How much are you -really- worth?

I have a Cree friend I follow on Facebook. He posts many things on Native culture. He speaks of how they lived, how no one was left out, how everyone served a purpose, had a place in the community. I won't claim Native blood, but I can say that something deep within me resonates deeply with the culture.

It isn't that way anymore. Every man for himself. Fuck the little guy. Sucks to be you!

You're only worth as much as the sum of your stuff.

I watched the TED Talk with Amanda Palmer and she was speaking about her stint as a human statue who would move when someone dropped change into her hat and she'd hand out a daisy and make prolonged eye contact with the person. She spoke about people yelling at her to get a job. Being a human statue WAS her job. She went on to talk about how she would make eye contact with these people, and she'd make a connection. That for those few seconds of interaction, two humans made a connection. These connections MATTER.

So, yeah. That mime is doing their job. That human statue is doing their job. That street musician is doing their job.

And? That older, disabled lady down the block who doesn't work, but bakes cookies that make people happy, will babysit in a pinch and always has a meal for someone hungry? She is doing her job. She teaches the young women to cook. She's the the neighborhood equivalent of a medicine woman. She remembers all the old, home remedies. She's the keeper of traditions.

So is that homeless guy. His job is to remind you, if nothing else, that that could be you and to show some compassion and feel some gratitude.

Stay-at-home mom's get much of the same vitriol as the so-called dregs of society. Except instead of being accused of leeching off the system, she's accused of leeching off of a man.

There's always going to be a certain percentage of the population that cannot work in a traditional sense. That doesn't mean they don't contribute to society, and it doesn't mean we should look down on them, or let them remain homeless or hungry or completely miserable in their lives.

Worth isn't always about dollars and cents. I wish more people looked beyond the earning capacity of a person and saw their inherent value behind their jaded perceptions.

FDR was a pretty smart cookie coming up with that whole New Deal shindig. He recognized the importance of insuring that in our society, no one has to ever go without. That we, as a society, had an ethical responsibility to our fellow human.

We're losing that, though, and no one seems to want to stop and think about what we're losing with it.

As Americans our ancestors committed what could not be called anything less than genocide on Natives. People who lived for thousands of years, successfully as complex societies, and they took care of their own. Everyone ate. Everyone was housed. Everyone was clothed. Everyone had a PLACE in society.

They we're nearly annihilated and were replaced with what we have now.

You're only worth as much as your paycheck.

And we called them savages, and we call ourselves civilized.

I don't think those words mean what folks think they mean.