The Poor Man’s Friend

I vaguely remember a Canadian politician named Pierre Trudeau. He did some important things for his country, I believe, but I can’t be sure because I’m not much on Canadian history. But one thing I do remember quite well about the man was his campaign song. It was called “Pierre Trudeau: The Poor Man’s Friend.”

That has always struck me as a great way to be remembered. By your own people, and by history. Known as someone who was a friend to the poor. Someone who cared about the interests of those without great power of their own, and worked hard to advance those interests.

So here we are, in a hyped economic “recovery” that seems about as uplifting for the poor of America, as well as for most of our middle class, as the 1933-39 period recovery was for these folks after the New Deal came along. Not quite as bad as it was, maybe, improving here and there a bit for the many, while a few sharpies waxed richer than ever and weren’t afraid to flaunt it — the chief present day flaunting analogy being the $140 billion-plus Wall Streeters are shoveling into their own troughs this year in the form of bonuses, and the 29 percent rise in luxury spending by the rich a recent survey reported for the just ended third quarter, while the rest of us pretty much continued to spend just on the basics.

Ask yourself, ask your friends, ask just about anyone if they think the people most responsible for setting our economic priorities these days are the poor man’s friends. Is Ben Bernanke the poor man’s friend? Is Tim Geithner the poor man’s friend? Is Larry Summers the poor man’s friend? Is Barack Obama the poor man’s friend? Or are these gentlemen the friends of the rich, the bankers, the Wall Street trading crowd?

Ask yourself something else, too. With friends who claim to represent the economic interests of all Americans, whose deepest proven and demonstrated bonds of friendship to date have been with the rich, the bankers, the Wall Street crowd, friends who have used the public purse to bail out the haves while the have-less still wallow, with friends of poor and middle class Americans like these, who needs enemies?