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The op title is from the book "The great and secret show" by Clive Barker. Basically it starts out with a guy working in a dead letter office for the USPS and as he reads through the letters he starts to see something, a common thread, that runs through the letters. Never spoken directly, but there nonetheless.
It strikes a cord with me now more than ever. One part of my job is technical support for educational products. I deal with a lot of teachers and people working with those in prisons and agencies that are trying to help folks learn and pass tests to help them get jobs.
On one call this week I spoke with a teacher in Wisconsin. While waiting on her system we engaged in some general chat. Her voice became near a whisper "Things are bad here, I doubt most people know" to which I replied I was well aware of the problems there. She seemed surprised. After a few more minutes she was off the phone. Ten minutes later she called back and wanted to talk to me. I helped her with some nominal problem and she then asked "You said you had heard of our problems on the net. Where?" I told her about DU and that many out there knew what was going on with the unions and education, even if it did not make the nightly news.
Today I spoke with an older lady at a work development site. All the older people had been let go, cheaper to hire younger ones. We talked for 45 minutes as I helped her learn the program and she told me all about the people coming in to see her. Some were blind, some could not see the tests because their glasses were broken and it would be a year before they could new ones on welfare. Many with learning problems and eye problems were having problems and could not afford the care they needed and her group could not afford newer computers or equipment to better serve them (like text to talk, etc).
Each day I spend a little time on usnpl.com reading papers from various states - mostly from small towns, and I see the same things popping up. Crime is up, jobs are slipping away, not enough food in pantries, not enough money to help. Foreclosures, abandoned homes, little side stories about how kids at some little school in the middle of nowhere are raising funds to help one of their classmates who is sick so they can afford treatment.
The great and secret show is going on right now, secret because the news will focus on some new pop star or what some company did or a new product coming to market - all the while the real stories of corruption, pillaging, suffering, dying, etc goes on before our eyes - ignored or washed over by multiple 24 hour news outlets who could be covering it all in detail but choose to bypass the suffering of others --- though they will at times throw out a bone and mention some numbers.
I hear it, I see it personally, I read about it daily, but it is as though I and a few others are the only ones noticing the show.
While the audience is watching the clowns trying to juggle some are looking outside of the main ring and seeing, or experiencing it all.
Out of work, no medications, not enough gas to go to an interview, little to no food, losing your place to live? Those reporting the news are not feeling that, not reporting on it unless it has some political angle.
And while other nations are helping their poor with health care and other benefits, ours is seeing the money show - telling people they are costing us money and trying to make them feel bad for being sick or out of work.
And some of the ways they do it is through their secret show. Their phrases with hidden meanings "Can we afford to help", "We need to cut spending" and so on, all the while pouring money into tax cuts and war machines which help only a few - and they try to make us feel guilty, lazy, worthless, when we ask for something.
The people, most of them, have become a burden that the wealthy do not want to 'pay for'. Those same people will put on a great show about how they are helping us by moving our jobs overseas and increasing the wealth of their overseas investors. "Trust us" when we have more money, we will send some your way - we have a lot, we want more - and if we don't get it, you won't either.
The show goes on. The wars go on. The rich are getting richer, while the people are suffering - and yet they call themselves patriots. They care not for the people, the country, they care only for a profit.
Hidden in the corner, out of the spotlight, is the suffering. The great and secret show, one which will not see the spotlight as it is too damning to them.
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