Gatsby Had Problems Too

Members of the middle class who hate the rich hide their jealousy behind good intentions: they worry about the poor, they pity the poor. They declare loudly that the rich are mean-spirited and evil, all the while coveting their lucre. They beseech the government to strip the rich of their wealth, no matter if it was hard-earned. They assume the poor to be generous and loving folk, scraping their fingers to the bone to feed their families, and imagine the rich as heartlessly, laughingly tossing their heads back as they drink their scotch and bourbon on their fabulous yachts or partying until dawn inside their grand summer homes in The Hamptons and beyond. They do this without actually knowing any rich or any poor, instead blindly judging them based on media reports and commentary by TV personalities Jon Stewart and Bill Maher, both millionaires from selling that particular schtick.

I was born into America's lower middle class; like everyone, I had nothing to do with my station in life at birth. (Rich babies are no less innocent than poor babies.) I am fortunate enough to now be on the higher end of the middle class, mostly because I married an overachieving, smart and dedicated, type-A workaholic, also born into the lower middle class, who thrives on productivity and has been rewarded over the years for his innate drive and ambition by generous employers who have regarded him as a valuable asset.

So now I get to drive a new Saab instead of a beat up old Chevy and my husband drives a used SUV which he is working on beating up. (We have both been labeled as gas guzzlers, although my car does quite well in the mileage department.) Should we feel guilty for this? Should I do more than give to charity and engage in volunteerism? What should I do, what could I do, that would assuage the bleeding-hearts? Should my husband work for less pay, or perhaps give all his earnings to those we call poor? That doesn't seem fair.

Oh, wait a minute, I know what. I could say ad nauseum how much I hate those horrible rich Republicans, that would probably be enough. And maybe I could display bumper stickers on my Prius hybrid telling the world that I, in particular, am against genocide in Darfur, like everybody and their mother doesn't feel that way. And lawn signs, yeah, I could get a lot of lawn signs saying I'm against the war and in favor of wind power and against using pesticides and pro-abortion and against drilling in Alaska and in favor of taxing the rich, yeah, most especially, tax the rich! That should do it.