Taking Income Inequality Into Their Own Hands

My blogging this year has, admittedly, been relentlessly negative.  Given the current state of our political and economic system, it's been difficult if not impossible to be anything else.  But I haven't given up on the people of this country, because I try to never lose sight of the fact that, in spite of the electoral mistakes that many of them make, over and over again, they (for the most part) still deserve better than what they get out of the horror show that masquerades as our government.

So, in the spirit of every-one-in-a-while-sharing-something positive, I offer this.

It's a campaign called Cards Against Humanity Saves America, sponsored and operated by the creators of a card game called Cards Against Humanity.  But, in fact, funded by you.  Or some of you.  Or, perhaps potentially, all of you.

The CAHSA campaign has several phases, as can be seen from its Web site.  One phase involved buying a piece of land that would be needed for Trump's proposed border wall, and then hiring a law firm to ensure that it is tied up forever in proceedings to prevent it from being condemned for the wall.  Yet another phase involves promoting alternatives to traditional homework, something I'm all in favor of, and that I wish had been around back in the day.

But the most interesting phase to me, and the part that has the greatest impact in the short run, and possibly the long run, is the effort to redistribute wealth from the campaign's richest subscribers to its poorest.  You can read about it in detail here.  And, when you do, please pay close attention to the stories of the fortunate recipients, and realize how big even a relatively small financial blessing can be.

This campaign, all by itself, of course is not going to solve the problem of inequality.  It's not really trying to.  What it ultimately hopes to do is to use small-scale change efforts to promote larger ones in the system as a whole, by reminding us that our problems are ultimately only as hopeless as the willingness of people to do something about them.  Yes, at some point, in order to make a real difference, there has to be systemic change.  But we didn't get into this mess in the first place by a small number of dramatic efforts, but through a large number of little ones.  If you read enough history, you realize that's largely how big changes take place, through little ones that lay the foundation for them.

Yes, organize, donate and vote next year, and every year there's an election.  But, in between, never forget that the power to change the world is always in one place.  In your hands.