Affordability v Accessability

Affordable is one thing.

Accessible is quite another.

The wealth and income disparities in this country have caused inequities that cannot be addressed by programatic bromides that cannot reach the segment of the population that have been structurally and systemically shut out and excluded from the avenues of access.

There is a problem of disconnectedness within a growing number of the population which cannot be overcome by traditional approaches to problem solving such as making the acquisition of the basic or primary human necessities “affordable”.

We are fast approaching a critical juncture where ‘affordability’ of the basic or primary human necessities of food, clothing, and shelter cannot and will not address the social ills caused by the economic and financial divides that so-called free market enterprises and capitalism have created as a result of the unfettered, unchecked, and unregulated greed of those who have enough money to never have to worry about having enough money…

Add to this the need to make health care, not health care coverage, a basic or essential human right.

It is in this regard, and in this context, that the issue of whether a Democratic government and egalitarian society should not simply protect, but provide for, the equality of the unalienable human rights to life and liberty is fully joined as the debate of the new century, or perhaps, the new millennium.

Going forward, we should be quick to learn that bromides, platitudes, and euphamisms cannot and will not address or solve the problems and inequities caused by wealth and income disparities, racism, and bigotry in this country or anywhere else.

To put it another way:

We cannot bullshit our way to achieving social and economic justice.

As things are now, the words of the late Elijah Cummings ring loud and true:

“We’re better than this.”