Capitalism Is Killing our Children
Tim Barrus, The New York Times
Tim Barrus | North Carolina
Politicians say we’re lazy. They fervently believe we are out to impoverish them, rob them, grab their wealth and run. There is no Robinhood who is going to save us. No merry men. No Friar Tuck. But there is a sheriff. He’s the guy who shows up at your door to tell you that you have five minutes to get out. The sheriff is there because the people with money put him there. Karl Marx was right when he articulated that capitalism is the opium of the people. The rich are addicted to their stuff. The would-be we-are-almost-we-will-get-there rich are addicted to a hope that is about as real as Maid Marion. “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole.” Marx was also wrong. There is no opposite pole. There is only the same pole, and the rich run it just like they always have. Misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, humiliation, disease, imprisonment, hunger, clinical depression. All to keep the rich the rich. Yet Marx is the boogeyman because the rich say so. The rich are vile, and beneath contempt. Marx was not the boogeyman. Just thrown into the trash heap of history. I have worked for Head Start, and I am here to tell you that Head Start is filled with symptoms, not answers. Child poverty strangles. The rich do not relent. The rich are the problem. We are slaves. The answer to child poverty is to grab the money and run.