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.
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