The Tribe has Spoken

Ocassionaly I am moved to write about something other than horses when the emotion causes inspiration.  So here is...my non horse thoughts....

As I sit and watch my country and more importantly my state, fall apart, I stare across my desk at the welfare office into the teary eyes of a hard working woman accustomed to a 6 figure income, barely surviving the last 6 months on her $1800mo unemployment that just ran out…… having just been told by us…..we can only give her $600 a month. My job for the day was to tell her, for that $600 per month she will need to do 32hrs a week of community service, or we will take the money away. Unlike our most of our other clients, who have never had a job, has not graduated high school much less college, and is a 4th generation welfare client……we cannot send someone with an AA in marketing to school, and I explained that she should be prepared to work somewhere equivalent to fast food, being that for some reason no company in her field of expertise will hire her. After a long talk about the reality of her hitting rock bottom, I mentioned her icy exterior and asked her if she was aware, despite being uncomfortable with her surroundings, that she was very short with me and seemed to have a large chip on her shoulder.




I know that many times, we as humans, are just unaware how transparent we can be, and that maybe she was giving off this kind of energy in interviews. As we talked, her face started to soften, and between her fighting back the tears and letting them flow, her eyes changed from steel to velvet. I told her she should consider walking away from her home and relocating if there was a job anywhere in her field elsewhere, as she is likely going to lose the home anyways, and that there is a glimmer of hope to save her home and rent it out, IF she can find a job else where. I tell ya, there is nothing like the cold hard slap of reality you get at the welfare office, no matter what side of the desk you sit at. I’m sure it felt to her as if she was living in one of those horror movies, in some alternate reality world, hoping for Alfred Hitchcock to come around the corner and end the show. But he didn’t, it was just me. I have calloused to it over the last few years, but am far from having lost all empathy. I had to harden for the sake of my own mental survival as I was having panic and anxiety attacks with each interview I completed with folks like her. Basically because it just hits way to close to home. My husband and I live paycheck to paycheck….and we are just one lost paycheck away from it being us on the other side of my desk.

A little while after this interview, I read an email from my uncle who is a Vietnam vet, and chain mails conspiracy theories daily to his entire contact list. Usually I just read and delete. Some are cartoons of our president, others honoring the fallen heroes, and some are warnings of the doom gloom that is about to befall us should our government continue on the his path. Today was no different, but this time I could feel the warning vibrate on the strings of my inner fear guitar. Then my heart jumped in like the base drum in a marching band. My God….have we become a socialist country without even knowing it? Are we really that close to no longer being the Alpha Country? Financially my husband and I are always hanging on by a fine thread…..and there is never an end in sight. My thoughts raced to all the years of war between our country’s political parties, who is right, who can save us…yada yada yada……and then it hit me.

What if we woke up tomorrow without a government. None of any kind. No one to siphon half my paycheck. No one to pay the fire department, police or schools. No one to hand out welfare checks or food stamps. No one to bail out banks and auto makers, who continue to make millions and millions in profits annually. What if we all, as a nation, had to live like they do on survivor. Obviously not on a paradise island, but right here where we already live…..where ever that may be. Would life, could life, be just like survivor. Either pull your weight and contribute to the good of your local society or be voted out at tribal council. Just like survivor, it would not be just a physical game, where only the strong well physiqued win in the end….it would also be a place where those who take care of camp, find food, have good social skills or a cunning and vindictive streak able to make power moves to either cut the dead weight or dethrone the beautiful bullies and make a giant shift of power in your own favor. But always the overall goal is the survival of all members of the tribe, to keep the tribe strong so that you could win battles with other tribes when there is some kind of dispute. If you didn’t like your tribe, you could leave and find a new tribe that has similar goals to your own. You would have to learn to fit in, in every way, in order to survive. Lets face it, we all have different things to offer a tribe, and few can do everything, so diversity is a must for survival, and there really would be a place for each of us to contribute. Would we then be socialists? Socialists with a twist….the twist….no government control or regime to make the rules up for us. It would literally be up to us to survive. Trading things with other members of the tribe, and with other tribes. Is this not how our country began in the first place? The only promise we were given in the beginning was the right and freedom to “pursue” happiness. Are the states really much different than a bunch of large tribes anyways? Where did we all go so wrong and can we ever fix it? I certainly am tired of pulling my weight, doing my fair share, and being forced to give it up for someone who is not. I would rather it be of my own choice to whom I my weight will carry. Let me pick and choose to whom the burdens I bear will benefit. Let me choose who will be invited into my tribe. Let us all sit down and work out who will be responsible for what. Who will farm, who will heal, who will fight fires, who will transport and who will entertain. We all can’t just lay around and be lazy.

What ever happened to true individual freedom, responsibility and contribution and reward for a hard days work. I stare in shock at my annual federal tax bill and weep for lost spoils. How on earth, does someone who makes as much money as my husband and I do, live the good life that we have worked hard for, when so much of it is taken away from us before we ever see the cold hard cash in our hands. We don’t live an extravagant life style, we do have a few toys, but honestly…..we make too much money to be living this poorly. And why is that? Why do I literally have to pay the way for someone that didn’t earn it. Won’t earn it. Refuses to earn it. They contributed NOTHING to my tribe, nothing more than suck the life blood right out of it, so that we all can be equal. Equally poor that is. I think that we the tribe should be allowed to vote them off. Let them request to join another tribe, the tribe that voted to allow those that don’t contribute, to live off those that do. Why not a tribe made up of only the slackers and those that voted to pay for them. Let them and them alone work hard to plow the fields, plant the fields, water the fields, harvest the fields and then hand their produce over to those who didn’t even have the courtesy to keep them company while they worked so hard. Not a drop of sweat shed from their brow, yet their hands and belly’s full from the rewards. Not so easy to do, when it is your hands that are actually dirty from hard work, much harder than sitting in a comfy chair at the capital, where the only sweat is that of your hands as you sign yet another law, bill or budget to further reduce the possibility of me actually enjoying the rewards of my hard work. Sounds to me like the only ones around here right now to out wit, out last, out play……are the people at the top. We need to have a secret meeting under the banana bush and vote this moron OUT of our tribe. That is what they call a power play blind side in survivor land. These are the only words I long to hear. Obama….grab your torch, the tribe has spoken, it’s time for you to go.

Hope to see you at Tribal Council
Savvy On
Michelle