As I listen to the rhetoric of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates about equal opportunity for women -- seeking equal opportunities for their daughters and granddaughters as for their sons and grandsons -- it occurs to me that they haven't asked that their sons and daughters have opportunities equal to the sons and grandchildren of Mitt Romney, who apparently share a trust fund currently worth over $100 million.* Even divided among 5 sons and 18 grandchildren, that's about $4 million per descendant, enough to throw off $90,000 per person per year without diminishing (and without them working -- or even having finished grade school). And that's before we start to talk about the $100 million IRA they are likely to inherit, which continues to appreciate free of taxes.
The Earth-for-All Calendar contains a number of items which speak to equality of opportunity for all in our current generation, and for all in future generations. When some of us start life with all the advantages, and others, because of the design of our society's systems, have few or no advantages, how do we continue to maintain the fiction that we believe we are all created equal, that our nation is founded on this proposition and its laws and customs said to conform to and support this proposition?
The advantages of our wealthiest didn't come out of thin air. They aren't "no-cost" to the rest of us, and they don't benefit the rest of us by any form of "trickle down." The trickle flows the other direction. To the extent that our society pretends that this comes out of thin air, we are permitting ourselves to be fooled -- treated as fools, taught by rich people's useful idiots.
And when some of us have the money to devote to promoting points of view that benefit ourselves, at the expense of the common good, to influence elections, where does democracy get us?
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