A Bright New Day
Today is the first real post heat wave day on the hilltop. It is 63 degrees outside and should reach up to about 80 during the day. I just spoke to Joventino the gardener (in Spanish as usual) and he seemed genuinely happy for the heat to have passed. You see Joventino works at least six days a week for at least 10 hours a day in the outdoors. I’m sure he did not let up over the last week on that schedule. I can only imagine what it must be like to spend 10 hours doing active and aggressive gardening work through that sort of heat. I spent most of the last week inside in the air conditioning, priding myself for doing some simple and easy chores like watering the gardens and patio area directly adjacent to the house. This is an amazing important moment of realization for me as to how much more fortunate I am than people like Joventino. I talk about how much I am challenged to find things in retirement to occupy myself and I cannot imagine the need to simply rest after my lifetime of work….and I have worked most of my 70 years quite hard by most people’s standards. And yet, its people like Joventino who have used their bodies for manual labor over the years that are the ones who really deserve the rest of a true retirement. In my need to give thanks for all I have and all that others do for me, this morning I am thankful for Joventino and those who labor in our country and this world, just trying to earn enough to put food on their tables.
It is also a bright morning here on the hilltop because of the reaction to the performance of Kamala Harris last night in her 90-minute presidential debate with Donald Trump. Kamala is 59 and has spent the last forty years working towards and on behalf of the rule of law. She has worked hard as a student, a young lawyer, a prosecutor, a state attorney general, a Senator and as Vice President of the United States. Last night, while texting with my red friends about the debate (which they agreed she had won), one of them commented derogatorily that she had spent her life only working in government. That surprised me. I am not one who ever thought less of government work. In fact, I feel that those who toil as loyal civil servants are like Joventino. They work hard and do so for many years with only minimal remuneration and less and less respect these days. They are the quiet force that keeps the wheels of our nation and the world turning and makes our good lives possible. They are more of service than most and certainly more so than those of us who work mostly for ourselves and our own wealth accumulation. They may or may not make great strides for humankind or invent amazing new things for the world, but some certainly do and most all of them are critical to our system. I have great respect for that just as I have great respect for the working people of our society. That is who Kamala Harris is and those are the people Kamala Harris is working for. They more than deserve it.
Donald Trump is and has always been a man of great privilege. I too had the benefit of a mother who had bootstrapped herself into a good education and a fine and meaningful career, but a career of service to the underprivileged of the world. She instilled in me a respect for education and hard work, but she also instilled in me a sense of respect for service and those who labor for the benefit of the rest of us. Donald Trump spent time on the debate stage denying that he really inherited $400 million from his father, a fact that has been well established and well documented. He went on to brag that he had built up and accumulated great wealth and wore that like a badge of honor. What we know is that in his business dealings he spent a great deal of time cheating and trying to film-flam unsuspecting consumers and tenants. He tried to get-rich-quick on more than one occasion and did so badly enough to cause him to declare bankruptcy on six occasions (three Atlantic City casinos, the Plaza Hotel, and then two more casinos) any one of which should have stripped him of most or all of his wealth since he most often gave personal guarantees. He famously parlayed his “brand” into concessions to allow him to keep working the development game to enable him to better repay some of these creditors. Furthermore, Donald Trump, from the start of his career until he became president was involved in over 4,000 civil lawsuits, many of which he either lost and had judgements brought against him or he settled for money. He is currently laboring under almost $600 million in active civil suit judgements brought by E. Jean Carrol and the Attorney General of New York for his fraudulent business activities. Add to this context that he had his most successful business endeavor acting as a reality TV star in a series where he judged people for their entrepreneurial efforts and by firing those who he arbitrarily deemed unworthy.
And yet my friend was implying that a life of business was somehow more honorable than a life of service in government. I have often said to my Wall Street friends, colleagues and employees that we were not entitled to complain about our lots until the day we added as much value as any fifth grade school teacher. I do not understand how anyone could see life any differently. There are those who give in life and those who take. I have been fortunate enough to have gotten an education (one without a lot of student debt…just a small amount from my graduate school year). I was able to repay my student loan in a few years and yet I feel bad for those less fortunate who had to take on more student debt. I am happy to see them get government sponsored debt forgiveness and to be part of the taxpayer base that supports that. And yes, I know that not all of them are truly earning their way with that education or necessarily deserve this largess, but that sort of exception and breakage is just a part of the giving process. By contrast, Donald Trump never needed a loan and was promoted from high school to military academy to local college to Wharton by virtue of his father’s financial support. Rather than denying his good fortune he should be simply thankful and try and pay that good fortune forward, but instead he spends his time insisting that he did everything all on his own and based on his own brilliance. There is no respect in any of that.
I am so pleased to see the Harris/Walz campaign finally put on a national stage the importance and acknowledgement of hard work and lives of service. We as a people need to give those elements more, not less, respect and admiration. I am pleased to see people getting exposed to the contrast between what Harris and Walz stand for and how they have lived their lives rather than what Trump and Vance stand for. I will add that after Harris comported herself so well in the debate, I heard Walz talk about their combined efforts to bring their “For the People” platform forward. I thought that here is a humble man who spent most of his adult life as a school teacher and he is so very articulate in standing up for these wonderful characteristics of hard work and service. I bet he destroys J.D. Vance just like Kamala destroyed Trump. Vance found his way from underprivileged to privilege and has since squandered it, believing that he was the cause of his success rather than that it was all those who worked in service to and for him.
Yes, it is a bright new day in America and I am filled with hope and anticipation that the Harris/Walz ticket is finally bringing to the fore the importance of honoring and working for all those who are of service to us all.