Something’s wrong

Today I hopped in my car and drove from Beverly Hills to Western and Venice to buy some cardboard boxes at the closest U-Haul location. It’s about a four mile (I think), twelve-minute trip. Beverly Hills: on the way out, I passed the Rolls dealership (with black and white cars in the window, giant Xmas bows still attached), which is next to the Bentley dealership – apparently they’re able to coexist in peace. When I got to the U-Haul, before I was even parked I was approached by laborers who wanted to know if I was hiring, if I needed muscle for moving or anything. Sorry, I said, just buying some boxes. There were about eight of these guys milling around, waiting for work. This isn’t limited to the U-Haul: I’ve seen the same floating work force at Home Depots in the Valley. I bought my shit and left, and on the way down Western on my way back to Pico I noticed two little black kids who looked to be about nine sitting on the patch of grass on the corner of an Exxon, selling stylistic copies of Thomas Kinkade oil paintings – light dappled cottages, river waterfalls. This is right on the edge of Koreatown, and on my way back through the next neighborhood, which seems to be predominantly Mexican I notice two general stores named for Jesus Christ. Not churches, stores – Our Lord and just “Cristo.” In eight minutes I’m back in Beverly Hills.

This depresses the shit out of me. I’m not naive; I’ve been all over the place and I’ve seen worse. But the juxtaposition of rich and poor is too much. What are we doing in this country that our social safety net is so badly compromised that we can’t help migrant workers and little fucking kids? Of course I know what we’ve done, but if we hadn’t poured money into war and homeland security, would Bush or even Gore have been working on these problems, or would it be Reganomics as usual?

Why is the war we fight for human welfare a loosely-organized asymmetrical insurgency?