I was just listening to a Joe Rogan podcast with Jon Stewart. I’ll admit it was my first Joe Rogan podcast I ever listened to – and it was only for Jon Stewart. I watched The Daily Show a lot when I first got to college in 2014 because Professor McBride used his commentary in a conversation on the Ferguson Riots. I found him to be rational, digestible and honest. It’s rare to find all three in one voice.
We are living in one big riot in 2020 – and hearing Jon Stewart’s voice of reason was calming. He spoke about the need for a massive upheaval of our systems and the need for Americans to flip America upside down. We need to stop accepting the bullshit we’ve normalized. We need to stop accepting the bare minimum from the people and institutions we fund. We need real, tangible change – we don’t need symbolism and gaslighting.
In his conversation about the government’s response to the economic toll of COVID-19, he brought up the 2008 recession. He spoke about a conversation he had with the Secretary of Treasury in regards to bailing out the organizations that caused the mortgage crisis instead of making the mortgages themselves whole again. The Treasurer said that it would have been a moral hazard to bail out the mortgages and that the plane was on fire and they simply had to land it. In short, instead of helping the middle class get out of a mess that Wall Street started, they bailed out Wall Street and everyone else became collateral damage.
Hi, my name is collateral damage.
My parents lost the first and only home they ever bought during the 2008 recession. My dad was a union laborer and the construction industry took the first lethal hit as the economy spun downward. He was out of work for nearly two years. They had just refinanced the house and he couldn’t afford the new mortgage payments. He was a hardworking person who tried everything (legal and nonlegal) to save it. The government decided we were going to be collateral damage and we didn’t have the power to say otherwise. What came next was 10+ years of struggle.
I recognize that many other families and young kids are the newest members of the club. In the midst of a worldwide pandemic, you got $1200 of your own money back in the form of a stimulus and either months of lay-offs, complete shutdowns or minimum wage with a side of potential death. There is currently no long-term eviction moratorium, many are losing healthcare without a job, unemployment is barely enough to get by and the job market is bare – not to mention, the pandemic is still raging on.
We are raising the next generation of collateral damage. So, this one is for you my fellow rejects. I want to talk to the kids who are scared right now watching their parents fill up entire dressers with unpaid bills. You hear them on the phone with financers and banks, their voice trembling with uncertainty. I know you’re nervous because you are finally starting to realize – your parents don’t got this one. They have no fucking clue how to make it through this one. There’s no one there to bail them out. America is too busy injecting billions into the stock market to care about your family, and that’s the truth. Your parents didn’t plan for life to turn out this way and their anxiety is bubbling to the service, exploding right there in front of you. But…they’re adults, they’ll keep you safe, they’ll figure it out. Trust me, they will do everything in their power to do that, until they can’t any longer. You have to understand that your parents have been tossed in the open waters and abandoned. They didn’t venture out there on their own, they were lead to the sea and left there figure out a safe way back to land. They’re just treading water. If there’s no life vest, eventually you’re going to start drowning. My advice? Prepare for the worst and hope for the best. That’s all I got. But, if there’s one thing I can tell you as someone who waded the seas for many years, don’t resent them if their legs get tired. Don’t resent them if the water starts to fill up your lungs. Don’t resent them if you’re drowning – remember, they didn’t put you there. Sure, maybe they didn’t make rent payments and now the landlord is knocking at the door like some Jehovah Witness…but they didn’t ask to get fucked by a larger system. Know that they are going to do everything to keep you afloat but acknowledge that sometimes, the current is just too vicious.
I know how hard and scary and unstable life seems right now. I know the emotional turmoil that awaits you and your family. I know the pit in your stomach. I know the feeling of hopelessness. You’re in the hole now, it’s lonely and dark. You don’t know what’s going to happen and there’s no life vest in sight.
What happened to us in 2008 followed our family for the next decade. My parents likely won’t ever own another home again. They had their credit destroyed trying to keep up with our middle-class lifestyle, we lost health insurance, cars got repoed, I had some strange group of rich moms pay off my braces so I could get them removed, we all shared my brothers 1996 Honda Civic, we had several mental breakdowns, my parents split up and got back together, we’ve moved over 10 times since then, our belongings got auctioned off in a storage unit, I lived in my car. I always kept it all a secret because I was so embarrassed. But that’s the bullshit narrative you must reject. Being embarrassed because my family got fucked by the system? Really? This isn’t your fault nor is it your parents. You just got labeled collateral damage and got tossed out to sea. Surviving that is a god damn victory – no matter how dirty and damaged you get in the process. Don’t be ashamed of your struggle, despite what happens to you. Your story of survival is something no one can take from you – no judge, no eviction slip, no lay-off, no shut-off notice can take your strength away. Revel in that. That is your power.
In conclusion, you’ll get through it. And yeah, I know, that sounds like a crock of bullshit from someone outside of your situation, I thought the same thing. But you do get through it. Lean on each other when your legs get tired, make some self-deprecating jokes and endure, endure, endure. When our time comes, you’ll have a badass story of survival and some killer advice while others die with millions in the bank and nothing to show for it.
Oh! And if you land safely on the sea? Go back and save someone else. We’re all we got.
Love, Devin Fiona 