The Middle - the "little" people
Idea for a column on the most important people in the world about all those folks between the rich and the impoverished—between the elected officials and the general public between the "bosses" and the "workers". The source of "soldiers" for all sorts of interests and concerns. The persons without which the world would simply not continue.
A real Sour Grapes — about the abuse and use of the world's little people.
For a while now, my mind has taken to wondering about the treatment of those persons and peoples upon whom we depend for all sorts of services and materials. It has gotten to the place to where I need to "unload". This column will undoubtedly be truly sour grapes and saddle sores. I am truly upset about it all. My mouth is all puckered up with a sour taste and my back is really sore with the burden of it all.
What are those burdens? Well, first of all farmers being paid 20th-century prices for corn produced at 21st-century costs. Then there is the way large corporations who employ large numbers of people move out of the country in order to produce goods at a lower cost. They leave those workers unemployed. The price of the production of the plant to the consumer stays the same. Then there are people working for minimum wages while the corporate officers reap large sums of money from profits from sales and interest on their investments.
Then there is advertising. People are encouraged to buy, buy, buy—using credit cards to live beyond their means. People are being sold products at stiff prices to help them with problems that don't produce the promised results. (Notice all the "p's" in that last sentence? Poor!) The people in the middle are encouraged to be consumer-minded.
Then, there are the politicians. Making all sorts of promises which they cannot keep. The worst is "we care for our children"—they pass laws to help children, but do not provide the tax dollars to meet the cost of using those laws. We pay them a good salary to pass laws that benefit the privileged and leave out the rest of us.
That is enough. Let me underscore my feelings about middle people who bear all the burdens of those abuses. What is interesting is that there are always middle persons who support those abuses—who say, "I know that they abuse us, but they are my abuser." So even the middle folk support the abuses. And—even more importantly, the abuse would fail if we in the middle did not accept that abuse.
Crowd-pleasing politicians, misleading advertisers, and all the rest need us. Now hear this, I believe it is time for the middle folks to get their say, whoever and whatever they have to say. I would suggest to all of us who are caught in supporting things that upset us, we begin to say no to the things we do not like. Wonder what would happen then? One thing becomes necessary—the "no" needs to be said to the offender. Understand? If you disagree with me in what is wrong, you tell me that, but the "no" is said to the agency, group, politician you do not like. OK?
Enough of the diatribe. What do we really do about this? I believe that we need to express our appreciation to other "little" people who perform necessary services. For example, waiters and waitresses, garbage people (the person on the truck), teachers, nurses, secretaries, and any other person who helps keep records. We need to say thank you to those folks. They don't need to hear about our difficulties with what they do. We ought not to blame them for things that go wrong. Middle people get blamed for a lot of things that aren't their fault. I believe that if those of us in the middle show each other our appreciation for what each of us do, that we could gather the strength to bring our abuses to an end.
This article was written by George Hirst in 2003, part of his newspaper column called Sour Grapes and Saddle Sores.
Idea for a column on the most important people in the world about all those folks between the rich and the impoverished—between the elected officials and the general public between the "bosses" and the "workers". The source of "soldiers" for all sorts of interests and concerns. The persons without which the world would simply not continue.
A real Sour Grapes — about the abuse and use of the world's little people.
The Middle People
For a while now, my mind has taken to wondering about the treatment of those persons and peoples upon whom we depend for all sorts of services and materials. It has gotten to the place to where I need to "unload". This column will undoubtedly be truly sour grapes and saddle sores. I am truly upset about it all. My mouth is all puckered up with a sour taste and my back is really sore with the burden of it all.
What are those burdens? Well, first of all farmers being paid 20th-century prices for corn produced at 21st-century costs. Then there is the way large corporations who employ large numbers of people move out of the country in order to produce goods at a lower cost. They leave those workers unemployed. The price of the production of the plant to the consumer stays the same. Then there are people working for minimum wages while the corporate officers reap large sums of money from profits from sales and interest on their investments.
Then there is advertising. People are encouraged to buy, buy, buy—using credit cards to live beyond their means. People are being sold products at stiff prices to help them with problems that don't produce the promised results. (Notice all the "p's" in that last sentence? Poor!) The people in the middle are encouraged to be consumer-minded.
Then, there are the politicians. Making all sorts of promises which they cannot keep. The worst is "we care for our children"—they pass laws to help children, but do not provide the tax dollars to meet the cost of using those laws. We pay them a good salary to pass laws that benefit the privileged and leave out the rest of us.
That is enough. Let me underscore my feelings about middle people who bear all the burdens of those abuses. What is interesting is that there are always middle persons who support those abuses—who say, "I know that they abuse us, but they are my abuser." So even the middle folk support the abuses. And—even more importantly, the abuse would fail if we in the middle did not accept that abuse.
Crowd-pleasing politicians, misleading advertisers, and all the rest need us. Now hear this, I believe it is time for the middle folks to get their say, whoever and whatever they have to say. I would suggest to all of us who are caught in supporting things that upset us, we begin to say no to the things we do not like. Wonder what would happen then? One thing becomes necessary—the "no" needs to be said to the offender. Understand? If you disagree with me in what is wrong, you tell me that, but the "no" is said to the agency, group, politician you do not like. OK?
Enough of the diatribe. What do we really do about this? I believe that we need to express our appreciation to other "little" people who perform necessary services. For example, waiters and waitresses, garbage people (the person on the truck), teachers, nurses, secretaries, and any other person who helps keep records. We need to say thank you to those folks. They don't need to hear about our difficulties with what they do. We ought not to blame them for things that go wrong. Middle people get blamed for a lot of things that aren't their fault. I believe that if those of us in the middle show each other our appreciation for what each of us do, that we could gather the strength to bring our abuses to an end.
This article was written by George Hirst in 2003, part of his newspaper column called Sour Grapes and Saddle Sores.