I was reminded today, watching the State of the Union address, that our politicians, of either party, would rather put their right hand in a fire than talk about any of the real problems that we face.
Like the whole idea of "fair wages."
I like the German language, it's very good for communicating ideas and it has a certain weird music to it. Good for poetry, for sure, and lots of good literature too, much of it surprisingly funny. I am reminded of a short story by Heinrich Boell (no umlauts here, sorry, not going to take the time to figure that out). The protagonist is ultra-cynical about the whole concept of work. He describes typical wages as follows:
"Sie dienen nur genug Geld, um weiter arbeiten zu koennen."
That's it in a nutshell: they only make enough money to enable them to continue working.
Guess which party holds strong to that theory. And guess who I'll be voting for later this year. Yeah, I know, he's not perfect either, but he's all we've got. Maybe someday they'll get around to those important issues.
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