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An American Tragedy

Written on February 15th, 2013

"The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat." -Lilly Tomlin

Today is one of the saddest days in my life. Nobody I know died, but an idea did. The idea’s that you could go to school, get a degree, and make a living for your family. Arguably that idea died years ago. But denial is a powerful tool your mind can use, at least until the truth slaps you in the face. Tonight, it slapped hard. 

So let me tell you a story about such a family that the American dream died for. This story starts almost a decade ago. I won't reveal their real names, so let's call the couple the Popov's, James and Mary Popov. James came from a very wealthy family, with family in the Secret Service, and even served in the Navy.  James and Mary fall in love. They have a simple wedding and James decides to go to school and get his PhD in medicine. Mary was studying Russian, and sometimes they saw each other. It was a tough number of years, but finally James graduated and moved on to his residency. Mary was with child and couldn't finish her studies. But James was on the right track! He was dedicated to finishing his residency and move onto better things. So dedicated, in fact, that he had to ride his bicycle several hours to and from the hospital. So dedicated, that he often lived at the hospital because it was easier physically to be away from his family, so he could sleep and work his 18-hour shifts at the hospital. He even rode to work after sustaining a concussion after falling off his bicycle due to lack of sleep. James was dedicated to finishing. But the hospital had different plans. 

After a lawsuit, the for-profit hospital decides to fire James. Basically, James saw what was going on there and while he was following the rules, he made it clear he didn't like how patients were treated. Because he wasn't becoming a clone of the doctors there, James is chosen to be fired. He never finishes his residency and thus is blackballed from medicine. 

It was around this time that Mary loses her baby. She is becoming sick with a suspected brain tumor and is stressed to the hilt with James' situation and firing.

To make a clean change, they move from the ghettos of Detroit, where they regularly saw bodies in empty lots and heard gunshots at all hours, to Wisconsin. James takes jobs where he can and eventually starts putting the degree in physics he obtained in the Navy to some use. Mary had finished her degree in Russian, and their second child had been born and is growing. 

The problem with this is they are in massive student loan debt. But they are paying on it with James' job. Mary is teaching her little Alice herself and is getting even sicker. James and Mary's bedroom becomes a schoolhouse as well as a living room because of how hard it is to leave the bed on most days for Mary.
Then James is fired again. They file for bankruptcy.
By the time Alice is three, James finds a job in Seattle and his unemployment runs out just as they get settled in a suburb in the Seattle area. It's not a great position, but it will allow him to get patents made with his name on them. But the boss squeezes more out of James and asks him to lie for him; he puts James' name on things that would get James in major trouble. 

Before something better comes along, the company James works for was purchased and he is once again fired. His health care is taken away, and Mary has just had cancer surgery. 

They downsize into a smaller apartment, hoping that something good will happen. But a year after James lost his job, things are still looking bleak. So they turn to leaving the country. 

You see, they owe on school still. As of January of 2013, their combined students debt was $250,000 and thanks to the George W Bush administration, none of it could be discharged in the bankruptcy. By them time they reach retirement age, the interest will have made it $400,000. And by that time, James will be sent to jail for tax evasion because by that point, they count it all as income.
They will send an elderly man to prison because the system here is designed to make people indentured servants. In this country, there is a myth that you can go to school, find a job, and live a comfortable lifestyle. But it's just that, a myth. 

Mary and James aren't the only ones who are going through this. They are being turned into part of the invisible homeless population here. They are the ones that couch surf at people's homes, or in their case, move back home with the elderly parents. But their story doesn't end there.
I am not allowed to go into detail about how the logistics will work out, but their only hope now is to get accepted into a program in Russia and flee the country. It's gotten to the point where those who are seeing what is happening here, and have the means to do so, are jumping ship. America is a sinking ship and those of us that were made into rats in this horrible, super capitalistic system are escaping. Austerity is clamping down and loopholes are still in place for the wealthiest among us, while ours are getting closed by the dozen.
Let me repeat myself. People are leaving the country because of how bad things are getting here. We have a NEGATIVE immigration rate! 

The American Dream is a myth, and that myth is dead. And all we have left is the cold reality of a nation that has failed several generations of its people, is on the brink of collapse and, with any luck, the fertile soil for revolution. 

But only time will tell if we can educate the masses. We have much work to do.