In my early years, aspiring to be an artist, I was happy to find occasional or part-time work in the semi-skilled labor force.
Today, that workforce is largely disappearing through automation and, more sadly, because of the deliberate action of corporations to ship all that work overseas.
So it is no mystery that this nation is beset with the problem of out-of-work and homeless people.
To blame it on the supposed lack of ambition or listlessness of unemployed panhandlers ignores the real cause: Our nation is run by corporations. They fund political campaigns and lobbyists to see that they get their money’s worth.
We say that Congress represents us, but does it really?
It’s pretty obvious that our representation depends upon the amount of money we donate; or, in many cases, the amount of blood shed to shame Congress into action.
It is time to acknowledge we have a homelessness and joblessness problem in this country, brought on not by laziness or ineptness, but by a corrupt system that we all support as a legitimate system of governance – that we falsely call democratic.
Donald Ogier
Portland
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