Change that is relentless, serious and seismic pervades our city and nation. Our country courses swiftly in a precarious direction. This turbulent twister of change makes some people wealthy and evermore convinced of the rightness of current trends. Others not so well placed are stunned and embittered when impersonal forces rob them of livelihoods and transform once thriving communities and whole regions into economic wastelands. Scattered to the periphery of society and beyond, a growing numbers of citizens find their lives disconnected and uprooted. Increasing numbers have no prospect of a job and no place to call home except the shelters, the jails and the streets. Those forced to the edge find that daily barebones survival is truly a full-time job. The sick, addicted and destitute move about urban and suburban byways like shadow people.
How many care to notice and contemplate this momentous and disturbing drift and ponder its meaning for our time? While a vast segment of our society disintegrates, many still have the luxury of a full immersion in private life and the pursuit of myriad interests and amusements. A plethora of distractions provides escape and blissful insulation from unpleasant realities. Exigent issues that unsettle routine and challenge the warm assurance of material comforts can be simply dismissed or ignored. Why reflect on alarming social and political trends when there is still so much fun and novelty to be had? Of course, ignoring the rot does not make it go away.
Real Change does not ignore the rot. For many years I have been writing pieces for Real Change. This newspaper does not hide or diminish the grim realties that overwhelm so many working class and impoverished citizens. Urgent issues of economic hardship, of homelessness and social injustice in its manifold guises get a full airing. And books that would not be touched by the mainstream press get informed reviews in these pages. In Real Change readers find a critical depth and point of view not found elsewhere in our local and regional press.
Real Change. Buy it. Read it. Share it and spread the word.