Social Insecurity

I lost my free wireless last week.  With an income of $12,000, it is unlikely that I will be paying upwards from $55 a month for a wireless connection.  So I will haul my laptop, which I bought refurbished for ½ price, to the library, which fortunately has in the past year advanced into the 21^st Century with public wi-fi.

One of the things that I can do that Tea-Partiers cannot, is recognize that there are others who, through no fault of their own, are far less fortunate than I.

That does not mean that I am thankful for this state of affairs, because I also recognize that there are people who, for no good reason (and I mean good in the Golden Rule sense of the word), have far, far more than I.

I don't care how many aircraft the Koch Brothers have at their command; what I do care about is that they have the power to engage in criminal, deceitful, ugly acts to manipulate the public, to garner support for political policy that continues to provide them with that power.

Now, those with a little more than I, the middle class, have more to lose.  Rather than feeling more secure about what they have, this has made them vulnerable to those who use their power and fortune to convince them that change means loss of what they now have.  Not a vacation home, mind you, but health care, a job, savings for retirement.

At the time the generous soul who shared their wireless with me left town, I had spent the month paying large (to me) sums of money for repairs – it seemed everything I owned, old but cared for, was breaking down.  A week's pay for a car repair, a week's pay for a lawn mower, an inexpensive printer that I now cannot use because it is wireless and, alas, I no longer have wireless access.  The airline ticket I paid for my annual visit to my daughter is something I cannot afford.  I do what I have tried hard not to do:  waste my life worrying constantly about money.

So when I lost the wireless, which in truth, in this freedom-at-a-cost country, I was stealing, something in me broke.  My lifeline to my family, all far away, is gone.  My ability to sit down and write a blog now needs to be structured and fit into time I am at the library.  And the calendar I throw together every month on Publisher has no picture gallery because I am putting it together at home without the internet.  My old computer had a picture gallery, but instead of feeling pissed off, I opt for – I can't think of the word, and I can't get to the internet thesaurus site.  How about resignation?

I am poor, I have no right to contact with the outside world.  I am lucky I have my laptop and a library connection, and for now, I am lucky that my car, with its 156,000 miles, can still get me there.

Meanwhile, the Koch brothers have convinced the insecure among us who still have a middle class life, that by helping us they will lose that life.  And meanwhile, while the Tea Partiers fight the Koch brothers' battle for them, they in fact are helping them destroy what they now have, and what used to be considered a secure life.