All ships?!? All ships!?!

I heard it again tonight, and I have heard several variations of it mentioned throughout several forms of media and in various conversations with liberals and conservatives alike. It is a fairly benign saying on its face, but it is a narrow-minded and classist viewpoint when applied to an aspect of our culture that we are entrenched in whether voluntary or not: economics.  A rising tide will never raise all ships. The literal and metaphorical interpretations of this statement are both wrong for the same reason. The image that we are supposed to see when introduced to this nonsense is a fleet of boats both large and small, sail and power, expensive and not, all rising together with the high tide of the full moon towards heaven. This image is a lie no matter how well meaning the evoker might be. Let us picture the ships that are hopelessly anchored to the bottom, or those that have massive holes in their hulls. Let us picture the family in the leaky life raft with man-eating sharks circling in wait of the inevitable enveloping of the surging sea. Let us picture the Titanic. The rich rowing away to safety as the third class is sucked down into the cold darkness to exist as an afterthought to James Cameron. We create policies that can either, house, or abandon human beings, and we allow those policies to be, in part, influenced by petty and nonsensical slogans that, even on their face, serve only those who can afford a strong boat in the first place.

Before any of you say that this phrasing is generally attributed to Jack Kennedy, let me assure you that I know. Let me also assure you that when a liberal says it, then it is ten times worse. Barrack Obama recently uttered a facsimile of this statement when he attempted to assure underserved communities that any gains in the economic base, would help to raise the quality of life for everyone. I doubt that he believes that this is true, which makes him both a hypocrite, and a cynic. We have seen the way that economics “trickle down” from the upper classes. We have seen the rate at which the super rich create jobs when left to their own devices. The idea of the rising tide should make us all sick given the fact that it is causing many of our brothers and sisters to sink deeper into hopelessness. We must acknowledge the pain. We must submit to the truth that the rising tide, though it raises many of the ships, it also leaves many farther and farther behind.

If we are not willing to try to fix the ships that are unable to rise, then we should be willing to drain the harbor and stand together.