This is America - a year later

Is this your mother, your grandmother, your sister, your aunt?  Do you know where she is, how she survives?

Last year I wrote a post about Barbara, the woman who stands outside the building where I work, begging.  She is 75, which is 10 years older than my wife, and she is still there.

She has been hospitalized a couple times that I know of in the past year.  Once was for pneumonia, and I am not sure out the other.  It may have been after she was mugged.    Who mugs a 75 year old woman for the change she has managed to beg in the streets?

She is having more trouble getting around these days, and I no longer see her every day.  And when I do see her she is often using a walker, always at least using a cane.  I used to make sure I had some ones in my wallet, so I could always give her a dollar or two when I saw her.  But as she is able to make it out less frequently, I think perhaps it should be fives or tens now.

I have never seen her intoxicated, never smelled alcohol on her breath, so I suspect that her only crime against society was that she didn't make a lot of money.

If you have no children to take care of you, if you have the temerity to live past the age when you can be useful to the machine, then this is what the Republican Party has planned for you.  They are trying to drive down wages so that you will need to spend every penny they pay you to survive.  Then they will deride you for not saving.

Is this really the America you want?  If not, then fucking do something about it.