Question Why?

When I think about Bernie Sanders, I see a constant struggle to reach a vision that most people don’t understand. Probably because most of us are trying to survive in the moment and don’t have the time or the inclination to imagine that the rules we play by – the status quo – may have been made by people who have other than our lives and well being in their hearts.

Still, most of our daily intake of information isn’t first-hand. There has been a demarcation line created, formed by particular core philosophies that we accept or dismiss automatically. Everything is true, or everything is false. Who to trust, and who to disdain – its all there on the television dial.

Among the truths that I see are that rents are too damned high, and opportunities to own are too damned low. Beyond subsidies, no group of well-doers have come up with a method to build workforce housing, or for average people to overcome the obstacles of earning an honest living wage. Oh, there are plenty of ways to make a dishonest living wage, but most aren’t available to the folk who live by the adage that one should work hard and do the right thing. Most wage-earners don’t get to set the price of their labor. Therefore, they don’t get to enjoy the feeling of food or shelter security. The fact that our police and security budgets keep growing hugely attests that many people are choosing the later.

Another truth is the lack of access to education, where the State of New Hampshire is a real-life laboratory. Reliance on property taxes handicaps most families because of the cost of an adequate education. Even if those families are able to successfully shepherd their children through 12th grade, opportunities for a higher education have been stymied by a state board of education that has turned the university system into a for-profit business. Guess what George, schools don’t make widgets.

Still another truth is that the reason for war is almost never important enough to make a mother cry. Yet, many veterans support the very culture that uses them as a private police force for corporate greed, then abandons them and their physical, mental and emotional sufferings.

One truth though – reliance on fossil fuels, is showing cracks in its armor. Unfair laws and policies that favor industries who produce power from fossil fuels are slowly being eroded. But even now with community power opportunities, utilities are still resisting – kicking and screaming – with the help of their bought and paid for governor and his appointees.

Bernie launched a whole new generation, and still continues to this day, who will question this status quo with their lances of logic. As always though over time memoriam, those who question “why” will be berated, falsely accused, and ridiculed – until their message becomes the status quo. That is the goal.