The Struggle

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What is “The Struggle?”; and are you in it?

The struggle is a term used to describe the issues facing the socio-economic challenged people who live day-to-day struggling to get by and stay straight. There is no level of income or geographic location that defines the struggle. The struggle is everywhere. Some places more than others, but there is a little struggle almost everywhere if you look close enough.

So what creates the struggle? Why in a world of so many resources is there a struggle at all?

If you believe the Horatio Alger myth and the old pull yourself up by your bootstraps bullshit, then you would say that the reason people are in the struggle is because they are lazy bad people who could not overcome life’s challenges. The real truth is a lot of folks do not even have boot straps to pull up if they wanted to. Are there bad and lazy people out there? Sure…but the majority folks in the struggle are there because we live in a pretty fucked up and greedy world.

There is no real reason anybody needs to be in the struggle. There is plenty of money and resources to go around for everyone. But the human experience does not work like that. We have decided that because we work harder, know more, or were born into the right family, that we are more worthy than the next guy. Granted, if a person works hard and is knowledgeable they deserve a great payday. But a person who may not work as hard, or did not have the opportunity to get educated does not deserve to starve in the struggle.

The system is set up for people to fail. A lot of the world is a trap set to ensure the weak-minded and desperate are chewed up and spit out. By keeping people in poverty it is easy to control them and get them to perform dangerous and terrible jobs for little or no pay. We flood the ghetto with dope and booze and then send out the goon squads to lock up everyone we see.

Our society destroys families by taking their mothers and fathers to jail at alarming rates for victimless crimes. I have no idea what the fuck is wrong with us that we allow for this all to happen in our name. It is as if we believe that there are a certain class of people that deserve what they have coming, and we all collectively look away day-after-day as our oppressive government locks away good people for decades because they landed in the struggle.

It is fucked up and it should make you sick. We are better than this.

I am pretty far from the actual struggle, as I generally have more than I need. I vacation in the struggle every once in a while, and still live month to month; but I got it pretty good. Some months are better than others and the uncertainty of certain financial limitations is definitely frustrating. But for the most part I am doing a hell of a lot better than most, and for that I am grateful. I try to do what I can to use my resources to help my fellow man, and like to think I do pretty well.

I have no idea what kind of dick I would be if I were mega rich. I would likely be terrible at being rich because I enjoy the struggle too much to be that removed from it.

I would just spend it all on making weed legal anyways.

I do not really get the whole super rich 1% thing. Does it make people feel better about who they are? Do they assume they are better people because they have figured out how to fuck more people out of their hard earned cash than the next guy? Maybe.

To me it just seems irrelevant and stupid at some point.

When a person has more money than they will ever spend in their life it begs to wonder what the fuck they are doing? Like, what is the point? We get it…you got a bunch of money and have used it to get even more money regardless of the toll it takes on our society and lives.

That is just sad. It is not an accomplishment. It is a disorder of some sort. Your need for money has become you, and you cease to exist. People only see you as a rich prick. Congratulations.

Who am I to judge? I am one of the thousands of people in the picture above. I am one of the 99%. I am the guy who thinks you suck.

There are some mega-rich dudes that do the right thing…sort of. Who knows? Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have donated a large part of their fortunes to doing good across the globe, which is definitely cool. But where are the results? Why do I walk through West Oakland saddened by the state of people’s living conditions and willingness to commit crimes and sell their bodies for some scratch?

How good are we as a society if we have left so many to suffer senselessly, while the few have so damn much? It is a bizarre behavior.

So many are willing to trample the masses for their shot at fame and fortune. So many more do not speak up because they hope to one day be wealthy themselves, or have simply lost their voice over too much time in the struggle.

We have crushed the souls of many so that a select group of citizens can live beyond their wildest dreams. Is that healthy? Why do we do it then?

The struggle is part of the story….it is the shitty part. Most of the time the story ends tragically and leads to many more tragic tales. It is a vicious cycle of anger and mistrust. We have fucked each other over to get ahead for so long that we have lost sight of the big picture. We have sacrificed a lot of good folks in the name of greed. It has got to stop.

Inequality is real. It is also shameful.

I hope the young people growing up will find a way to change the way we glorify wealth and ignore poverty. I hope a collective conscious forms that understands we are only as good as our lowest common denominator. We are all in this shit together, regardless of whether people want to believe it or not.

The bullshit oppression that we see ingrained into the fabric of our communities must change, and it is…even if slowly. Our values and morals are changing, and mostly for the better.

Younger generations do not view race and class in the same light as older generations. We are evolving, and we see the world waking up to the fact that we have been hoodwinked for a long long time.

The drug war and weed prohibition are used as tools to keep arresting and oppressing poor people.

Rich kids do not end up in jail for weed. We have allowed for our police forces to be militarized, and for the drug war to invade the homes of our friends and neighbors with reckless abandon. Our rights are being trampled on the daily, and  we have nothing to show for it. Drugs are more prevalent than ever, addiction rates have not changed in 40 years, and we have spent over a trillion dollars imprisoning mostly brown people at five times the rate of the rest of the world. Super.

Our society has created the struggle. Or at least have allowed for it to be created in our name…and by our name we can reverse the struggle too.

We must demand equality and fairness for everyone. The time is coming where the tired views of yesterday will go to the grave with the bigots and misinformed, and it will no longer be okay to shit on the next guy to get ahead. It already should be that way, and we should all live our lives as if it is.

Fuck the 1% and their drug war. For now…the struggle continues, baby-baby!