Musing on Things that Justify a Socialist Bent

There has been an awful lot of talk about socialism lately. How dark our society would be if it took on a socialist bent. Most of this talk is coming from white economically secure males and is aimed at already paranoid white evangelical Christians who think Obama is the anti Christ and are waiting for the rapture. Yes, the mentally ill masses of fanatics are being riled to disrupt informational town halls on health care and to keep their children home from school so they don't have to hear the uppity black man, who happens to be our President tell them to not drop out of school. Evangelical Christianity in all of it many uniquely American forms is the opiate of people. These are the people, who have long ago abandoned common sense and decency to drink the Kool-Aid of uneducated theological hucksters that appear on their television sets.

Well, I have finally, concluded that is decent ethical folks in this country, who do not happen to be white upper middle class males, yet want to have consistent justice then our country need a little dose of socialism. My own personal life has been one unending nightmare of being conned and denied justice on the most basic human levels. This happened when I gave up the protection of being married to a white male from an upper middle class family. Yes, the law says he should support his children. His well connected family of lawyers and judges has pretty much made sure that never happened. Thank god this country has had enough socialist bent to have programs I qualified for to help me feed and educate my children. My children have a socialist bent, because they know who buttered their bread literally. It was food stamps, not their father from an upper middle class family.

Anyone who is poor in this country knows there is little justice for them.

We are at the mercy on slum lords, crooked doctors, lawyers, and ministers. We do not have money for justice and only occasionally see it. I moved out of a rental that had not heat, because the landlord had not used the money that was included in the rent to pay the gas bill. For three months; I lived without heat or hot water. I had electric so I boiled water on the stove so my kids could bath. Yes, I went to our local health department. I had to bag the inspector to come out to view my house. See it was in "that part of town" and he really had no motivation to come. When he came all he could say is a least I did not have" rats." He felt I should be grateful that the landlord fixed the toilet that had been broken for two weeks. He told me he could not give me a copy of anything because he found nothing of significance. He went on to say his department "looked down" on giving people paper work for court. He did give me a copy of my own complaint.

Then there was the property manager. He was a used car salesman type, who used to enter my house at will requesting extra money besides the rent. He always had the nerve to touch me when he spoke to me. This good Christian man gave me a electric space heater to "warm "the house. The house was half of a huge Victorian double. The heater only heated the living room.

A friend told me to file a complaint with the State Attorney General's Office.I did and I never heard back. Eventually, a friend leant me the money to move into a rent controlled apartment complex. In my town these are the nicest apartments. They are clean and well kept. Gee, that horrible government comes to the rescue again.. I thought all was well; until today when I get served that the landlord is suing me for moving out of the heatless slum apartment. My neighbor saw me to get served and just laughed. I told my neighbor I have the copy of my complaint to the health department. I tried to correct the situation before I left. Surely I would prevail in court I told my neighbor. The landlord was breaking the law not providing heat I was paying for in my rent? Then he told me his girlfriend had rented a property from the same people and the landlord let that property be taken back by the bank. So she did not pay her rent to the landlord because the bank now held the property. The same landlord took her to court for non payment of rent. He got a judgment for the rent on property he no longer owned. I asked, "That is so illegal how that happened?"

He replied the small claims court judge is good friends with the landlord. They protested the judgment, but being new to this country at the time they were afraid to let the matter go to far. Hispanics in our town are regularly stopped by police; for doing things like walking down the street in broad daylight .Their decision did not surprise me. I am hoping I get a different judge.

A few offer facts I want to share to drive home my point. The property manager brought his bible one time when he came for a little extra money for supplies to fix the toilet. He wanted to pray with me because he knew I was "different". I suspect the few butches he had seen leave my house gave me away. He seems clueless that he is working for a slum lord .I can pretty much figure he has no health insurance for his children. I guess he does not care .I am sure he think his minister he tithes his meager wages to can just lay hand on them and they will be, "all better". Religion has blinded people like his to all reason and common sense when it comes to issues like health care.

Now my long winded tale has a point. On paper there is justice. We have laws that are supposed to protect everyone rights. In reality the poor have no real rights. There are times our economic and justice system decides to throw them some crumbs. I want justice consistently for all Americans. All justice, here where I live is dependant on color, economic status and geographical location in reality. A socialist bent in our political system just might give some of us a fighting chance at a decent life.