Two American Pies

by Michel G. Blaufuss

Pour in the vast majority who have been workers, solders, fathers, mothers, and someone's child.

Sprinkle in the abused, neglected, those not privileged enough to be given opportunities for education.

Add to this those that push those shopping carts to recycle bottles and cans, entrepreneurs in their own way, and those labor temporaries not paid enough to pay rent and eat.

Blend in the "downsized" from corporate mega-mergers and the many industrial jobs that have been exported.

Keep the sympathy out, but be sure to put in a lot of rain water and excess heat from summer's oven. Freeze through the winter and then thaw out, sweep it all around and serve.

This is the American homeless pie.

Now we'll work on the other pie.

Throw in a couple of handfuls of corporate welfare recipients, not more than the fortunate 500 or so.

Add to this the privileged, who abuse their property rights to satisfy their greed and meglo-manaical lust for the power they are already abusing.

Blend in those that worship material wealth and have traded their souls to obtain it. Sprinkle in the apologists who help abuse, exploit, dislocate, bankrupt, exclude, and watch while the property rights of others are confiscated.

Don't forget to add the elected government officials that no longer serve "we the people," but only those that pay them the most.

Pour this into a crust of hundreds of thousands blinding themselves to the possibility of being downsized and excluded. Let set. This pie gets smaller in time.

This is unconscionable American pie. It claims to have an international flavor, to be world-renowned.

Which pie do you want to be in - the always shrinking unconscionable pie or the ever-increasing homeless pie?