Below is a piece by one of Bernie Madoff's victims, a woman whose life savings have been wiped out. Her story is compelling, but the real story is the comments readers have made. Unbelievable!
Are kindness and sympathy just not part of contemporary daily life? There's a kind comment here and there, and a number of inane there's-always-a-silver-lining notes. But look at the number and meanness of people who leave basically "tough luck, you greedy bitch!" comments. Astounding! A talented woman who has worked all her life, succeeded, and saved money for her old age is robbed through no fault of her own, and people feel free to give her the finger.
That ought to be a good object lesson for us as we fall deeper into the Great Depression of the 21st century. We aren't a nation of good neighbors who join hands and help each other. We're a nation resembling the passengers on the Titanic: the rich in first class got access to the life boats while women and children in third class were locked below decks and left to drown. Walter Lord's A Night To Remember was one of my favorite books of my youth. He gives the passenger list in an appendix and indicates who survived and who didn't. I've always been amazed at the number of women and children who drowned--mostly steerage passengers--and the number of first and second class male passengers who lived. How did these men live with themselves knowing that their place in the lifeboat was purchased by the death of a child or a mother? Did they care? Or was it "Tough luck, scum, it's everybody for himself."
Read the comments on this unfortunate woman's article, and you'll find plenty of the spiritual descendants of those callous men of April, 1912.
Read here
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