Cola bottles and sold as honey. It makes our world sing and most don’t know what the words of the song even means. Our one good is not at all good. A nation built on acquisition of wealth, a nation where the real ethos is do whatever it takes to get more, is a sick nation and that sickness has been sold over and over as happiness and the only kind of happiness a human being can possibly acquire.
The people of Puerto Rico are suffering from our sickness, were suffering from it before but now to the point where they feel like they are fixing to die. Many are and, though Mr. Trump wants people to believe that it is their own damned fault, it is not. It is our fault because we consistently ignore our own sickness, allow ourselves to be entertained by it and allow our entertainers to sell us ever more of it.
Fuck the system! Restore a modicum of humanity to way we do business. Put people first and look closely again, if you ever have, at the faces of those children running from the napalm dropped on their homes and think about the pain that little girl in the famous picture is feeling as she runs down the road with her burned skin falling off of her little body.
How can we ever live with that? Turn away and concentrate on all that is good and forget those who have it so bad. Really?
