A dear friend was listening to a group of people heaping derision on the ultra-wealthy. Negativity was being spewed out of half a dozen mouths about how the oligarchs have purchased our obstructionist Congress (or at least the majority in our House of "Tea Party" Representatives) To be clear, there was more frustration in people's voices than actual hate, but the consensus seemed to be that equating wealth with some sort of inherent worth was crippling our economy, eviscerating democracy and turning the lives of working class people into nothing more than wage slavery.
To put the events that I am about to describe into perspective, this friend is a unique hybrid of trust baby and lottery winner. His parents bought an empty piece of land with a small amount of cash many years ago in an area near a large body of putrid water. They built a nice house, on a berm high enough to be safe from flooding, over fifty years ago. Back then, pollution control measures were unheard of. The water outside their door was a toxic soup with nearly constant algae blooms and fish kills in summer. The lake was fouled by toxic loading from electroplating, foundry waste, landfill leachate, dumping of all kinds and effluent from both large cities and dairy operations which made the water stink and slowly, all of their neighbors moved away. The state allowed a "developer" to cut a channel in through the marsh, just north of their property, which was to provide a private marina for a hundred or so "nice" condominiums. Since then, pollution control measures were implemented turning the water from a toxic colloidal suspension to a relatively clean lake. Since then, pollution control measures were implemented turning the water from a cesspool to something that one could almost swim in. Consequently, the investment that they made to be out on the point, where literally no one wanted to live back then has increased their wealth on paper by over one thousand fold.
Since my friend's parents purchased their land, the work that has been done to reign in pollution has benefited them immeasurably. The channel that was cut, to allow boat access, has silted in and become swamp again, far too expensive to keep open for the development to survive. Instead, about half a mile back from the lake there is a tenement of shoddy town houses that has a seawall and mosquito breeding grounds where the channel used to be.
Anyway, my friend defended the rich. He claimed that without the ultrawealthy, we would be out of jobs because the theater that we were standing in was built and maintained through the philanthropic donations of those same oligarchs. There was an abject moment of silence and I do believe that one or two in the group felt completely out of their depth. Suddenly, they had been jerked by an unseen hook, like a fish on a line and they knew they were to be someone's dinner. I responded almost immediately and without hesitation, "That is exactly what they want you to think." Theater existed long before oligarchs. It was just called storytelling. If we did not offer tax breaks for the wealthy, for "donating" to not-for-profit corporations, how many would "give"? Show me one ultra-wealthy person who has given as much of themselves or of their wealth as any one of us do supporting theater or the arts.
Then I got to thinking...just how much do I "give" to theater and the arts? Me, a man of modest means. Most of the miles that I drive in a year are to support theater and the arts. There is no reimbursement for travel in my job as a union stagehand. There is also no compensation for meals that I eat when I'm on the road or working out of town. Let me add that the oligarchs have made sure that there are precious few days of work in the town I am from, although we have another excellent theater built by other oligarchs where I live, so I am forced to drive nearly ten thousand miles each year to secure employment as a professional stagehand. That means that if I were to drive alone to every gig, one third to half of my income is spent just getting to the place where theater is taking place. I have chosen to work in the theater because I was born into a family that poured their lives into the stagehouse. In my youth, nearly everyone I knew, and all of my mentors, believed that society was better off if we shared the stories that take place in the theater. "On the boards" as we call it, because most stage floors are made of wood. Three generations of my family have been involved in technical aspects of re-creating the parables and teaching moments that inform our social order, yet none of them ever got tax breaks for investing their lives in backstage affairs. Hell, sometimes they were lucky to get paid for the materials that they donated.
My entire family has participated in community theater and when my mother was teaching, because she taught art, the principal assumed that building and painting sets and building properties would be "easy" for her the additional hours of time spent on three school plays each year was uncompensated and nothing about doing that work was in her contract. Let me say, for the record, neither was working late every Friday during the football season, so she could help the cheerleaders with giant posters and signs for the football games. In addition to not being paid for the real efforts that we put into helping theater survive, we don't get any tax relief either.
It frequently feels like we are being stabbed in the back by the uberwealthy. Their hopes, dreams and aspirations seem to take precedence over our quality of life, our health and welfare, and with the push toward voucher schools and the collapse of public schooling generally as well as the insidiousness of corporate greed defiling our food system, our ability to raise healthy, intelligent children. The real twisting of the knife comes about when powerful interests controlling the media tell us that we are better off for having a class of people who throw away what we make in a year, or ten, or even our entire working careers, to simply reduce their tax burden.
Everything always boils down to the difference between wants and needs. We all want to be able to make our way safely through the world and have some level of comfort in doing so, but what we need is the safety of knowing that we are cared for, paid attention to, not abused too much, appreciated and loved. I truly wish that they gave tax breaks for these things.
To put the events that I am about to describe into perspective, this friend is a unique hybrid of trust baby and lottery winner. His parents bought an empty piece of land with a small amount of cash many years ago in an area near a large body of putrid water. They built a nice house, on a berm high enough to be safe from flooding, over fifty years ago. Back then, pollution control measures were unheard of. The water outside their door was a toxic soup with nearly constant algae blooms and fish kills in summer. The lake was fouled by toxic loading from electroplating, foundry waste, landfill leachate, dumping of all kinds and effluent from both large cities and dairy operations which made the water stink and slowly, all of their neighbors moved away. The state allowed a "developer" to cut a channel in through the marsh, just north of their property, which was to provide a private marina for a hundred or so "nice" condominiums. Since then, pollution control measures were implemented turning the water from a toxic colloidal suspension to a relatively clean lake. Since then, pollution control measures were implemented turning the water from a cesspool to something that one could almost swim in. Consequently, the investment that they made to be out on the point, where literally no one wanted to live back then has increased their wealth on paper by over one thousand fold.
Since my friend's parents purchased their land, the work that has been done to reign in pollution has benefited them immeasurably. The channel that was cut, to allow boat access, has silted in and become swamp again, far too expensive to keep open for the development to survive. Instead, about half a mile back from the lake there is a tenement of shoddy town houses that has a seawall and mosquito breeding grounds where the channel used to be.
Anyway, my friend defended the rich. He claimed that without the ultrawealthy, we would be out of jobs because the theater that we were standing in was built and maintained through the philanthropic donations of those same oligarchs. There was an abject moment of silence and I do believe that one or two in the group felt completely out of their depth. Suddenly, they had been jerked by an unseen hook, like a fish on a line and they knew they were to be someone's dinner. I responded almost immediately and without hesitation, "That is exactly what they want you to think." Theater existed long before oligarchs. It was just called storytelling. If we did not offer tax breaks for the wealthy, for "donating" to not-for-profit corporations, how many would "give"? Show me one ultra-wealthy person who has given as much of themselves or of their wealth as any one of us do supporting theater or the arts.
Then I got to thinking...just how much do I "give" to theater and the arts? Me, a man of modest means. Most of the miles that I drive in a year are to support theater and the arts. There is no reimbursement for travel in my job as a union stagehand. There is also no compensation for meals that I eat when I'm on the road or working out of town. Let me add that the oligarchs have made sure that there are precious few days of work in the town I am from, although we have another excellent theater built by other oligarchs where I live, so I am forced to drive nearly ten thousand miles each year to secure employment as a professional stagehand. That means that if I were to drive alone to every gig, one third to half of my income is spent just getting to the place where theater is taking place. I have chosen to work in the theater because I was born into a family that poured their lives into the stagehouse. In my youth, nearly everyone I knew, and all of my mentors, believed that society was better off if we shared the stories that take place in the theater. "On the boards" as we call it, because most stage floors are made of wood. Three generations of my family have been involved in technical aspects of re-creating the parables and teaching moments that inform our social order, yet none of them ever got tax breaks for investing their lives in backstage affairs. Hell, sometimes they were lucky to get paid for the materials that they donated.
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| We, the vast underclass, give our lives to keep the machinery of society in good repair, lubricated and in good running order. Why is it that the oligarchs only want to give money? The reason is simple, they will always have more money, so it has no value to them. We only have one life to give. Make it count! |
My entire family has participated in community theater and when my mother was teaching, because she taught art, the principal assumed that building and painting sets and building properties would be "easy" for her the additional hours of time spent on three school plays each year was uncompensated and nothing about doing that work was in her contract. Let me say, for the record, neither was working late every Friday during the football season, so she could help the cheerleaders with giant posters and signs for the football games. In addition to not being paid for the real efforts that we put into helping theater survive, we don't get any tax relief either.
It frequently feels like we are being stabbed in the back by the uberwealthy. Their hopes, dreams and aspirations seem to take precedence over our quality of life, our health and welfare, and with the push toward voucher schools and the collapse of public schooling generally as well as the insidiousness of corporate greed defiling our food system, our ability to raise healthy, intelligent children. The real twisting of the knife comes about when powerful interests controlling the media tell us that we are better off for having a class of people who throw away what we make in a year, or ten, or even our entire working careers, to simply reduce their tax burden.
Everything always boils down to the difference between wants and needs. We all want to be able to make our way safely through the world and have some level of comfort in doing so, but what we need is the safety of knowing that we are cared for, paid attention to, not abused too much, appreciated and loved. I truly wish that they gave tax breaks for these things.
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