Percentiles

As the Occupy movement continues to camp out in the downtowns of major metropolitan areas, I find myself wondering about the position of those of us who occupy the upper percentages of the income scale.

I'm one of the rich, you see.

That might be hard to discern from observation of my day to day life.  My home is nothing much to look at, a squat, rumpled, ivy-covered suburban hobbit hole, nestled in trees.  It's about half the size of the average new home in America, but it's perfectly comfy for the four of us and the dog.  We drive efficient and unsplashy vehicles.  Our kids go to public schools.  I wear clothes that look like they're older than my middle-school age children, which is because many of them are.  We've spent most of our lives saving and scrimping.

My own modest annual income places me pretty much dead center for individual incomes in the United States.  I'm fifty-third percentile, just like that grim and defiant young reactionary whose image has been making the rounds lately.   But my wife, driven and smart and competent woman that she is, well, she's done well lately.   Her recent job transitions and career progression have tossed us up into an entirely different income category.

And for the first time in our respective lives, we can't accurately describe ourselves as middle class.  We're not.  We're somewhere between 95th and 96th percentile, and that, I fear, puts us squarely into the upper quartile of the upper class in the United States.

Does that make us better of more "blessed" than those in the lowest quartile of the bottom thirty percent?  No, not in any meaningful way, no matter what Joel Osteen says.  It does mean our lives are easier, both in the ways that make sense and in the ways the system in which we operate favors the wealthy.   We have no trouble getting credit, which we use sparingly.  Having walked alongside folks who desperately needed credit, but couldn't get it, this is a nontrivial thing.   We have enough of a buffer of amassed savings that we don't face uncertainty week to week or month to month, and there are many in our culture who do not have that luxury.  At the moment, my family does not worry about money.  This is utterly untrue for a substantial portion of Americans.

That doesn't even begin to factor in the many billions of human beings on this planet who live at levels so far below the US poverty line that we Americans don't really grasp just how immensely challenging the simple task of their existence is. 

Should I anguish over where I find myself?  Should I wallow in guilt?  No, I don't think so, and I don't. 

What I must not do, though, is allow my families' relative comfort right now to seduce me into believing that everything is just fine with the world.  It's not.  Not at all, and letting material comfort blind me to the struggles and suffering of others gets me into significant trouble with my Boss. Not to mention that wealth and material power aren't anywhere near to being one of the metrics He uses to assess the value of my existence.

It's a tricky wicket.

Mercenaries, Prostitutes, and Politicians

We all hate politics. And politicians. It's a peculiar thing.

Here we are in a democracy, a constitutional republic that assumes leadership of the people, by the people, and for the people. Yet Americans as a whole seem to view the process of our democratic governance with a deeper and more aggressive disdain than even our most aggressive enemies. Honestly. The rhetoric of Hugo Chavez and the rhetoric of the Tea Party populist mosh pit aren't all that far apart.

Yet there's a reason for this, one that whupped me upside the head this morning as I tossed back my coffee. The tides of corporate political action committee giving have begun to roll in for the 2010 election season, and it's a tide that is strongly favoring the G.O.P. This is, given the anti-incumbent mood, perhaps something to be expected. Republicans have always been the party that self-identifies as friendly to business. It's politics as usual.

What got me was that there's an official plan amongst the Republican leadership to court the giving of corporations. Again, not a surprise. Money, particularly in this era of unfettered corporate giving, pays for the oppo research and fabricated, media-driven controversies that win elections. To win, you need folks with deep, deep pockets. What the GOP is doing is, again, just the way the game is played.

But did they have to give their marketing strategy a name? I know, I know, every major military operation gets a name. It helps define the goal, and motivate people. But to name your strategy "Selling the Fight?" Somehow, marketing language here seems...well...more than a little telling. Yeah, we know you're for sale. But do you really need to don that tube top and short shorts and parade around in front of us?

Sigh.

Must our democracy be such a freakin' floozy?

The King You Have Chosen

During a conversation last night with another pastor who serves a congregation here in the Washington Metropolitan area, we found ourselves noting just how...well...rich everyone in DC is. Not everyone, mind you. There is plenty of poverty here. But when you step back for a second and look at the population in and around our nation's capital, you realize just how much money there is here.

That foundation of wealth just got a little bump upwards this week, as defense contracting giant Northrop Grumman committed to relocating it's headquarters to the Virginia suburbs of Washington. In fact, they're likely to locate themselves within walking distance of my home, right near my high school, in an office park where me and the missus...well...we used to...err..."hang out" in the empty parking lots there on occasion when we were dating. You know, talking about politics.

Ahem.

In the Forbes list of the wealthiest counties in the United States, for instance, six out of the top ten counties are here around the Beltway. That's a supermajority of American wealth, kids, the kind of majority that lets you ram any legislation you want through the hallowed [buttocks] of the Senate. Loudon, Fairfax, Howard, Fairfax City, Arlington, and Montgomery all have pretty stunning levels of wealth. How stunning? The median household income here in Fairfax is $106,000. Nearby Loudon County has us beat, with a median household income of $110,000. That's more than twice the national average.

Now, many of those households are two-income. Many fall below that level. It is worth noting that the folks who skew that median upwards are not federal workers, but rather the impressive array of industry lawyers and industry lobbyists and defense contractors. Civil servants aren't the folks living in the 10,000 square foot homes in Potomac and Loudon. Associate Vice Presidents of General Dynamics and Executive Counsels for Lockheed Martin are.

Honestly, though, the blame for this peculiar skewing of wealth to the power elites lies not with the increasingly fat cats here in Washington. This, my fellow Americans, is the government you want.

It's right there in the Bible, in 1 Samuel 8. We Americans have an obsession with defending ourselves, with being sure that we have the weapons and organization needed to protect our national interests. That's why military spending, which is the primary generator of inside-the-Beltway wealth, is entirely off the table as we consider ways to reduce our insane national debt. Only slightly crazy folks out on the margins like myself even think about cutting military spending.

That obsession should be familiar. It is the very same desire that spurred the demand of the Israelites for a king. We want that centralized power, because in that centralized power lies our ability to organize and plan and research the various ways to crush America's enemies under the boots of our shiny new orbital battle platform.

But, as with any king, our demand for that power has a cost:

This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive grows and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day. (1 Samuel 8:11-18)

Jerusalem and Washington. Saul and the Military Industrial Complex. Six of one, a half dozen of the other.

For a nation purportedly steeped in Judeo-Christian values, it's impressive how utterly clueless we are about this.

"Those who do not know the Bible are doomed to repeat it."