Speaking of Dystopias...

Funding our healthcare through GoFundMe, our journalism through Patreon, and road repairs through Dominos. Everything's perfectly on track, America https://t.co/xreFmWHJ5I

— James Temple (@jtemple) June 11, 2018

A remarkable amount of fundraising is going on, and much of it is for services we normally associate with the government, or at least public money. Meanwhile, the fields that used to produce income and ad buys, like journalism and fiction writing, has been reduced to begging for sponsors.

Meanwhile, the pizza people are paving roads, because it's not getting done.

Every day is Backwards Day, it seems.

In the last year or two, I've donated to help a child get necessary surgery, to help a friend who lost her home due to a fire, to help another friend in danger of losing the family's home due to outsourcing + crappy job market, and to bury a friend whose family couldn't afford a funeral. In all these cases, I had some form of personal connection to someone involved with the need. Think of all the unpopular people out there - and the names and faces change regularly - who aren't getting help because they are introverted or belong to whichever marginalized group is in bad odor.

This is why we need public funds for assistance: because shit happens. Businesses kept the money from the recent tax cuts for buybacks of stock and consolidating power, not creating jobs so fewer Americans would need to beg. Just because it's on social media doesn't mean it's not a form of begging. Charles Dickens would understand our society very well.

---