Label? Who me?

Dec 24, 2005 by Naomi.

Labels are good. At my prewedding shower I was given six cans of food. They were to help with my first meal for my new bridegroom. But there was no labels on the cans. That was a fun joke. But I want to read labels on stuff. And not only on stuff that I buy. Now everything has a label - machines, people, groups, ideas, religions. And that makes it easier to speak about “things” doesn’t it?

And then again there are real pitfalls. In social issues and politics, labels can be misleading and sometimes downright destructive.

Think about the label - rich. It is easy to lump the rich. That is all people that have more money than they can spend on food and shelter. But in our political arguments that definition does not ring true. It certainly doesn’t describe the rich who benefit from tax cuts in the past decades. Maybe everyone who earns over one million dollars should be labeled rich. But are they the ones bilking our national treasury? Are they the ones moving moneys out of our country in expectation of hiding gross earnings from taxation? A closer look shows evidence to the contrary.

When I look for a separation of those who really benefit from the tax cuts, time after time corporations are the beneficiaries. From now on when I talk, or even think, about who wins from tax cuts I label it corporations. And for that I could be the recipient of many derogatory labels - none of them considered positive.

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