James Corden found out that Celine Dion has ten thousand (10,000) pairs of shoes. During carpool karaoke, James laughingly forced Celine to give away several pair of her shoes. She gripped the shoes lovingly before relinquishing them with anxious words.
When the Philippines president’s wife, Imelda Marcos, had one thousand (1,000, [I heard it was 2,000]) pairs of “luxury” shoes, the whole world gasped and expressed shock. No one could believe how much greed went into such decisions.
Of course, there is no comparison between the two. Imelda Marcos was a greedy criminal, who put herself above and before her country’s people. Her and her husband have the Guinness World Record for having stolen the most amount of money from a country. They robbed the country until the poor were starving. Imelda and her husband Ferdinand lived lavishly in palaces, with an unlimited spend budget.
I don’t want to mistake these two women at all: Imelda Marcos and Celine Dion. The only thing that they have in common is a love for shoes.
What I want to address is the view that we Americans have in regards to wealth. Over the weekend, a wealthy philanthropist paid all student loans for a graduating class at Morehouse college. Later, a public comment was made about Oprah Winfrey, something to the effect of “why did she only give a book to the graduating class when she delivered her commencement speech? Why didn’t she pay off the debts of the graduating class?” Of course, this question was meant to be hurtful to Oprah Winfrey…
What I want to ask, is it ridiculous that Celine Dion has 10,000 pairs of shoes? We have a predatory capitalist society that has murdered and buried the middle class. Do the wealthy owe something to the country that has made them wealthy? Is it ok for unwitting wealthy people to stand aside and allow this country’s poor to suffer hunger and to die from a lack of health care?
Is it okay for women like Celine Dion to have ten thousand pairs of shoes when there are thousands of women who cannot afford an outfit to wear to a job interview? Is it okay for the wealthy to stand aside, perhaps donating a bit to their churches and synagogues in order to assuage guilt; and to allow the masses of this country to be abolished by predatory capitalism?
I don’t think that the comment to Oprah was appropriate. I do think that we can ask those that are more fortunate, if they will contribute to making this country a much better place. It’s not enough for us to elect a good president.
There is so much more that must be done to reverse the trend of predatory capitalism. There is so much more to do to reverse the complete control that the military complex has on our tax dollars. We need to take those dollars and invest in the human beings that live in this country. We must make sure that the minimum wage is a fair one. We must build roads and schools and even libraries. We must make advanced education available to all who want to do the work of it. We must take profit out of health care and recognize that health care is a human right. We must do all of these things to recognize that humans are the greatest wealth of a nation.
We need to get it right and we need to do it soon, and if we don’t, you can be sure that all is lost. So, Oprah Winfrey, if you’re listening, use your influence, not to sell a product, not to sell a book, but to help this America find its true north.