This is the third Christmas in a row that I have written about Barbara, the woman who stands outside the building where I work begging for money. The first two times were Second and First.
She is thinner now, if that is possible, than the first time I wrote about her. I have seen her with cuts and bruises, and broken bones. She has disappeared for days at a time, only to return with stories of being in the hospital. Sometimes it has been due to illness, and others due to the fragility of aging bones. But still she clings to existence, such as it is.
She is the face of our steadily declining commitment to the least of us in our society. She is also the future, if the right wing has their way. She is no longer any use, so they have no qualms about tossing her onto the scrap heap. When you and I are no longer of use to them, that is the future they envision for us too. Of course they would rather we had the decency to just fucking die when we are no longer useful to them.
I know, you think I am exaggerating. Then how do you explain that, when there are men and women like Barbara, just hanging on by a thread, and they want to cut every service that Barbara and people like her depend upon to survive, while at the same time giving tax breaks to those who want for nothing?
They would tell you (if they had the courage to speak their minds openly) that there is a natural order to things, and that you exist to serve your betters. It is essentially the same line that you have heard in all class based societies. If you stand up for yourself? Then you are instigating class warfare.
It is much like the line used against black Americans during the civil rights movement. They were expected to stand idly by while they were brutalized, lynched. But should they stand up and resist, fight back, then they were instigating violence.
Now two years after I first wrote about her, Barbara is still barely surviving on whatever kind of pension she receives and what she gets begging on the streets. She gave me a Christmas card again this year, thanking me for the help I give her. I know she has others, like me, who help her out with a few dollars when they see her. But still, that isn't enough, not even close.
Unless we change, she is not only the present, but the future.
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