-- JACKSON BROWNE
I hadn't thought of this song for awhile. It's the closest thing Jackson Browne ever wrote to a Christmas song, and it speaks volumes about what has been wrong with our society for the last three decades or so.
Only now it's getting even worse.
Now we're completely losing our sense of outrage about the fact that people are hungry ... or homeless ... or unable to raise their children. Worse yet, we're allowing feelings of outrage toward those people, blaming them for their problems instead of a system that makes it impossible for them to get ahead.
And when Pope Francis speaks out against the system, when he condemns the love of money and the increasing inequality in our world, the defenders of wealth and privilege do everything they can to marginalize him.
They call him a Marxist, and they speak the language of their new religion when they say that helping the poor discourages them from taking responsibility for their own lives.
That's a bitter, Calvinistic kind of religion, one that seems to do more to tell rich people how wonderful they are than to succor the afflicted.
Listen to right-wing politicians and their answers to people who don't make enough money to live on are simple:
"Get a job."
"Get another job."
"Get a better job."
How difficult is it to understand that if someone works full time, he ought to be able to make enough money to support himself without needing food stamps to make up the difference.
Millions of good jobs are gone forever, and two-thirds of Americans are now working in the service industry. That would be bad enough in itself, but in real dollars, service industry wages have fallen 30 percent since 1981.
That might make sense if everyone's wages were falling, but those at the top have gained a bigger and bigger share of the national pie. In 1981, the top 1 percent of income earners had 7 percent of national income; the most recent figures (2011, I believe) gave the top 1 percent 19 percent of the income.
It gets even worse when you look at overall wealth. The 2011 figures show that the top 1 percent holds 38 percent of national wealth.
Worst of all, mobility between the lower and upper classes has all but vanished. Horatio Alger stories were always more myth than reality, but shockingly, the chance of someone born into the bottom 20 percent ever making into the top 20 percent is less likely in the U.S. than it is in France, Germany or other European countries.
Are we approaching a tipping point? It's hard to say, but when fully 70 percent of American families are at best living paycheck to paycheck, and when politicians like Rand Paul of Kentucky speak in the most incredibly patronizing terms, folks don't really have much of an investment in the status quo.
As a Catholic, I am very pleased to see the Holy Father speaking out on what seems to me the most important issue of our time. His voice has far more impact that a politician on either side of the political divide, and hearing the angry voices of the right-wing media attacking him shows just how frightened they are of his message.
Will he make a difference?
At this point, it's difficult to say. But one thing is clear. At least in the United States of America, we can't continue along the path we're currently on and still remain the United States of America. One could argue that we're already a plutonomy, that it's almost impossible to accomplish anything without the rich and powerful on your side.
As much as conservatives rant about "Obamacare," the fact is that both insurance companies and pharmaceuticals get a major windfall from it and were behind it from the start.
If you want to see the fate of things truly benefiting common people these days, look at the cuts in food stamps and the failure to extend unemployment benefits.
Then try to find someone in Washington other than Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren standing against the plutocrats.
Good luck.
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