courage & criminals

On one hand I have people I love - some of whom are being asked to live with death sentences of one duration and difficulty or another and who are, to a one, so brave and moving in their courage, I am humbled and amazed by them.

On the other, it is impossible not to notice that our runamuck capitalism begins to require that to get at all ahead you must go on and screw someone else - hard (but just in little increments, of course. just here and there): Get in/get out/get on. As long as you don't know the person and it's just about numbers, why not? Just a little indiscretion. All legal. Here and there. Just look what we can do... (the example below is minimal but $30 - $50+ dollars x a million or 3 million suckers makes for a damn nice vacation somewhere).

So. . . Screwed this morning with not so much as a kiss goodbye:
I just called to get info on a credit card. There was a message (from Target- BADBAD Company. For shame. I'm surprised. And unhappy because I like their homewares...) that they had changed their 800 number and referred me to a 900 number.
I called that number, but couldn't proceed without an access code, having been give NO clue what that might refer to. I hung up and tried again. Same thing. I think I just did it twice. Maybe I called a third time to hazard a guess and enter one of my forty three user passwords. So, anyway, I hung up again and called the original number back and - because I was busy with my hands - heard the message repeat four times with that 900 number to call. After the fifth repeat (which surely almost no one hears) there was a message saying it cost $9.95 each time you call that number!

Mother fuckers!
Are these people really going to live in such a different world that they won't be affected when the whole giant pretense of American comfort and promise falls like a 3,000 mile corn souffle and we're left individually sporting that gaunt, knowing look of those who have lost all as we slowly dry up, sick and uninsured, in gated communities that are mostly foreclosed and literally going to the dogs?

Individually we all try so hard, it seems. Even with the little things. I've lost my cell phone how many times and always had it returned. In NYC one cabbie drove in from Bensonhurst off-hours to give it back. I don't know anyone who would steal from their neighbor. I don't know anyone who isn't...good.

So what happens in the collective that exempts us so easily from morality? Why are so out of control - collectively? Why, when we can have the financial viability of this country's citizens nipped away at in aggregious interest rates adjustments and over-limit fees and... disappearing billion dollar airlifts to the middle east (beside the point?)... why don't the increments of our kindness also add up to more than a drop in the bucket.

We must hope they do. Perhaps we have to try even harder, do more than survive the brutal ruptures in our lives, extend our bravery even beyond our impressive individual tolerance and grace in living with our deep individual challenges.

Until we can turn the tide with the will of our collective humanity, we are a cancer on this planet and the world is brave and beautiful in trying to survive us.