My penultimate post in the Raging Moderate’s musical rollout features two more great songs that are good food for thought for today’s world:
A great song by a great band chronicling the life of a hard-working soul trying to get by and raise a family while living paycheck to paycheck. That represents a lot of Americans today: the Federal Reserve again found last year that nearly half of Americans would not have the cash to cover a $400 emergency expense.
Income inequality isn’t a new issue and on some level always has been and always will be present in a functioning free society, but there’s no doubt the issue has reached very concerning levels in recent years. While the growing inequality in income gets most of the attention, it’s the growing inequality of opportunity to achieve the American dream for too many people in our country that is the real problem.
Like many things, this problem requires a multi-pronged response and may not be completely solvable, but it’s something we need to tackle with a real sense of urgency. As we do that, we all could use a little more empathy for the people working hard to make it, as this song reminds us.
- People Have The Power—Patti Smith
This classic from Patti Smith reminds us that while it doesn’t always appear that way, we really do have the power to change things for the better. While I’m fairly sure Patti would never be mistaken for a moderate, that’s okay by me—she’s an amazing artist and her words translate across the political spectrum.
Even in this age of increasing polarization, there still is a lot more most of us agree on than we disagree about. And we have great potential to use that people power to make the world a better place when we come together around those common causes.
the raging moderate 