SOCIAL ISSUES

Eventually I found an  honest agency that got me a temporary job answering telephones in Blue Cross. This lasted three months and allowed me to recover from my panic. I worked there through a very snowy and tough winter, and I trudged through the blizzards back and forth from Port Authority to 33^rd Street in Manhattan, quite a distance, happily enough since I was being paid. Of course, the fact that my NJ landlady was willing to put my son and myself in the street because I was late paying eight hundred dollars did not improve my mood any further, but it did push me to make the effort and somehow we managed to get back to Manhattan. A day of joy.

When the Blue Cross job was over, I had sufficient faith in my customer service and telemarketing skills to find a job answering phones in a dental insurance company, again for a starvation salary, where I stayed for a couple of years. Then I survived for a while on freelance medical articles and working as a receptionist in the office of a dentist who defined his business as “sexy” and catered to high-level call girls from Brazil, and a bunch of women of all ages who called themselves “models” or “ballerinas.” This dental office was decorated with some very suggestive pictures, including a huge black and white photograph of a ballerina’s foot, holding a rose, the only red touch in the picture, between her toes. Eventually I managed to get a new book published, and mercifully got a job in a publishing house. Finally rescued! The ordeal lasted five years. During the time I worked as a telemarketer I had a conversation with my cousin from Israel, a professor, art historian, and generally a brilliant man. We were brought up together and we communicate very well, but here I found that I simply could not explain to him why despite having a Ph.D., many skills, years of experience, and no vices other than drinking coffee, I could not get a job in my own field and I was nearly in the street again and again, drowning in debts. He argued that in Israel it was not any better. There is no money, people are often in trouble, and the State had fewer resources than the US. The discussion and comparisons went on and on until I finally said, “Would you say that you could find yourself some day looking for a job in telemarketing?”

“Well, no,” said my cousin. “You reach a certain standard…” I rudely interrupted and screamed – “This is it! You said it! You reach a certain standard! In America, there is no such thing. No matter how high you climb, you have no safety net. You can be a millionaire one day, and a pauper tomorrow.” He finally understood. Of course, it’s an issue of safety nets. You will say that unemployment and welfare are safety nets. True, but unemployment runs out, and few middle class individuals get welfare.

During the years of the Soviet Union, if you were trained for a profession, the State would not waste your skills. For instance, if you were a theater manager, and the theater burned down, the State relocated you to another city where you could use your skills. In Germany, if your field was losing ground, you could get free training for a career change and financial assistance while doing it. In Finland, they will support you until something is found with the help of the State, your medical needs and your children will be looked after. In America, the richest country in the world, you will die.

I was never fond of the Soviet Union, and I won’t live in Germany, but this is not the point. What I am aiming to say is that I think that good citizens, who had paid their taxes regularly for years, went to jury duty, trained for an honorable profession, raised a family, and then lost everything for whatever reason, have done enough to merit real and consistent help from the State. After the unemployment benefits run out, people should not be left on their own, at the mercy of private individuals who may or may not be willing to help. Many of your so-called friends here will turn their backs on you when you are no longer a success – never for a moment feeling they are doing anything wrong. After all, you are an American. You should be able to be a rugged individualist. You are not their responsibility, thank you very much. They turn into sanctimonious ants, and you have become the grasshopper.

So please, give me back the Eighteenth Century. Give me back secular humanism. Put it in the classroom again. And while we are at it, allow me to mix a little of the spirit of the Age of Enlightenment with our supremely egotistical, vicious, self-satisfied right-wing Capitalism, and fanatical, evangelical, and mindless religion. We are regressing. We could do better with a little mix.

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