Robbed at the End of the Road
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Pavement ends at the top of our driveway
here on Puget Sound. Our mail box and paper box are in the turn-around. A
pleasure of the morning is reading the paper while having coffee on the deck.
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This morning our paper went missing.
We’d seen it there at the start of our pre- breakfast walk. It was gone when
we got back.
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Naturally, I think someone stole it.
There’s probably a less sinister explanation. Anyway, it’s gone. Only .50
cents, but it was mine.
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I laugh but am irritated.
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Then I laugh at my irritation. How irritated
have I been to watch our conservatively managed investments erode in recent
months? One guy gets 150 years for scamming investors, but how many others
with offices in high towers have done the same thing? Aren’t those wealthy
people who avoid paying taxes by various means actually robbing those of
us who pay?
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If I had my paper this morning I could
find evidence that our elected representatives are being blackmailed by lobbyists
– assuming that votes are secured by funds given to re-election campaigns
– passing or voting down legislation that effectively transfers funds from
my accounts to the coffers of industries and investors.
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I’m a little guy at the end of the road,
but they know how to find me.
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The big thing on the radio news is the
health care legislation. I haven’t followed it closely but can guess that
by now the lobbyists representing the major profiteers in the health care
industry, like pharmaceuticals and insurance for instance, are putting the
squeeze on politicians. Those up for election are fair game. The prophets
of old would note (angrily) that the well-off make such decisions without
regard to the poor, the elderly, the sick, the widow and the powerless.
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In fact, the prophets insist that when
profit trumps justice the God of this place ultimately gets sick of it. Some
sort of moral justice keeps rising up in a kind of judgment against a people
with shoddy priorities. History ultimately shines a light on our darkness.
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Isn’t there something credited to Jesus
that says not to lay up treasures on earth where thieves break in and steal?
– Art Morgan, July 22, 2009
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p.s. Our “stolen” paper, only slightly ruffled, was returned to our box in
the afternoon. Not stolen, only “borrowed.”
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