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Two things brought it to my attention around the same time (Reagan era). The first was the institution of the California lottery. The second was when my local newspaper moved the "People" section from the back pages to right inside the front news page, and thereafter, you couldn't glance at that feature without seeing Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor--as if those two odd human beings were the only real "people" in the world, and the rest of us were just...peons, shadows, less than real. And you couldn't avoid it. If you opened the newspaper to follow a real news story to conclusion, there it was, on the inside of the front page, catching your eye: the fake news about people who were touted in the "People" feature as the only people worth noticing. Michael Jackson. Elizabeth Taylor. The two ghouls of greed. Day after day after day. It really annoyed me, and I marked the moment as a milestone in the decline of U.S. journalism.
The California lottery was sold to the voters as a way to pay for school extras--science labs, arts programs, sports. Soon, of course, the "extras" began to be dropped to even lower levels than before, and this new source of revenue went into the general education budget. Also--and perhaps most importantly--a new "ethic" was born, of the dream of instant riches, windfalls, manna from heaven. Anybody could "get lucky" and become an instant millionaire. Anybody could become...Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor. Rich! Real people! This coincided with the downward slide of the poor and of working people and the middle class, the arrival of "the homeless" on California's city streets, the re-write of the federal tax code to favor the rich, the looting of the Savings and Loan institutions, and the rest of Reaganism.
Then, when Bush Jr. came along, Enron was permitted to loot a $10 billion California budget surplus. And today we are laying off teachers, cutting back all educational efforts, at every level, the U.C. system has never been more expensive (it was FREE when I was young--FREE!), and as for "extras," there aren't any. Bare bones education designed to create robots who test well on multiple choice tests that don't really give you a "choice"--just pre-written answers that are no fun at all.
So this guy's story--Leonard Abess--is far more important than it may initially seem. Yes, a touching story. Yes, a sort of noblesse oblige story that has a tinge of Reaganite "trickle down" to it. (Why didn't he just pay his workers better wages, all along? Why did he agree to them doing all the work, and him getting all the money, in the first place?). I think I have a more humanitarian response than Originalpckelly, above, who scoffs at this tale, as the soft-sell of capitalism. I understand that objection, but I enjoy the story anyway, just from a human point of view. The guy getting a conscience. The workers getting a windfall. Yeah, it's "feel good." And I LOVE the evidence that people can change. But I think the story has even more meaning. It is--maybe, hopefully--a turning of the tide from that awful, awful thing that was inflicted upon our country, beginning with Reagan, of the Age of Greed--the age of selfishness, the age of "I've got mine, fuck you," the age of egomania on the "People" page, the age of working people not counting for shit, the age of throw-away people, even veterans, on our city streets, all of it leading to this even worse age--the Age of Greed and Horror, which we are just now exiting--I truly hope.
The principles of our society that I understood, when I was young, were that we had a mostly generous, enlightened upper class (rich people) who believed in the common good, who wanted to live in a society in which everyone has a decent life, that we are all equal at some level, and 'all in this together,' and that America has a unique feature, in that the upper class is a fluid group, and upper mobility for the poor is given. The bargain between the working class and the upper class was a firm handshake about productive work, a stable society and education for all. Everyone is human. Anyone can "fall through the cracks." The highest could become the lowest. Society was there to pick people up if they fall, and to organize programs like Social Security to help the elderly and others. Work--doing a good job--loyalty, lawfulness, decency, were all rewarded. Intelligence, talent, energy, perseverance, struggle, vision could take you to the top of a profession. And everybody saved. We had reliable, trustworthy banks and savings institutions. Of course, this was a rather childishly limited view of our society. But I was a child. I soon learned--through events like the JFK, RFK and MLK assassinations, and the Vietnam War--that all was not well. But I never lost faith in "the good society"--as least as a dream, as a template that somehow got stamped on me, in my youth--until sometime around the move of the "People" feature to the inside of the front page, and the lie that was the California lottery.
Leonard Abess' story speaks to a childish dream that we can undo Reaganism--and, God help us, Bushwhackism--and go back to square one, to that society that I thought I lived in, that had great potential to be "good"--decent, democratic, just. The society in which everyone had a chance. The society (whether it ever existed or not) in which the upper class was "mostly generous and enlightened" and believed in the common good. Obviously we cannot go back. We are stuck in what is quickly becoming the world's biggest "Banana Republic." The evil part of the upper class has totally screwed us over--with the complicity of what may once have been the better part of the upper class. The entire class has betrayed us. Leonard Abess' story says that people can change. It is a magical, childish thing--out of a Dickens novel. But--whatever our new president's or his team's intention in highlighting this story--it certainly represents a far, far better idea for us to contemplate than Michael Jackson or Elizabeth Taylor, or winning the Lottery.
Dickens' stories had a profound impact on English society--all the way through to Thatcher, where it stopped cold in a greedy, beady-eyed look around the world. But that's quite a long run for the lesson of the obligations of the rich toward the poor, and the moral duty to create a decent society. Over a hundred years' worth. I wouldn't dismiss Leonard Abess' true life story at all, because of this. Images are important. Tales of generosity have resonance. And we can't always be thinking about economic structures, and large legal notions like human rights, and revolutions. We have sometimes to think about people, individuals. Our larger notions--especially our political notions--need to be grounded in the realities of other people, not just ourselves. I don't have $60 million to give away, but I can sure enjoy Leonard Abess doing it. It's cool--however bad the system in which he acquired it. And we all, rich and poor, need to become human again, like we were--or like it seemed to me, as a youngster, that we were--before Reagan.
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