We deserve more than a lottery
THE CONVENIENCE store where I work was flooded with people today for one reason only, and that was the Mega Millions lottery. It gave out the highest jackpot in history for the March 30 drawing--$640 million.
Besides the stereotype of lottery players as low-income workers, this round of the lottery seemed to be drawing out all sorts of people, reaching further up into the middle-income and upper-income working class--I saw nurses, doctors and other kinds of professionals buying tickets.
Maybe this is indicative of the deep social crisis in income disparity, or maybe this is "normal" for capitalism. My shift manager told me that while this was certainly a whopper, our store has actually been slightly more crowded for previous lottos.
I know the statistics about the lottery. According to the AP, the Mega Millions lottery has grossed $1.5 billion. I have two close family members who have been struck by lightning, one of them twice, and I still won't put a penny down on that one-in-a-hundred-million piece of crap.
From what I've heard, winning the lottery is one of the few things less likely to happen to you than being hurt in a terrorist attack. Given the hyperbolic exaggeration of al-Qaeda's reach, that is seriously saying something. There's some terribly wishful thinking going on at a mass social scale here, reminiscent of the starry-eyed optimism and trust involved in the Obama and Kony campaigns.
However, I can't blame people too much. The line I keep hearing over and over again is: "With a jackpot this big, how can anyone not take a chance?"
I'm not honestly convinced that people hear the words "$640 million" and think mainly about buying an island or anything like that--these things are completely beyond people's practical imaginations.
What's the draw of that $640 million, really? As I stood on my tired legs for my unlivable wage serving an amount of customers for which there was simply not enough staff, I knew exactly what the appeal of the jackpot is. The draw was about getting the hell out of this hole of rent and stress and debt and circles of futile career plans.
So really I'm glad. I'm glad that large sums of money are being flashed in people's faces. I hope it gets people thinking about what they're missing. I don't have to hope too hard, because I know it will. However, we should propose something entirely different.
We should be aiming at a different jackpot: the $1.5 trillion held by the USA's richest 400 people. It serves no socially constructive purpose. Or how about the trillions handed to the banks in 2008-09? How about the trillions spent on wars?
Most importantly, how about the untold infinite wealth embodied in control over major economic institutions? Will it be ours, or will it continue to belong to the people who don't need to play the lottery?
How about the legacy we will hand down to future generations, our children, either of continued enslavement or a free planet? It's all there for the taking. Will we take it?
Matt Hoke, Ewing, N.J.
