BROTHERS’ KEEPERS

Children should never go to bed hungry in this country, but they do. And I never understood why people could be against healthcare, or gun control, or feeding the hungry, or investing in education, or giving children free breakfasts so they could perform better as students, or investing in infrastructure instead of war, or giving Medicare for all.

I can’t fathom why anyone would thwart these initiatives…well, maybe not everyone. Elon Musk  blithely said: “The fundamental weakness of Western society is empathy.”

This nation is suffering, but I don’t think the affliction stems from to much empathy.

For me, I never understood the argument against these basic, human needs: food, shelter, and warmth. As  humans, we will never be free until everyone is free. Israelis will never be free until Palestinians are free. James Baldwin once said: “”White people in this country will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they have achieved this—which will not be tomorrow and may very well be never—the Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed.”

Our brother’s keeper: we have known this for a very long time.  All the great religions speak on this.

But why would a person be against these basic humane components?  What turns them away? Is it in their DNA that turns a blind eye to suffering? Is it related to some deep seated trauma?

Concern and compassion for others is what makes us human, replenishes our souls, and when we abdicate that responsibility, our integrity, our essence is stained, debilitated. The fact of the matter is, we are our brother’s keeper and communities flourish when they honor that responsibility.

Now some might say: good gosh, where do you expect to find the money for all these hand-outs? Well, first of all, they’re not hand outs. There is such a thing called “honest poverty”. Merrill, a Chicago publisher during the 1870’s coined this phrase. He wrote: “I know what honest poverty looks like. They are basic human needs. They are simply actions that hardworking men, unemployed through no fault of their own, deserved the respect and understanding of more Chicagoans, not their contempt.” Death in the Market by James Green

Our humanity is what builds and nourishes our communities.  Sometimes it boils down to a simple question of priorities. Spending money to enhance our brother’s survival potential is never money NOT well spent.

Trump: “We don’t have money for cancer research, healthcare or feeding the hungry.” Somehow, someway, he found money for these projects. My gosh.

1. Military Parade: $45,000,000
2. Ballroom Project: $290,000,000
3. Golf Trips: $150,000,000
4. Tax cuts for the rich: $4,000,000.000
5. ICE Concentration Camps: $45,000,000
6. Trump’s 250 year Celebrations: $100,000,000
7. Fighter Jet Flyovers: $10,000.000

Total:  $4,045,595,000,000

And these are only the big ticket items.

But it still bugged me: how do people become so callous that they ignore their fellow human beings sufferings? Why is this even up for debate? Why do we let kids go to bed hungry in this country? That’s not our nature. Man is basically good. How can we ignore the suffering, especially of our most vulnerable. How can we ignore the genocide in Gaza and the Sudan? As President Eisenhower, that notable Left Wing Communist once said: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

I always believed in the goodness of Americans, and I could never understand why these points were up for debate, especially by our leaders.

But maybe those people are patiently waiting for their share of the trickle down, complete with the requisite scapegoats. Caring for their fellow man takes a back seat. They don’t have time to care for their fellow man because they have pledged allegiance  to the promised trickle down windfall, curtesy of their savior. Waiting for their trickle down dividends shuts down their heart, shuts down their compassion. They are bunkered down in fear, waiting for the pennies from heaven, no time for their fellow man.

“And importantly, thus has it been possible to make poor and working-class white people believe that their interest lie in making common cause with their political leaders and economic betters, common cause in whiteness: the idea that they might eventually share in the spoils, and the understanding that the discomforts and anxieties of their own precarious lives are due to those below them, rather than those above them.” Walter Johnson, in The Broken Heart of America

And in this day and age, he won’t recognize his pockets are being picked. All you have to do is examine Donald Trump’s presidency with his various vanity projects, specifically his ballroom boondoggle. Where have we seen this before…Oh yeah, in 1943 Hitler commissioned an architect to construct a ballroom off the palace that had a bunker dug deep under the ballroom, a secure bunker for Hitler and his high command.

Lyndon Johnson: “ If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you?”

These two quotes offer up a clue to America’s frozen hearts. Americans are not taught empathy; they are taught scapegoating, grievance, irresponsibly, each element designed to harden one’s heart, each element designed to divide us. People have the need to feel good about themselves, and in their anxieties they latch onto propaganda instead of taking responsibility for their condition.  People are scared, and people in power exploit that fear. And the way they maintain their power is manifold: they offer up scapegoats which hides the fact they are gutting healthcare, striking down common sense gun laws, slashing education budgets, environmental budgets.  What they promise is safety from the black hordes of immigrants, Muslim, or the scapegoat of the week.

But where do these callus ideas emerge from? How did we lose our heart, our empathy?

Nations move on big ideas. Our revolution emanated from a big idea.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Preamble to the Declaration of Independence

The Civil Rights movement was based on a big idea, equal rights for all. Big ideas are what moves the needle in history. Let’s put a man on the moon.

And there is a new big idea that is getting traction and the potential evil and the potential effect this idea will have on the world makes my head spin.

Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke is facing public backlash after endorsing a social media proposal that would award extra votes to high-income taxpayers. The billionaire tech executive called a post proposing up to five votes for individuals paying over $500,000 in annual income taxes a “good system.” York University political science professor Dennis Pilon argues that wealthy corporate executives are increasingly promoting anti-democratic ideas openly rather than lobbying behind closed doors. Shopify did not respond to requests for comment regarding the CEO’s social media statement.”

“Jul 29, 2026  #canadiannews #ctvnews #ctvnationalnews

They are saying these things out loud now, very undemocratic musings by masters of the universe. They no longer bury these thoughts in the closet. This statement is the latest assault on our Democracy, but you can envision it taking hold with right-wing public, who, as demonstrated by Trump, doesn’t really believe in democracy,  It has a feudal ring to it.  It reminds me of the famous quote by the Republican strategist Lee Atwater:“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’—that hurts you, backfires so you say stuff like uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites…’We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.’”

So we now have a new undemocratic bright idea spreading like brush fire, lobbying to take away voting rights, more pernicious than the Voter ID laws. They no longer hide this un-Democratic program where the working poor, retirees, etc. are denied their basic freedom, curtesy of tech billionaires.

“The comments were part of a thread in which Lütke also proposed stripping voting rights from retirees with pensions, saying in part, “Now you are a dependent and that means no voting, just like dependents under age. Enjoy the deal, let people with a stake in the future decide.” Kevin Maimann · CBC News · Posted: Jul 28, 2026

If anyone deserves more votes I would suggest nurses, cops, firemen, EMTs, teachers, oh, especially teachers. They perform God’s work daily.

John Beebe, director of the Democratic Engagement Exchange at Toronto Metropolitan University, which aims to boost voter participation, says the comments on voting rights speak to a bigger issue of “incredibly wealthy people feeling like they should be calling all the shots.”

And lets not forget the billionaire Peter Thiel, who has his own new big ideas for democracy. Actually, he has his own new big ideas to supplant democracy.  He sat down with economist Tyler Cowen on the podcast Conversations with Tyler He compared the United States in the 2020s to Weimar Germany in the 1920s.

“That’s not a stray comment.  Thiel was making this point while praising Carl Schmitt, the German jurist who joined The Party in 1933 and used his legal career to help purge Jewish influence from German law and defend Hitler’s extrajudicial killings of political opponents. Schmitt died in 1985 still unrepentant about backing the regime.”

Thiel has cited Schmitt’s work for years as a framework for his own politics. Thiel is the guy who bankrolled JD Vance’s political career.

Here is “a billionaire quoting a Yahtzee legal theorist to explain why American democracy needs to be blown up isn’t some goddamn academic exercise.  The man funding the vice president is telling you exactly what he believes and who he’s citing to get there.” Newsweek, Conversations with Tyler

This is not democracy.

It is thinly veiled racism, and maybe not so veiled. Trump’s election in 2016 granted people permission to voice their racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. Code words were not longer required. Trump’s campaign was devoid of policy initiatives or program initiatives; it was a campaign brimming with grievances, scapegoats, and hate. Caring for people was replaced by hate-filled rallies. People could now voice their entombed racism out loud, no code words needed.

Trump’s hate speech divided us, made us forget that we are our brother’s keeper, and the new big idea from the Shopify billionaire will divide us even more. The gulf between rich and poor has inflated, and will inflate even more if Luke’s big idea is implemented.

There is a fork in the road for this nation. Ignoring the fact we are our brother’s keepers will further divide us, further erode our hard fought, but fragile Democracy. We have to continue to stand up, and show up with big ideas like our forefathers did. Democracy is a very fragile institution. If not created every day, defended every day, it will erode.

And perhaps our greatest weapon against fascism’s juggernaut is to embrace our brother, embrace our sister. And that feat alone gives our democracy it’s muscles.

CURT