The Insecure Worker

And so it begins. It's another Monday. The worker finds himself up before the sun rises, every movement of his measured by a rush against the clock. His shift begins in two hours. It will be just like any other day in his life so far - 8 or more hours sitting at a desk, his keystrokes monitored by eyes thousands of miles away in another office, the artificial glow of fluorescent lighting overhead, the daily repetition of a task he often does dozens upon dozens of times each day. Each hour during the day crawls by at the pace of a snail. At times, he finds himself worrying about how he will pay his bills come next paycheck. They keep promising a raise, but he hasn't seen one for over five years now. He looks out the window to a park across the street - young couples stroll up and down the neatly maintained paths, bursts of color strewn at key points throughout the park. Off in the distance, a lone photographer capturing, in carefully timed movements, the images of a vibrant, warm spring afternoon. Near the stream, a lone artist sits, an easel in front of her, her hands moving gracefully as she captures a scene of unparalleled beauty. Feeling that familiar tug at the strings of his heart, the worker sighs and turns back to the glowing screen in front of him, the dry air scratching the back of his throat, the sounds surrounding him not that of happy kids or the sounds of nature, but the endless drone of ringing phones and of idle conversations that give him a grievous headache. He first thinks to himself of the dreams he had that never came true, and then mentally begins again a weekly ritual - the countdown to his precious few hours off with the arrival of Friday evening. He thinks of how exhausted he feels. He aches to find meaning in his life, to find a way to do the things which, when thought of, make his heart leap with joy and make him feel alive, engaged. A long week, indeed.

And it is here where I begin my dialogue. In every way, I can relate to that worker. I'm now him, only in my case, my view on one side of the building is a concrete highway. On another side, I cannot even see the windows - blocking my way is row after row of half-cubicles, all filled with people whose world consists of nightclubs, call center stories, idle chatter about sports teams they have no financial stake in, endless refrains of the same script used to greet incoming callers and the constant ringing of phones. When I am able to approach those windows...I can see some of the mountains west of the city, but most of it is blocked by drab buildings bearing the same colors - concrete gray or beige, with too few windows. Many of them have corporate logos on them, some of which may be familiar to you - Marriott, Shell, AAA. Similar to that anonymous worker in that anonymous office, I find myself in a position where the pay is not that great, yet the expectations are that of someone with double the responsibilities and double the pay. On warm days like that sunny, warm scene I described in a park, I too sit in an office that presents itself as monotonous. Any attempts at creativity or daring ideas are met by one single word: no.

I'm surrounded day in, day out, by people who talk of a better life. More often than not, though, that talk eventually steers back towards which call centers are the best, which ones pay the best. So far, I'm in my third call center job. The first one I walked away from, frustrated over missing pay, incessant monitoring for the most ridiculous of things in the world and a biased management system. The second I ran from after less than 3 hours on the job - the training was lackadaisical and very haphazard, the working space reeking of marijuana, the computer systems very outdated, the rigorous demands for what the job entailed very poorly matched by low pay and low hours and a staff which either seemed to be very apathetic or hostile in the most subtle of ways. And so far, this latest firm is no better, despite the claims of some that they treat you like a human being.

The hours, I suppose, aren't too bad. 40 hours a week...far different from what I previously had done as a Lyft driver on late nights. The location is at least close to where I live. And that right there is where the decent parts end. The pay, $10.00 an hour, still doesn't go far enough - not where bills are concerned. Not where the cost of food is concerned. Not where fuel is concerned. Not where much of anything is concerned, for that matter.

The job's requirements are rather mundane. Each day is almost laughably predictable and mundane, severe in it's very structure: access one system and check all of your cases there to see if anything can be closed. After that, check to see if there are any updates to another system. After that, triage new cases. After that, 20 cases from the vendor queue. After that, another 20 cases from the work in progress queue. After that? Close 5 cases. Considering how slowly both the company we contract for moves along with it's vendors, meeting that goal is often impossible, and any creative attempts to make the process easier are met with stern words of disapproval - it's in the realm of the client, we're told, but they want us to bend over backwards and still get it done even as we are stonewalled, we're told. I find myself more often than not bristling as this, especially considering the pay I receive for my efforts. I've encouraged others to fight for higher pay, but to no avail - I'm left as the only voice in meetings where we ostensibly are supposed to be allowed to voice our concerns, only to be told that it is not the right time or the right place for it. It begs then question: just when is a good time to do exactly that, then?

The question of time off, too, is laughable. The company itself doesn't allow for personal time off. Well, in a technical frame of reference, it does, but you're extremely limited on how and when - in theory, you receive up to 3 hours of paid time off per pay period. There, however, you have to ask for permission for it and hope that work force will grant it. Otherwise, you're expected to make up the time at night or earlier in the morning or risk receiving a write-up for your efforts. The fact alone that you should make sacrifices in exchange for time off for unplanned visits to your doctor, unplanned illnesses that can keep you in bed for at least a few days yet not bad enough to warrant a visit to your doctor, family emergencies, a trip to a vet's office or even something as mundane as renewing your driver's license or even a car breaking down is unheard of in my personal experiences. Most good companies in my experience allow for that kind of time off, with no asking of personal sacrifices in order to bill a client so that a man thousands of miles away can grow richer while playing golf or flying around the world in a private jet.

For at least eight divisions at my company, the restrictions on your schedule are even more limited. I understand that open enrollment is a big thing for HMOs each year. And for us, it boils down to this: either volunteer extra time to us for this period or it will be mandatory. This practice, I feel, is applied indiscriminately with no consideration for second jobs people may be holding - no consideration for anyone taking college courses as part of a degree program that could very well get them out of that cubicle filled hell - no consideration for anyone with kids and no babysitter at all. And all of it to benefit a man flying around the world in a private jet. I often curse the rigidness behind such a system.

Yes, I agree - at least I have a job. But...I even have criticism over the healthcare plans offered in exchange for working there. High cost plans with high deductibles, all offered to managers and regular employees alike, who all are making $10.00 an hour and try to get overtime in just to make ends meet. And during all of this, my anxiety grows. Stories spread everywhere I go of a Vice President for this anonymous company openly referring to workers in terms such as "Burger King babies". I see every day proof of how insecure these workers I sit next to truly are, whether it concerns the wages they earn, the uncertain schedules they are given, the pitiful health benefits they receive, the ease by which they can lose their very jobs over even a simple illness, the lack of a voice in almost all decisions, the constant monitoring by eyes half a world away, the gap between the rich man at the top and the poor at the bottom...it weighs on me. More than anywhere else, I have come to believe this: the call center, more than any other cubicle filled office space, is where dreams go to die. It is, even, where hope itself dies. And I strive every day to try and keep the candle flame of that hope alive.

And so it comes to this: I wish more and more that the people I work with would stand up and fight for themselves. I wish they would stand up and fight for a system in which they get treated as actual human beings with needs and dreams. I wish they would stand up and fight for the higher wages they seem to want...that they would stand up and fight for a more affordable health plan. A fairer schedule. Less rigid rules where creativity and feedback is truly honored. But...as I have seen myself for going on six months...this does not seem to be something that will ever happen. Because this is the new norm in America once more, and it likely will be this way for years to come, just as it was in the early Industrial Revolution, as it was in the late 19th century and as it was in the years directly preceding the Great Depression. Companies are no longer led by corporate statesmen who seek to champion the causes of economic equality, civic engagement, education or even a healthy, well paid motivated work force that can truly build a better society. They're led by men and women whose world consists of unfettered, obscene luxury, and the rest of us mere worker ants left to face a very dreary future. It is here that I leave off with these words from one of the greatest men in all of history:

"No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level - I mean the wages of decent living." - President Franklin D. Roosevelt

The Battle For The American Soul

I'm angry. I'm very angry. It's been nearly three months since my last post, and a lot has unfolded since that time. In early November, I was facing the prospect of a new job. I was excited about the future I was pursuing at that time. And although it took a while, I now find myself involved with helping to get Senator Bernie Sanders elected as President. I thank the universe for that - whenever I meet up with the good people behind this campaign, the very same people involved with it almost day and night, I feel my hope rise up. I feel empowered by the positivity that I'm surrounded by. However, my anger towards the state of this country remains very real, and very powerful.

In the last three months, I've found myself horrified and angry numerous times. In the political realm, I have a lot of fury towards the conservatives in this nation. At rally after rally for each of the Republicans running, the open racism, the open displays of religious xenophobia, the open displays of homophobia, the love affair for the Second Amendment and the Second Amendment only, has left me horrified beyond words. At numerous rallies of the most prominent of all the Republican candidates, Donald Trump, I have watched with fury and horror as Latino-American protestors, Black Lives Matter protestors, Muslims and even liberal individuals were shoved, spit on, beaten, threatened and ultimately booted out in the most unceremonious of ways, with the entire crowd often cheering on this behavior. I find myself asking how this can possibly be the very same Republican Party that gave us men like Abraham Lincoln, men like Theodore Roosevelt, who once had the courage to first free the slaves, and then strive for racial equality until their last dying breath. I wonder how this can be the same Republican Party that once fought corporations inch by inch in a bitterly contested battle to uphold the nation's most economically vulnerable citizens into a much better situation - a situation where they would receive fair wages, fair working hours, actual benefits and a safe working environment, instead of the borderline slavery workers had endured for millennia beforehand.

Instead, what I now see is a party hell bent on ensuring minorities once again face the brunt of violence and slavery because their "God" has ordained that it be done. I see a party hell bent on slaughtering anyone not of a fundamentalist Christian belief. I see a party hell bent on making serfdom a very real concept in this world once more. I see a party hell bent on letting corporations destroy the one and only planet known to be able to sustain life, all the while assuming that Jesus will either come back and fix it almost instantly (while simultaneously murdering in cold blood anyone that these people disapprove of), or equally assuming that there is nothing wrong with our environment, that somehow it is all part of a natural cycle, that unheard of weather changes that are creating enormous threats to the long term survival of human civilization are somehow "normal". I see a party retracing the very steps of history itself, and more particularly the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. I see a party that doesn't seem to give a damn about the Constitution - it pays lip service to the Constitution, and that's it. If anything, I see the Republican Party as being more in admiration of the Articles of Confederation, under which the newly created United States nearly met it's demise had it not been for the Founding Fathers quite astutely seeing that we were on course for a civil war. And it angers me to see much of the country following in lockstep behind the Republican Party of today, it's endgame very likely ending in the permanent end of all life as we know it. And none of the party's followers seem to give a damn.

On a similar theme, the recent terrorist attacks within our own borders and elsewhere have left me greatly aggrieved. In early November, the world watched with horror as 128 people were slaughtered in cold blood on the streets of Paris, the perpetrators of the attack evidently being connected directly to ISIS. ISIS, a beast which we gave birth to in Iraq through arming the very same individuals who we abandoned yet again after we felt they were no longer necessary in our quest to seize yet more oil in lands half a world away in a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11. And yet, in that same nation, Iraq, many still unbelievably enough think that it was involved with the death and destruction wrought upon New York City, Washington D.C., and in the fields of Pennsylvania....a lie spread by an administration that helped to usher in unbelievable amounts of damage to our nation's own wellbeing, and our credibility at the international level. And all for the benefit of a few rich oilmen who refuse to believe that their products are killing the planet off one step at a time. At the same time, hundreds more died because of these same murderers in Lebanon. And again, the world wept.

On the heels of the Paris attacks came the blowback from an ongoing civil war in Syria. A civil war in which both sides, by every account, we financed, or more specifically our own domestic arms industry financed with glee, and all over the prospect of making money. The end result was tens of thousands of refugees with no training, no way to fight back...most of those refugees being widowed mothers and their children. In a gesture of humanitarianism, our government elected to bring 20,000 of those refugees here to the United States. Sound logic, given that we put them into a situation where they had nothing left over there aside from the possibility of a lifetime of violence, starvation and misery because of our weapons industry adding fuel to a fire we never should have been around in the first place. What was the reaction from the political right? Fuck them. Bomb them. Send them back over there, they don't belong here. Take care of our homeless veterans, fuck the refugees, they're all terrorists, or at least a few of them might be. All words coming from people who condemned homeless veterans of our own wars before as bums, as being guilty of stolen valor because they apparently did not fight the cartoonish stereotype depicted by G.I. Joe. Again, the racism and the infuriating refusal of the entire bulk of conservatives in this country made my blood boil. And the insinuations that every last goddamned one of those refugees, who we created through our oil industry's efforts to seize more oil and land for pipelines in the entire region, were little more than goat fuckers? The condemnation of their entire religion without even studying it in depth? The fury I still feel towards the insensitive bastards who spout such ignorant words is unheard of. I again have to wonder - is this truly the same party that once stood for equality for all?

On the heels of that came the Planned Parenthood shooting right by my home. All afternoon I heard the gunshots echo from Centennial. Every report that evening and since then has indicated that the terrorist behind the dozen plus wounded and the three dead there carried out that attack on purpose. Every report, every statement made by the terrorist himself, has shown that the bastard did it to prevent abortion. It has shown that he was inspired directly by the theocratic traitors within the ranks of the Republican Party and other similar conservative political parties. And, it seems, he was also very anti-government...a lunatic all too willing to murder his fellow Americans in defense of "his" country. Basically, a bum with a gun. And for the most part, the political right remained silent, or tried to classify this terrorist attack as a "bank robbery gone bad", or insisting that it all began at King Soopers nearby, and that Planned Parenthood was simply a place he chose to hole up at. Never mind any damn facts, either. Still others cheered him on, insisting that this was God's punishment for the aborting of a collection of fetal cells with no nerves, no sentience! Again, is this the same party that once stood for reason? The same party whose men worked within NASA to put men on the moon? My fury increased.

Since then, the continued, full-throated defense of our system of economic inequality has continued unabated. The promotion of war as the answer has gone unabated. The defense of a murderous cult posing as a legitimate religion has continued unabated. And, despite a few notable examples, the Democratic Party, for it's part, has shown itself to be a mere mockery of what it once accomplished under JFK, Truman, Johnson or even FDR himself. The establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton, along with much of the remainder of her party, seems inclined to support the Republican Party's love of the Gilded Age through action, even if she now tries to decry them. Their defense of minorities and gays is, at best, a joke. And now, despite whatever the corporate media in this country may tell us, much of the country has coalesced into one of two camps - on one side, there are those of us who support Bernie Sanders of Vermont, one of the few lone figures who has tried with all of his might to fight private sector corruption and racism in this country for decades. On the other, Donald Trump seems to be the candidate that is attracting the most racist, close-minded, religiously biased segments of the entire nation. In other words, this year will be a battle for the American soul. And it is our final chance to grasp the straws of what could be either a golden future for not only our country, but our species, or march down the path to darkness and death. And it will be a long, drawn out battle between the two sides. That much is clear.

Detroit: An American Story

Detroit. It was, for many years, the strongest city in America. Home to General Motors, Ford, Packard, Chrysler and many other of America's biggest automakers for years, Detroit was an economic powerhouse in the world. In World War 2, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt himself would refer to Detroit as the "arsenal of democracy" in one of his regular fireside chats over the radio. For much of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, almost anyone in Michigan could expect, at a minimum, to get a job either in Detroit or anywhere else in the state within the automotive industry right after graduating from high school. The wages were high, and the work itself was a guaranteed 40 hour a week job. The workers with Ford and General Motors in particular stood out. Flush with cash from one of the best jobs someone could have in the country, Detroit would see an explosion in it's population. It would be seen, for a time, as the gem of America. A beautiful city with a happy, industrious and hard working population.

While I only lived within Detroit's actual city boundaries for a brief time in my life, one couldn't go anywhere in Michigan without feeling it's influence, or at least seeing the influence it had over much of the state for countless decades. In the Upper Peninsula, you would find in the western portions plenty of iron mines, which provided the backbone for many of the plants constructed to serve the automotive industry in Detroit. In the thumb region, untold amounts of automotive suppliers would be open all day and all night, producing center console pieces for Ford and General Motors along with a host of other products that went into building some of the most legendary vehicles ever made by both companies. In towns like Lansing, Grand Rapids, Romeo, Flint, Dearborn, Wayne and Livonia, one could not go more than a few blocks without seeing a Ford, GM or Chrysler plant on every other block in the industrial areas of town. If it wasn't one of the Big Three's plants, then it was another company that helped to forge the components of cars and trucks the Big Three pumped out without ceasing.

With all of the money being produced in Michigan because of the Big Three's influence in and around Detroit, incredible monuments and structures would be built all over Michigan. In Dearborn, it was the Henry Ford Village and Museum. Just up the road from Dearborn, it was the River Rouge plant, a structure easily seen on clear days for miles around. On Woodrow Avenue running through Highland Park, the mighty building responsible for the very first Model T cars was built by Henry Ford himself. Throughout downtown Detroit itself, dozens of art sculptures can be found that honor the mighty industrial center that was Detroit. In the northern suburbs of Detroit, one of the world's finest medical institutions exists in the form of the Henry Ford Hospital, a world renowned hospital which has existed for nearly a century to help treat society's most ill patients, and coupled with an expansive medical research center. In Wayne County alone, Henry Ford Community College exists, along with the Henry Ford Library. In Pontiac, there existed the once mighty Silverdome, which sadly is to be torn down within a matter of time. Michigan truly was an economic powerhouse because of the automotive industry, and it's natural beauty outside of the industrial centers within the state are still a wonder to behold in my eyes. But, along the way, something happened.

I don't know where to pinpoint it. I don't know if Detroit began it's downward fall with the closing of the Packard Automotive plant in the 1950s. I don't know if it began with the administration of Coleman A. Young, a divisive political figure who heavily factored into Detroit politics for the better part of two decades. But either way, something happened. For those of you old enough to remember, we had something happen in the 1970s: a gas crisis of unbelievable proportions. I remember hearing the stories from the old timers in my fair share of small towns over the years throughout Michigan: endless lines of consumers lined up at gas stations throughout the country, struggling to get just a little bit of fuel for an extremely high price as OPEC held the United States at bay, the end result of a disastrous Middle Eastern policy that had involved Israel, a state which has earned the virtual enmity of the entire Middle Eastern world for nearly 70 years. President Jimmy Carter, as I was told, ended up paying dearly for events beyond his control. He paid for events that took root during Gerald R. Ford's presidency, and in the aftermath we would see the elevation of a B rate movie actor to the role of President. In the aftermath of this mess, Detroit would begin to suffer as consumers nationwide began to see American automobiles as unreliable and gas guzzlers, a side effect of the dramatic spike in oil prices throughout the 1970s.

Japenese automakers such as Toyota and Honda would first begin to see a true spike in popularity with consumers in the early 1980s. American cars were seen at the time as antiquated and behind the times. For that, Michigan, and Detroit in particular, would pay dearly. Coupled with this was the beginning of a long, uninterrupted war against the very unions that had worked hard for years to ensure American factory workers got a fair wage, fair working hours, fair benefits and safe working conditions. This I suppose could be blamed on the blowback from a new generation of CEOs who began to see the hoarding of money as their ultimate goal in life. They almost seemed to take offense to the idea of having to pay more money they wanted to keep out to American workers. And of all the cities to first feel the pain was Flint.

Flint was the city that gave us Michael Moore, a filmmaker who even now is a divisive figure within the political world. As GM's financial problems began to manifest in the early 1980s, one of the first major plants that would close up shop and relocate to another country was a General Motors plant in Flint. It began in 1985 with the announcement that all of the employees in this particular plant would be let go, with their jobs in turn being sent off to Mexico along with all of the plant's operations. Flint never recovered from the blow - GM was the single largest employer in the area, and soon to follow GM's exit was Ford and several other secondary auto suppliers in the area. Even today, the city is dotted with the rotting remains of formerly active automotive plants. The residents there have suffered greatly as well, as whatever is left of the area's economy is now heavily based on the notoriously low wage service industry - fast food, hotels and retail. The crime rate in Flint also skyrocketed during this period, and for a time Flint was the second most violent city in America. But that's not what this is about, although it does play into a small part of the story of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler, and how they pertain to Detroit as a city.

At the same time Flint was beginning to recede into the throes of chaos, Detroit too would see similar events unfold. The story was the same no matter where you went throughout the city. Initially, the Big Three automakers, along with dozens of automotive suppliers, relocated most of their jobs to the suburbs of Detroit. This did not sit well with the residents of Detroit, many of whom had seen their wages declining throughout the 1980s. Coleman Young and the Detroit City Council, for their part, elected to almost ignore the alarming increases in poverty and in crime within the city of Detroit, focusing instead on crooked deals with city contractors, lavish bonuses for themselves, and a pension plan for legions of city workers that was never adjusted to keep on pace with the slowing decline in Detroit's population. On Detroit's south side, the once might Chrysler plant would be closed down before the end of the 1980s, only to end up with one section a deteriorating hulk (which currently is owned by the Moroun family), and the other ending up as a shipping container storage yard. In other parts of the city, several smaller Ford and GM plants would close up as well, only to open back up in Mexico. Those who could afford to do so fled the city, leaving their homes and businesses to stand vacant throughout the city. Those who were left behind were left with a nightmare no one had ever imagined would hit the city.

Having lost much of it's manufacturing base, the people living within Detroit took up other means of survival. Many were lost to a crack epidemic which would rage throughout Detroit until the mid-1990s. Others would turn to criminal activity as a means of survival - robbery rapidly became the new norm of Detroit, as did gang violence throughout much of the city. The police department, despite some truly valiant efforts, could not put a stop to the epidemic of violence and drug use that infested Detroit after the abrupt departure of so many thousands of manufacturing jobs throughout the city. Looking back through newspaper articles and television news reports at the time, it is easy to see why Detroit ended up the way it did - when people have nothing to lose, they will do anything to get by, even if it means harming one another in the process.

By the late 1990s, Detroit was known nationwide as a dark and violent city. Dennis Archer had taken over as mayor earlier in the decade, and had attempted to make reforms to the city. Many of the holdovers from Coleman A. Young's administration proved to be obstinate, however. Bribery and racketeering was almost a fact of life in City Hall, and beyond it's borders lay a city struggling to survive. Few jobs could be found throughout Detroit, and as a result of NAFTA's passage at the federal level, the rest of Michigan began to feel the economic pain of the Big Three's uprooting of untold amounts of manufacturing jobs. The same would happen with the hundreds of automotive suppliers dotting the state, with one especially egregious case unfolding in nearby Port Huron by 2007, as Collins & Aikman, one of the strongest automotive supply companies within the state, abruptly folded operations and ceased to exist after years of what some have described as a great depression repeatedly swept across the entire state. In Detroit, few automotive companies remained. Ford, GM and Chrysler still had plants in the suburbs: Ford in Sterling Heights, Romeo, Wayne, Dearborn and Livonia, while GM had small plants in Port Huron, Westland and a few other smaller communities. Chrysler, for it's part, still retained plants up near Port Huron and out in the western suburbs of Detroit, but as a whole, the disastrous effects of NAFTA had left a wake of destruction throughout Detroit and Michigan. It even spread to other states in the region: Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and even Minnesota. Everyone in the region felt the pain as the Big Three continued to struggle to compete with Toyota, Kia, Hyundai and Honda.

By 2001, Detroit was the archetype of what many perceived to be a failed city. Untold thousands of abandoned buildings took up large plots of land throughout the city. The violent crime rate was still the highest in the entire nation. Everywhere you went in and around Detroit, you could find direct evidence of the decline of the manufacturing sector. Inkster, a city once known for a relatively vibrant culture in the 1960s, and even more known worldwide as being the birthplace of the genre of music that later came to be known as Motown, was one of the top ten most violent communities in Michigan, with epic amounts of corruption and accusations of endless incidents of abuses thrown towards the police department. Westland had suffered a similar fate: entire neighborhoods that at one point were the most beautiful in western Wayne County had became a haven for drug activity, with scores upon scores of streets lined with run down homes. Wayne was no better, and Livonia, Romulus, Southgate and Troy all were in no better condition. No matter where you went, violent crime and drugs were rampant everywhere, and the lack of a stable job environment was all too evident from the numerous numbers of boarded up buildings: schools closed because of budgetary constraints (made possible by out-of-work citizens with little money to their names), entire hospitals closed down due to a lack of money, numerous homes and housing projects boarded up - the latter of which was once considered to be the hallmark of a society that took care of it's poorest citizens in the 1960s, numerous small businesses that had failed from the inability of local auto workers being unable to patronize these establishments...it was one of the most heartbreaking sights I can ever recall seeing. In downtown Detroit, numerous abandoned skyscrapers were seemingly everywhere you went. And then, something close to what everyone thought was a change happened.

At the federal level in 2001, there was much anguish over the election of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, and even more anguish over the mass election of a Republican dominated Congress. In Michigan, John Engler remained as the governor. Much criticism had been directed towards him, as he and several of his predecessors ignored the plight of Detroit and many of the outlying communities that had relied so much upon the automotive industry for work. Trade agreement after trade agreement was passed in the state legislature. With each new agreement came the loss of even more manufacturing jobs to nations such as the Philippines, Mexico, China, Vietnam, India, South Korea, Taiwan and dozens of third world countries, where local laws allowed for wages to be paid in mere pennies per day. The state, thus, held it's collective breath as the race for mayor in Detroit raged on. The two primary candidates were Kwame Kilpatrick, considered at the time to be a rising star in the Democratic Party from his service in the House of Representatives for Michigan, and Gil Hill, the President of City Council at the time. Kilpatrick came out on top, and many in the state celebrated his victory, bolstered by his promises to restore a city that many still thought of as Michigan's crown jewel. Those hopes would be dashed within a matter of years.

One of Kilpatrick's first actions was to close down the Belle Isle Zoo and Aquarium, a once fine institution that had been left to rot since the early 1970s. Luckily, in that instance, City Council came to it's senses and overrode his veto to deny all funding to Belle Isle and budgeted around $700,000 for it to remain open. It would also become public knowledge late in his first term that Kilpatrick had used $210,000 from a city-owned credit card on lavish dinners, spas and fine wines. Kilpatrick in the end only paid $9,000 back towards that debt, and he would also draw fire for using city funds to lease a personal vehicle for his family. Rumors would begin to circulate during his campaign for a second term as mayor that a party at Manoogian Mansion, the traditional home of almost all of Detroit's mayors for several decades, had involved the cover-up of the death of an exotic dancer. Despite those matters coming to light, Kilpatrick still managed to win a second term to office.

In 2008, all of the allegations towards Kilpatrick would come full circle, as investigators determined that the death of this exotic dancer, Tamara Greene, was likely the result of a hit carried out by unidentified members of the Detroit Police Department. Piling onto this were dozens of other crimes of which Kilpatrick would ultimately be found guilty of: pension funds influence peddling, 10 counts of mail fraud, three counts of wire fraud, five counts of filing a false tax return, one count of tax evasion and bribery - all stemming from redirecting city contracts to favor companies ran by family and friends. He additionally would get charged with perjury, misconduct in office and obstruction of justice as a result of an extramarital affair carried out with an aide of his - an extramarital affair where city resources were used to propagate this affair. Throughout his entire time in office, Kilpatrick would also earn enemies in the form of the Detroit Fire Department, who for years had been stuck using outdated and unsafe equipment and additionally were stuck in buildings not even safe for habitation. After repeated requests for more funding, Kilpatrick finally blew them off, stating at an event these words: "Let them eat steak."

Detroit would go through several temporary mayors in the aftermath of Kilpatrick's subsequent indictment for all of the above listed charges. Kenneth Cockrel, Jr., a long serving member of City Council and President at the time of Kilpatrick's indictment and ultimate resignation, would take the reigns of power until the fall of 2008, ultimately losing the next election to Dave Bing, who in turn would be delegated to the sidelines as the governor intervened: Detroit was billions of dollars in debt, and was placed under the auspices of an emergency finance manager. Under that finance manager, Kevyn Orr, Detroit would file for bankruptcy, officially becoming the largest city in the country to do such an act. In the end, the total amount that Detroit was behind on? $18.5 billion in debt. Succeeding Dave Bing was Mike Duggan, the first white mayor since Roman Gibbs in the early 1970s. Throughout the past several years, several other individuals were also convicted of bribery, with one of the most prominent of them being Monica Conyers. She served over 3 years in prison for conspiring to commit bribery as part of Kwame Kilpatrick's corrupt dealings, and even today is still being investigated by federal officials for her exact role in the political corruption that had seeped into Detroit and eventually turned into a cancer of sorts...a cancer that plagued the city during the downfall of the manufacturing industry in Detroit. A cancer that, by every definition, helped push it's very vulnerable population to the brink of destruction through sheer neglect and defunding of valuable city services such as police, fire, transportation, education, healthcare, water, sewage and trash disposal.

Today, Detroit stands as one of the most epic stories in modern American history. It is a proud city, despite all of the past pains it has endured. A program, begun under Dave Bing, is still underway. That program's overall goal? To get rid of as many decrepit and abandoned structures as possible. Recent articles in area media have mentioned the possibility of putting all of that cleared land to use by erecting greenhouses to be used for farming purposes. In a way, this may not be a bad idea if the community is allowed to participate in the effort: it is a perfect way to mix together the urban landscape with one that leans towards nature. Only time will tell if this idea ever comes to fruition. Elsewhere in the city, a number of billionaires have been making efforts to rehabilitate some of Detroit's abandoned structures in hotels, civic centers, arenas, businesses and new housing areas. It is a commendable effort, although critics point out that these efforts are resulting in the destruction of historic structures that could have been saved for future generations to admire and reflect upon. The venerable Detroit Institute of Arts, after narrowly having seen it's assets sold off to pay off Detroit's creditors during the bankruptcy process, is growing in size and stature thanks to the help of some of Detroit's most affluent citizens who remain. Belle Isle, for it's part, is slowly undergoing a renovation after years of neglect, and there is an ongoing effort to build an outdoor park stretching along much of the Detroit River directly north of the downtown area. The Detroit Zoo also is beginning to see a second renaissance, as the region has pulled together to pour money into saving what many see as a valuable educational institution throughout southeastern Michigan.

Detroit's population declined to around 700,000 inhabitants from what the 2010 census found. However, a bright light can be found in that gloomy news. In the last few years, new census data has indicated that a good amount of younger individuals have chosen to make Detroit their new home. Among these people are aspiring artists, singers, young business professionals and a host of other progressive minded individuals who see the possibility of Detroit having a second Golden Era, just as it did in the 1950s and the 1960s. On the other end of this positive development, Detroit's pension system has since been changed to match the current population of the city to help ease the financial pains the city has endured as a result of decades of corrupt politicians being in charge of the city. On the job front, there appears to be some good news, as Ford and General Motors recently opened up plants within Detroit for the first time in nearly two decades. This came after the loss of American Axle, which had closed it's last remaining Detroit based plant down several years ago to relocate this plant's operations to another location in Mexico. Bolstering the job outlook in Detroit are Google's future plans to open up a large campus in Detroit, along with possible plans from Microsoft and several other major technology companies to follow suit. As for the city's police and fire services? Suffice it to say that Detroit no longer is the most violent city in America. One could almost say that between the new mayor, the actions taken by Kevyn Orr, the efforts led by the Justice Department, and James Craig, the new chief of police, a change for the better is floating through the air.

Detroit. A beautiful city, even with all of her scars. Detroit, an inspiration for change. Detroit: a city I am proud to have called my home. Detroit: an American story.

(Afterword: My latest post was not written with the intent to attack anyone living there. I wanted to highlight some of Detroit's history and the current outlook for Detroit. I, like anyone else who has close ties to Detroit and Michigan, felt immense pain in seeing the city suffer for years. Detroit, to me, was one of the largest factors in all of the state of Michigan. The people living there are truly among the most hardworking, dedicated, honest, loving, caring and wonderful people I know, and I am proud to call some of the people I personally know there my friends. Despite what anyone could or ever would say to me, I love Detroit. I miss seeing the sunrise over the city every day, and the sunset there every night. I miss the food, the sounds, the smells of that city...no matter if they were good or bad. I hope that you, dear reader, have learned something from this writing. My love for that place will never die no matter where I live at on this world for the rest of my life. While I do live in Colorado Springs at the moment, a place over a thousand miles from the place I know to be home, I will eventually move back. It's one of the most resilient cities on the planet, and it has seen it's fair share of great moments and dark moments throughout the years. It has made it over 300 years, and I hope Detroit will soldier on for another 300 years. If you have any thoughts, comments or questions, please feel free to write them below and I will respond as soon as I get the chance to. All I ask is that you please be civil and polite with your writing. Thank you again for reading this, and I'll see you all again on my next post.)

Sage Advice From A Former TNC Driver

If you are a potential driver who is considering signing up for Lyft or Uber, please keep the following advice in mind:

1. If you become a part time driver, be aware that you will pay out quite a bit just on maintenance alone - make sure you have a reliable car that doesn't have a tendency to break down or is expensive even when the most simple of things goes wrong.

2. Be aware that you will come into contact with a lot of passengers who are intoxicated or high from different substances, the biggest ones being marijuana and alcohol. Exercise a high degree of caution with these people, as they can be very volatile. Additionally, invest in some vomit bags. You can get them from virtually any retail outlet.

3. Use caution in how you speak and act as well - many times passengers can be upset by the most innocuous of things, and will make you pay dearly through rating you poorly. This has happened to many of my fellow drivers out across the country that I still maintain contact with, and oftentimes they don't have a clue because the passengers act like everything is great. If you can, stick to sports or something mundane. Be courteous at all times as well unless absolutely necessary.

4. Know that, going into this, you will have to pay for a DMV medical exam and a state inspection of your vehicle in many parts of the country, as Lyft and Uber increasingly are having to abide by the rules put into place by regulatory agencies both at the city, county and state levels.

5. Invest in a dual USB charging port for your car - always have a charging cable on hand at all times both for Android based phones and iPhones as well. Passengers can and will rate you poorly if you do not have at least one of the other.

6. If necessary, contact each and every passenger at the start of a ride to obtain their accurate location. Experience dictates that people as a rule do not read, and as a result do not put in any kind of pickup address, business or even a destination address. Many seem to assume that TNC providers operate exactly like a taxi service, and any attempts to dissuade passengers of this mentality has resulted in poor ratings for many drivers nationwide.

7. If you are in a more rural or smaller market with no other major cities within a short driving distance, do not pursue Lyft or Uber as a full time job. It is financially not worth it. Use it as a side gig if you already possess a part time job or a full time job, but be aware that the payout each week may not be what you think it is.

8. Invest in a dash-cam, and if allowed to, pepper spray. You never know when you will have a violent or disruptive passenger, and in case of an accident, a dash-cam could potentially clear your name.

9. If you wish to do so, provide candy, mints, gum or water. It does help to improve the ratings of some drivers, but not all. Do this at your own discretion.

10. Always memorize the locations of local law enforcement agencies. Keep their numbers in your phone on speed dial. You never know when you may need their help. Also, memorize all of the safe locations that are brightly lit and have high traffic near them in your area in case you need to kick someone out of your car. These will be your designated safe zones. If you are unable to find either one in time, be constantly on the lookout for areas a law enforcement patrol unit may frequent. This will help protect you even further in the event that you may be at risk with respect to personal safety.

11. If you so choose to, invest in an emergency first aid kit. You never know when a passenger might experience a medical emergency. It also goes without saying that it is not a bad idea to be certified in emergency first aid and CPR through either the American Red Cross or the American Heart Association. These things may come in handy for when a passenger experiences medical distress and help is several minutes away.

12. Document every dollar spent that is to be used towards your gig as a driver with Uber and Lyft. Use a smartphone app, use Excel spreadsheet, keep all of your receipts of purchases made while logged into driver mode and any repairs or cleaning done to your vehicle that directly relate to working as a driver for Uber, Lyft or any other similar company. The best website you could use is SherpaShare, if you choose to go that route. Also make sure to document all of your miles driven while logged in as a driver - you will need all of the above items come tax time, as you do not get any tax forms from either company unless you gross over $20,000 a year from driving. Account for every last dollar, or the IRS may audit you.

13. Allow the passengers to choose what kind of music they want to listen to, if they prefer to. If they simply wish to be left alone in peace for the duration of the ride, respect that.

14. This final piece of advice may come across as a promotional bit, but I advise you, potential driver, to follow The Rideshare Guy on Facebook or at his personal website at http://www.therideshareguy.com. He's been an advocate for us drivers since beginning his website, and oftentimes has useful tips for drivers that may help you out, depending on what kind of a market you live in. He has many, many resources to help drivers try to increase their income (again this truly depends on what kind of a city you live in - personal opinion here), along with many, many other resources to help you not only improve as a driver but also to save money on your expenses. Once more, follow him - he's the only one serving as a voice, and as a beacon of light, for the driving community as a whole.

Consider well everything I outlined above, and best of luck to you as a new driver if you pursue it. Above all, don't let yourself get sucked into the black hole I found myself in (I live in a smaller community with poor demand - took a year plus a bankruptcy to convince me to get out of driving). Be smart with what you are doing as a driver, and don't let yourself be blinded by glitzy advertising that promises you untold riches by companies offering independent contracting work. Play it smart, and you'll do okay. Good night, and good luck.

The Most Evil Influence In The World

Money. It's something a lot of people work to earn. It's a thing a lot of people dream about amassing in vast amounts. It has been a concept that has been around since the earliest written records first appeared on the scene thousands of years ago. From the look of things, it doesn't appear to be going away any time soon.

I'm not going to lie, here. Growing up, my family never had that much money. There was enough to keep food on the table. Certainly, enough to keep a roof over our heads and clothes on our backs. I am grateful for that. But for all of these years I have been around, I have noticed a trend. A trend that, at one time, was almost socially unacceptable in society. I'm sure you all can remember those rich kids you vaguely knew from your years in school. They all seemed to have the nicest, flashiest things: clothes, jewelry, cars, even a large home. They seemed to have everything going for them, and they all tended to be the most popular kids in school, the trendsetters, if you will. Always active in sports, whether it was in basketball, football, volleyball, baseball, softball or even track. You'd see these same kids in the finest clothes you had ever seen in church every Sunday, too, provided that was something you did with your own family. Or, provided you even went to the same church as they did, or even lived in the same neighborhood you did. I certainly can recall plenty of kids like that in some of the towns I lived in over the years.

Yet, for all of those memories, something always seemed to be off. Come Friday and Saturday nights after the game ended at the local high school, they were the quickest to launch debauched parties in their McMansions. Many of these so-called popular rich kids turned out to be the biggest snobs at school, looking down on those from a lower class, sneering and laughing at them for their hand-me-down clothing, for living in a smaller home, for having a rust bucket of a car. Come Sunday, they would be pious, no doubt. They would proclaim how much they loved Jesus, almost at times trying to shout each other out while singing those hymns the pastor had selected for that morning. They certainly acted pious, did their best to appear innocent, as their school-sponsored Bible clubs would be out front early every weekday morning, praying in a giant circle around the flag out front. For years, I wondered if it truly was their religion that made them this way, and I would as a result condemn all of those who had a belief in some deity because of those memories. But, as time progressed, I began to pay attention.

Almost everyone alive today can recall the recessions that rocked the country in the 1970s and the 1980s. Everyone alive can recount the dot com bubble burst around 2001, the housing bubble burst around 2006, and no one can dispute the epic throttling the economy received in 2008 as a result of Wall Street's almost criminal actions. Throughout the last 15 years alone, I can distinctly recall how much wealthier the rich seemed to get, while the rest of us in the middle class were pushed further and further down the ladder, our wages barely increasing while the cost of living for us just seemed to skyrocket further and further, with no signs of this trend ever ending even today. I can recall all those years how, as I rode my old bike around my home town to get to wherever it was I was going to (or as I was on foot), I would see a group of rich kids pass me by and shout derogatory words at me for being on foot or on bike, while they cruised around in the latest, fanciest car they could get their hands on. I can't lie about this part, either: a lot of times, it made me seethe. Who were they to judge me for not having what they did? I can even remember the first time I went to seek assistance with keeping food on the table. The shame and humiliation I felt walking out with all of that paperwork was incredible, as some of these rich kids I knew would walk by me, seeing the paperwork in my hands, and glaring directly at me, gesturing angrily in my direction, while they spoke to each other in frenzied, hushed tones as they walked towards the local DMV office just down the hall from DHS. While I couldn't hear what they were saying, the implication by their body language alone was more than enough: how dare this person steal our taxes to live for free off of our inherited wealth?

Increasingly, I would eventually see some of these same rich people I once went to school with as they would walk into political rallies organized by the GOP in my area. I was always on the side of the protestors there, those who stood against war, unfettered greed, racism, religious bigotry, sexism and homophobia. I would see these rich kids as they walked by me. They would shout at me for being a low class lazy bum out for a free handout, that I needed to go to school and learn. Again, I would seethe, as after high school, their parents had virtually ensured that they received a free ride into a prestigious university, while I was not afforded any such opportunities. I would seethe as I saw everyone in my class on the economic ladder get left behind, as men and women with almost untold, vast amounts of wealth would march into their churches every Sunday, offering up false praise to a god who would never recognize them as followers of him, and the rest of the week they would spend on things no normal person would ever need, ignoring the plight of the hungry, the poor, the homeless in the world. And in time, a few former friends I knew to be once poor ended up like these same rich kids as they became wealthy quite by accident. Gone were the delightful, enlightening conversations I had with them. Instead, the words I heard come from their mouths were words condemning those of us still living with little to our names. Gone were the good, honest people I once knew and loved, replaced by people focused utterly on obtaining more wealth, their sole argument on how to do so based on this idea that taxing the poor was the solution. This idea that cheaper production would bring in more money. Even today, I mourn the loss of those friendships, and I am left with one overriding conclusion that is like a bitter pill to swallow.

It's not religion that corrupts those who are wealthy. It's not politics. It's money itself. Too much of it, in my experience and in the experiences of those, can change a person for the worst. You become deaf to the suffering of those who are less fortunate. You begin to view them as leeches, out to get your money, and all because you do not want to pay anything out that will go towards them. You begin to think that if only they did it like you, then they would do okay, but they're not wealthy, so you assume that it is all laziness on their part, that they just want to sit back and have everything handed to them for free. In time, if you are a religious person, you find yourself seeing statements within your religious scriptures that you come to believe actually hold you up as your god's favored type of human being, simply because you are wealthy, while others who have less are clearly unforgivable sinners. If you're the head of a major company with untold billions to your name, you become angry with your own workers when they ask for a higher wage. You think to yourself why the hell should I, I want to keep even more of this money? They didn't do what you did to get this rich, the hell with them. Besides, it should be easy for them to live off of what they make, I know I could!

The problem with thinking like that is that it leads down a much darker path. In terms of religion, almost every major religion humanity has condemns the wealthy who do not minister to the poor, who are their own brethren. From an economic standpoint, it is a dangerous line of thinking, as simply assuming it should be easy to live off of very little is foolish, considering how low wages simply do not afford the opportunity to save up for anything, and how even the simplest illness can put one's well-being at high risk. A few days off to recover from the flu when you are a poor worker can spell utter financial disaster for you, and yet the rich do not take that into consideration. Their line of thinking, because of the influence of money, is so far removed from the common person that any counter argument you make with them falls onto deaf ears. Often times, they don't even appear to consider other basic necessities when assuming that a person could live off of a few hundred a month easily. They almost seem to think a Spartan, austere existence without access to any of what drives the world that is necessary today should be easy, and when a worker asks for a higher wage, they think hey, this person should manage their money better, why should I give them any more of mine? It betrays a thought process that indicates that the wealthy simply do not consider the mountain of problems the poor are forced to endure because of their problem. The fact that Doctors Without Borders is in many communities nationwide in what is supposed to be the world's wealthiest nation speaks volumes to this truth. Some wealthy individuals even think to themselves how if only they could privatize our social service system...they think that their experience running one business makes them qualified for it, and as a bonus, it would be more money in their pockets. Not once do those in favor of this appear to care that privatization by a company only interested in the money would result in an even higher cost for food, for clothing, for the basic necessities in life. It would make the problem worse, and for the wealthy involved with that kind of advocacy, that kind of thinking, the bigger picture doesn't matter to them. They can only think of more money flowing into their bank accounts, and in time, the people they draw this money off of them are merely monetary tools, not living, breathing human beings with feelings, with dreams, with hopes, with very real fears. Small wonder we are seeing a Pope, a man well known for working in the slums in his home country out of a need to address poverty, attack the very wealthy who claim to be followers of a man who was utterly opposed to obscene wealth 2,000 years ago.

And this is where I leave off. I leave it to you to deduce your own conclusions. Attack me if you must, or agree, I don't care. But, consider what I have laid out here. Consider well what you have seen with your own eyes what the wealthy do and say. If you don't wish to do that, or even believe this next underlying truth, than that is your prerogative. In any event, I say this: money is the most corrupting influence in the history of humanity. It is the most corrupting influence on the planet Earth. And I will maintain hope that one day, humanity's goals will not involve the pursuit of unlimited wealth. It blinds you to the human condition. It robs you of your ability to reason, of your ability to use logic in your thinking, of your very being. It can make you judge people for not having money while it may very well be that they never had a choice in the matter. It can corrupt you to the point where democracy, an ideal cherished by so many millions upon the globe, is a barrier to you in your quest to obtain even more wealth no matter what the means. Money, quite simply, robs you of your humanity. And should you continue to call yourself a Christian, even as you go against the very words of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, a well known supporter of the poor and the destitute, you may have reason to stop and reconsider exactly what religion you belong to, as the very founder of your religion would condemn you as strongly as he once did the Pharisees and the money changers in the temple. Money, above all, is evil. I can only hope we eventually move beyond the need for it, and start taking care of one another without asking first for a price. It's the least we can do - we only have one home in the cosmos, after all, and all we have is one another to rely upon. It's time to stop looking at money as the sole objective.

Until next time, my friends.

It's Personal

A few nights ago, I found myself yet again sitting in the car downtown. It was just after 2 in the morning, and everything was dying down. I hadn't had any other passenger requests for about 30 minutes, and was waiting to see if I would get any late night stragglers from some of the nearby diners. I pulled up in front of the Red Martini, and stood waiting outside of my car for another request. Nearby were several employees from at least two of the nearby bars, and walking around them was a homeless man. What I saw disgusted me.

I mentioned in my first post here that I was homeless at one point in my life. It was the most difficult challenge I have ever faced, and even today I still have emotional problems stemming from that period of my life. It's not an easy situation to be in, and I wouldn't wish it upon even my worse enemy in the world. The way you get treated when you are homeless can go three ways: one, you may get treated as if you're an addict who needs Jesus in your life. And maybe that is the case for some out there, but not all. Two, you're treated with scorn and distaste, almost as if your very presence is not welcome in any place you go to. Three, you may actually get treated with compassion and dignity. It all depends on where you are at. In the area I lived in, it was like I didn't even exist at all. One of the shelters I spent a night at fell into the first category. I was simply trying to eat when one of the staff came up to me, offering me a spot in their drug and alcohol program. The tone this man used when talking to me was the same one a person would use when talking to a child. Needless to say, that kind of treatment didn't go over well with me, and I never again went back to this place. Still others in this particular city just wrote me off as though I wasn't human. It's no small wonder many on the streets end up turning to drugs or alcohol. Being homeless sucks.

This brings me back to the other night. There I was in my car, and watching this man, who may have been on some sort of substance or quite possibly mentally ill (the latter seemed to be the case). He kept walking around this group of people, exchanging hostile words with the security guard in the midst of this group. He kept daring this guard to come hit him, and just throwing out a litany of insults. Again, this individual was very likely a mentally ill person - I had certainly seen enough of it back in Grand Rapids, but at least there they had several non-profit places that offered treatment for men like this guy free of charge. This guard, if he could truly be called that, was replying with an equal barrage of insults. There was one that really got to me, though: "Go on home! Oh, that's right, you don't have a home!" This guard then laughed after saying this. For a brief moment, I considered saying something to this gentleman about that statement. I considered saying to him to go easy on the guy, let the police at least handle it. They at least have a team that is trained specifically to handle homeless issues here in Colorado Springs. Another part of me also considered asking him if he would do the same had he known I was on the streets at one point in time, too. Witnessing things like that, and knowing what it's like to live on the streets...honestly, to me, that's what I would call getting personal.

For the homeless here in Colorado Springs, there exist few options for housing. There is only one shelter that is open year round, and it is almost always at full capacity for both men and women. The staff there have touted some minor measures of success in helping shelter occupants to obtain a job and a home of their own, but the reality of the matter is that most of the people who rotate in and out of this place suffer from a plethora of issues: disabilities stemming from medical problems, mental health issues or even addiction. Two other shelters are seasonal: the first, Springs Rescue Mission, does offer a long-term drug and alcohol treatment program, but like many other places, it is frequented by the same individuals over and over again - their cold-weather shelter can hold maybe 35 individuals at best, and is open for a brief window of time from November to April. Many of these individuals are, of course, homeless, and have no real job prospects out there. They have nothing to offer to a world that refuses to see any remote potential in them. The other cold-weather shelter, operated by the Salvation Army, can house up to 150 people, but again is closed for much of the year. What real options, again, do these people have for housing?

The next problem is that once they are back on the streets during warmer months, there is little in the way for them as far as housing is concerned. The year-round shelter here actually forbids people from working at day labor jobs, which the staff there openly says is not "real work". Damn the fact that the only real job prospects many in Colorado Springs have is within minimum wage, part time fast food jobs or retail jobs. Once you're on the streets, almost every employer out there views you as unreliable simply because you do not have a place to call home. And even with the Marion House Soup Kitchen allowing people to use their place as a forwarding address for the homeless, that address, once pulled up in a background check by potential employers, is viewed as a huge red flag. Given the city's five plus year ban on camping, and more recent efforts by city officials to ban the homeless from at least trying to sleep on a park bench, it becomes obvious that Colorado Springs is a city that refuses to acknowledge that homelessness exists, almost seemingly equating it to a crime, despite the efforts of the Homeless Outreach Team with CSPD (admittedly it has to be said that reports exist of CSPD simply purchasing bus tickets to other cities for the homeless - such actions do not solve a thing).

On the question of jobs, yes, it is true that there is work to be found out there. But, as touched upon in the previous paragraph, most of the jobs one could find in this city primarily are within fast food and retail, both of which pay little and offer few hours (thanks partly to employers not wanting to give benefits to employees). And as the cost of living continues to skyrocket, partially due to the influx of people from other states due to marijuana being legal in Colorado, this puts a further squeeze on those who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. One would have to work three or four jobs just to be able to make a stable living, but with most places being inflexible with their hours and those offered by a second job, what is a person truly left with? A life spent sleeping on different couches in different homes every few weeks, rotated between cheap hotels and shelters? And still, individuals comprising both of the above categories are told by our elected leaders to simply work harder, and nowhere more than right here in Colorado Springs.

All of what I just discussed above nearly came to a head for me the other night, as I watched the interaction between that security guard and that homeless man. A homeless man who, for his efforts, almost got pepper sprayed. Who, because absolutely no real resources exist in the city to treat whatever mental health problems he might have, nearly met the business end of a taser. I cannot stand attacks on the homeless. I cannot stand those who insult and demean them. To me, such things are personal. Because I too was homeless, and I want a world where such a problem doesn't exist.

Shills for President

For the past few months, I have been watching as the race for next year's elections turns into more and more of a madhouse. The GOP candidates alone are all part of what I can only sum up as a virtual clown car: Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, Rand Paul, Rick Santorum, Donald Trump and Scott Walker, just to name a few. On the Democratic side, you have Hillary Clinton, Jim Webb, Lincoln Chaffee, Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders. Almost all, with the exception of Bernie Sanders, simply do not get what's wrong with the country as a whole.

Take a look around your community at this moment in time. How does it look? Are you in a wealthy area? Then you have no real worries, I suppose. But for the bulk of Americans, what is the new norm out there? Roads that are in bad need of repair. Bridges that are almost in danger of falling apart. Schools that have a very limited budget compared to what they had decades ago, with the major end result being that most graduates of our school system are woefully unprepared where the sciences, literacy, mathematics and even basic knowledge of civics are concerned. A healthcare system that, for better or for worse, continues to lag far behind those of much of western Europe. A job market that increasingly is becoming more and more loaded with part time, minimum wage jobs in the service sector. An environment in a rather rough shape. Entire cities filled with abandoned homes and businesses (Detroit comes to mind here). All across the board, things do not look good, and in turn we look to those running for office for answers. Sadly, almost no one gets it.

Jeb Bush's solution to our economic woes is to "work harder". Work harder...advice that is being given to millions out there who are already working three, four jobs just to earn a living as the wage stagnates and the cost of living continues to skyrocket to unfathomable levels not seen in nearly a century. Donald Trump's ideas so far have consisted of erecting a wall along the entire southern border of the United States, and attacking John McCain as not being a "hero" for getting captured in Vietnam. Ted Cruz and Scott Walker seem to be focused on cutting everything in sight: food assistance programs meant to help the working poor keep food on the table, social security benefits for the elderly and the disabled, welfare programs aimed at helping small families be able to at least keep up with some bills while they search for work (and purchasing basic necessities for the house)...both of them seem to place the blame on immigrants, socialists and everyone else they can think of. Walker, for his part, we already know hates unions: just a few years ago, he barely made it through what could be described as a very tainted recall election, having attacked teacher's unions in Wisconsin and winning. As for Ben Carson? No real ideas to contribute, other than the fact that he apparently thinks being in prison makes you gay. And Santorum? I think little else needs to be said there.

On the opposite side, none of the people aside from Sanders seem to get that the main problems with our country lie solely with Wall Street. Clinton has addressed it to a degree, but again, all but one of the individuals running on the Democratic ticket for 2016 come across as corporate shills. It's almost like a choice between the lesser of two evils: the Republicans, who make it clear that their loyalties lie with multi-billion dollar corporations on Wall Street and elsewhere, and the Democrats, who at least try to hide it. Take as an example "Obamacare", or better known as the PPACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act). The conservative right has been spitting venom for almost 6 years now on this monster of a law, blaming the President for forcing Americans to buy insurance that they feel they don't need. The political left (where I hail from) defends this law as the best thing to ever happen in our healthcare system. The reality, though, is that the PPACA doesn't exactly benefit us as taxpayers, even though millions of poor out there are actually able to get at least Medicaid because of the PPACA for quite possibly the first time, or at a minimum at least get credits that can be put towards health insurance plans. The PPACA, originally intended to be an act that would have created a single payer, universal health care system in this country, was hijacked by the health insurance industry. The same industry who in turn pressured both political parties in Congress to rewrite it so that no matter what, they would end up with even more customers in their respective systems. And more customers as we all know equals what, exactly? More money.

From there, it gets worse. Aside from a few people in Congress, almost everyone in both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party voted wholesale for the 2008 bailouts of some of Wall Street's biggest banks, and all at our expense as taxpayers. We weren't even given a choice, as the justification was that if we let banks that are too big to fail go under, then the rest of the economy will crash with them. Never mind the fact that someone could have introduced a law, or at least tried to, that would have broke up these banks just for that specific purpose. Same goes for voting for the Patriot Act, likely the greatest threat to the Bill of Rights in the entire history of the United States - a majority within both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party consciously continue to renew the Patriot Act at every turn, oftentimes granting more power to the NSA to spy on US citizens without so much as probable cause. It is true that this has been going on for decades now, but not at the obscene levels we are seeing today. And as for higher education? The record number of students in extreme debt from pursuing an education is simply unsustainable, and the fact that we have not followed the leads of our so-called European partners with respect to publicly funded, tuition free colleges and universities is simply mind boggling. And only two, perhaps three members of our own Congress have even tried to put a stop to this.

On care for veterans alone, the record there is very abysmal, and it has been throughout every presidential administration dating back to Ronald Reagan. Poorly maintained and unsafe medical facilities for veterans and active duty personnel...numerous cuts made to military personnel pay to such an extreme degree where it is not all that uncommon to see members of our own military selling their own blood plasma at for-profit "donation" centers throughout the nation...extreme and hurtful cuts done to veteran's benefits, veteran's assistance programs and care programs by, more often than not, Republicans (although the Democrats do share some guilt in this matter, by and large these cuts have been made by Republicans both in Congress and in the White House over the past few decades)...the list almost never seems to end, and yet somehow the money for fruitless military projects known to not work even by the very people proposing them is not a problem. Somehow, there's always money to wage another war that accomplishes nothing aside from obtaining new ways for private corporations to make more money. It is maddening that pitifully few members of our own Congress have even spoken up about these issues.

On another front, there's the matter of prison reform. In numerous states nationwide, the majority of offenders locked up are first time non-violent drug addicts. Again, there is little real discussion towards reforms there, as the cost to us taxpayers alone continues to skyrocket from housing these offenders for longer and longer terms. While the Democratic Party at least tries to have a discussion on the matter, even if it always is trivial in nature and never accomplishes anything, increasingly it is becoming clearer with each passing year: most state correctional agencies are beginning to produce goods for sale on the general market, with the sole source of labor being these same inmates who are sentenced to decades behind bars for the imagined crime of addiction. Nothing real is being done to actually address the issues of drug use from a medical perspective, and to see that these people are being sent into a lifetime behind bars to serve an increasingly for-profit prison system is utter madness. And again, with the exception of perhaps one of the candidates for the office of President for next year, no one else is discussing this. Instead, the clown car that is the Republican Party is obsessing over the imagined evil of gay marriage, Iran (which, let's face it, is relatively toothless compared to what the United States militarily is capable of), abortion and tax breaks for the rich - as if we need more of that. And the Democratic candidates, as a rule, almost seem to be silent.

Now, in the interests of fairness and disclosure, I will readily admit that I personally am a supporter of Bernie Sanders. He, along with a few other like-minded individuals, has been saying the same thing for decades: that we are kowtowing way too much to what the private sector wants. We've already allowed them to control our elections through the ability to pour in unlimited funds into any candidate's campaign of their choosing (think Citizen's United - it turned our democracy into a joke). We allowed them to virtually dictate a war no one asked for with Iraq. We allowed them to strip away good paying American jobs in the manufacturing sector and the tech sector, the rationale being that it's cheaper (and somehow better) to relocate to nations where the pay is so low that the next step down would be slavery, while here we're left mainly with low paying jobs in retail, fast food or in call centers (which continue to be outsourced overseas as I write this). They pay as little as possible for these jobs, while they ratchet up the cost of rent, the cost of fuel, the cost of clothing, of home necessities, of pretty much everything, while saying that a higher wage will cut into their business - these arguments coming from guys who make untold billions each year by hawking cheaply made and unsafe products from third world nations where their entire work force is often forced to work 2 or 3 days at a time, and for some up to 20 hours per day on only a few cents an hour.

Whenever someone does point this out? The usual voices in our media pipe up about how this is "socialism"...about how people just need to work harder or get a better job, knowing full well that these "better jobs" are almost non-existent...the discussion then turns towards how these "libtards" as some call people of my political orientation are somehow just too lazy to work and want everything for free...words that come from equally poor individuals who, against all belief, still vote Republican.

Not that the Democrats are any better, either - token words and phrases are thrown about regarding economic inequality and the state of the American job market, and then they tend to go right back to the drawing board as they try to get us involved with similar economic "partnerships" such as NAFTA. NAFTA, which only benefits corporations seeking to get richer in exchange for cheap labor and cheaper products. The latest incarnation of this? TPP - Trans Pacific Partnership. And outside of a few lone voices in Congress, TPP almost seems destined to pass no matter what the facts are. And again, only one candidate out of all the many running for office right now is saying anything about how further damaging TPP would be to an already precarious job market.

Sadly, I don't see Bernie Sanders winning office, despite how dead-on his message is with respect to the state of the country. I don't see him lasting past the primaries early next year. Even though his campaign stops are drawing tens of thousands, Clinton may very well end up being the front runner for the Democratic Party (the irony being that Sanders is only running on the Democratic ticket simply because as an independent he would not go far). As for the Republican side? I admit that while it is too early to tell, we may very well end up with Jeb Bush running on the Republican ticket, or in a worse case scenario, Ted Cruz. With choices like these, it is hard to maintain any serious faith in our electoral system. It really is. We're increasingly left with corporate shills for candidates. That fact alone doesn't bode well for what is supposed to be a democracy, as it is becoming more and more clear that those with millions, or even billions, are the ones dictating the future of the country. Those regular voters who do seem to count? All in areas that have been gerrymandered to the point where the idea of having anyone but a Republican representing those areas is nothing more than a pipe dream. All from voters who cast their ballot based off of religious ideals (the threat of a Christian theocracy alone seems to be all too real in this country), sound-bite slogans, attractiveness or who the particular voter would most like to have a beer with. In short, we're left with a bunch of corporate shills each time. Shills for president, and nothing else.