I have difficulty dealing with the concept that compassion and charity are a sign of weakness. Watching the pundits play with the future of the American public has given me no small amount of distress. It isn’t the first time in US history that this has happened. Our government tends to work while holding onto the pendulum of widely varying public opinion. This pendulum keeps swaying back and forth, back and forth, until someday it will stop. Stopping will be at a median point on the swing. Being in the middle without the influence of left or right will mean that the public no longer cares.
Voting is a privilige and a right in the US. But rights are being disregarded by those who spout conservatism, wealth acquisition, bullying, lying, et al. No one seems to care that libel is committed every day. We have libel laws. We have laws against sedition. They aren’t being enforced. Remember “truth in advertising?” They made the Keebler Cookie Factory change its commercial because cookies can’t be made in a tree, they have to be made in a real factory.
There is a deep dissatisfaction these days. Everything seems tainted by cruelty. People rally so that they can control others. Insurance companies have a tightly held fist on making sure they are first in line for profits, and last in line for protecting the rights of humans. There are loopholes for everything. News reports flood the airwaves with non-essential cute news stories alternating with the current murders. Rarely an in-depth researched piece on economics from an impartial source. Foreign news lacks. We are Euro focused if anything and even that is rare, unless you wanted the cute robe that Harry’s young son modeled for Mr. and Mrs. Obama. The Middle-East news is carefully screened so that the watcher won’t be offended. And Asia, what is going on in Asia. Poor VP Biden with all of his hope for the improvement of the world. He works well with Kerry. We only get the complaints about what they are doing.
Bernie Sanders was subjected to a Facebook whiteout. So many trolls got on the site and spammed that the sites were temporarily blocked. Even when the administration of Facebook reviewed what had happened, those doing the spamming weren’t punished for hacking a feed. People are being hired just to be mean on the internet. GoldmanSachs is feeling oh so good about the increase in profits they are going to get. Trump will fire Congress (someone should tell him it doesn’t work that way.) Cruz will step all over the work the LGBT community has put forward. Fear of going to the bathroom reigns in North Carolina. “A safety issue” is proclaimed about which bathroom a transgender person should use. “We need our privacy” is shouted. My answer to that is, “SHUT THE PARTITION DOOR.” Yes, I yelled it. We stand in line for hours at women’s bathrooms all over the US. The doors to the toilets give some privacy, that is if you shut them. I don’t know how someone transgender could be a danger while washing his/her hands. People seem to just want to hate. Hate travels. The brain likes stimulus, and some people like the rush they get from fear or hating or blaming. They feed off of it. They consume it like chocolate, and then blame some more.
I don’t know how to fix this problem. As long as people are interested in anything other than the overall health of this nation, it’s going to get worse. Simple compassion, sharing, helping life others, ending the blame game and facing issues head on are so important to us as a nation. Ben Franklin must be spinning in his grave. John Adams would blink and ask if you read that document that the Great Little Madison composed. You might remember it as the Constitution of the United States. I’ve read every word of it. There is nothing about using public office to push a religious agenda. In fact, it’s the first amendment for a reason. Separation of church and state allow for individuals to believe in their form of religion without being dictated to by the government or other religions. Madison was governor of Virginia, the first of the states to push through a non-discrimination bill. He had married Dolly Madison, a Quaker. They were from different religions and under the old colonial law, they would have been fined a hefty amount and faced jail time. They even reigned in their own son when he put profit ahead of public service. A town named Woodbridge grew where that bridge that he charged hefty tolls to cross. Your only other option was to hire a ferry across.
Washington’s genius was in getting people to work together. Diverse people whom he respected. He established US 1 as the first highway, found money for canals, stopped armed insurrection with his ability to speak to the common man as an equal. Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, Adams Jr, the Roosevelts, Kennedy, Johnson, Ford, Clinton, and yes, Obama all have one thing in common. When they acted, they were doing their best so that people like me could grow, be safe, be involved, and have the moral fortitude to say, “Enough is Enough.”
Enough IS Enough.
When enough people get hurt by the actions of our politicians, maybe they will do what Jefferson recommended. “A little bit of revolution” can be a good thing. That revolution needs to happen on a national scale in the voting box. Our voting needs to be changed back to the inclusive rules that we fought for throughout the history of the country. Affirmative action isn’t a bad thing at all. The right to get to the point where you can stand out needs to be returned, instead of dumping debt on people who went to school to become better at dealing with life. Our children have personal debt. To scream and shout that they should have known their place is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Oh, hard science majors are in demand again. But those in the so-called soft sciences or administrative area are still suffering from under-employment.
If we could only be paid like pro-athletes, and have the power of judicial review returned on the same time table as they use in baseball games. Wishful thinking. Someone needs to get that candidate for Supreme Court up and running. To hold us hostage is criminal.
Ann WJ White 