I know, I know the "Great Recession" is supposedly over. Wall Street is back to pre-recession numbers. We're adding all these great low paying part time no benifit jobs to bring that unemployment rate down under 9%. The sticky problem is that the human suffering has not abated at all. Indeed, reprehensible schemes to pad the wealth of the richest (who do not live among us, but rather apart unto themselves), at the expense of the middle class and the old and the poor, are introduced in Congress daily by the "Chosen Ones" paid representatives (Reference the republican budget plan introduced by Paul Ryan this week that would end Medicare) . I would rename the class warfare being waged by the John Birch /antidemocracy billionaires upon us, "The Great Repression". Sure, it's only a label, but, it captures what they are doing.
In other news, I'd like to point out a phenomena I've noticed on the rise here in Chicago. I'm sure it's nothing new, but, I'm noticing it more. I'd refer to it as "homeless hoarders". This morning in a steady Chicago rain, I saw a homeless woman at a bus stop with her two-wheeled shopping basket piled shoulder high with her shoddy belongings, she also had three canvas laundry bags stuffed full, each with the draw strings threaded through the handles of numerous plastic bags, also full. I didn't see how she moved this now wet pile to the bus stop, but when the bus stopped and she tried to load it on, the driver, understandably, wouldn't let her board. The Clark street bus is one of the longest routes in the city. It would have gotten her out of the rain for a couple of hours. When I pointed this out to Marsha she mentioned having seen another homeless hoarder downtown who took two or three trips to get her hoard across the street to the other corner. Lives filled with despair and clinging to shabby memories are the downtrodden whimpers of a selfish society.
