Poor people are pushovers; we need another Robin Hood

We need one part hacker, one part wiki-leak, one part Jack Bauer to go rogue on our traditional thought process.

(Pic from http://
www.robinhood.ltd.uk/)


Riding out my typical Sunday malaise, I thumbed through the Post and found more evidence of the creeping suspicion I’ve been harboring since my onset into the real world. People that play by the rules get ruled.

Executive compensation at the nation’s largest firms has roughly quadrupled in real terms since the 1970s, even as pay for 90 percent of America has stalled, according to an article in the Post. The United States is now just behind Cameroon and Ivory Coast and just ahead of Uganda and Jamaica in economic equality. The point is, conditions are getting shittier for a lot of us, while they’re getting cushier for the already luxed.

For the vast majority, there doesn’t seem to be much we can do to improve our stations in life. You can look for a job that has probably been, or will be exported to India or China (their citizenry will do the same work for a fraction of the cost), find a position in a propped up, non-competitive industry (like I am doing with AmeriCorps), or go back to school and hope to get into that upper echelon, or top 10 percent of income earners who are fortunate enough to have real gains in income.

The thing is people do find ways to grow their incomes and their mobility. My friend Robin has started her own online bead store to supplement her income. I have pre-recession friends that have held onto their jobs and are saving wisely. And jobs are out there, they’re just not going as far in terms of social welfare as they once did.

Far more impeding to income acquisition than available jobs, is the moral framework that guides our everyday lives. If we could just ditch our moral compasses, and amass riches a lot more people would have greater incomes. Yet a lot of good people play by the rules because they find value in that.

But along those lines, I think it is getting easier every day to put our morals aside. The bailout, the Supreme Court decision allowing limitless campaign contributions, and the widening gap in income distribution, points to an invincibility of individuals with wealth. Those with wealth can permeate the political and justice system, impugning the natural rights of good people in the States and abroad.

I think in the past it was easier to fight injustice. You could go to war against a belligerent state. But I think today, states are no longer unified players and war doesn’t serve the same purpose it once did. Multinational corporations, not sovereign nations, have invaded every corner of the globe, exuding their influence to the willing and unwilling. These are the real belligerents that have no borders to contain them.

Yet the people who comprise their staffs and workforces are varying shades of good and evil. The drones are just trying to get by. Upper management is doing everything it can to widen its market share and profit margin. If Walmart doesn’t invade, some other entity will.

I think we need a comic book hero who defies laws and operates on a higher level of justice. We need a modern day Robin Hood who is part hacker, part wiki-leaks, and part Jack Bauer to go rogue on today’s conventional thought process.