Apathy

I have been watching as both the Sestak and Romanoff scandals have been making headlines and wonder if the true story is truly being told. Not simply whether or not laws were broken by bribing officials running for public office, but that so many people are writing the issue off as “business as usual”. Even sitting Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell stated that he has done this on many occasions, skirting the edge of the law in order to ensure candidates they want to see in office are the ones that run. I believe the real story is the apathetic reaction from both the media and the public. The lack of outrage is deafening in the fact that this is what we expect from our government and its officials, this is what we have grown used to, the corruption, the bribery, the manipulation of the electoral process to ensure a predetermined result. When you really sit down and think about it shouldn’t you be angry, shouldn’t you feel outraged that the choice of your elected officials is being determined not by your vote but by an elimination of choices to maintain the party power balance? That people in this country are given high paying (paid by the taxpayers) positions simply because the political machine wanted a different individual to have a Senate seat.


Is this not the very issue that every Presidential candidate runs against? They parrot the words the voters want to hear and then simply go about doing “business as usual” because that is the Washington works. Obama got elected trumpeting “transparency” and “change”, but according to an LA Times (hardly a bastion of conservative ideals) article the Obama Administration has denied 50% more Freedom of Information Requests than the Bush Administration did. They hailed promises about letting the people read bills before they were voted on, not even our Representatives got a chance to fully investigate the Health Care Bill before they forced a vote on it. If this is how Washington works, and it is and has for a long time, then I think it is time for a new Washington. One without lobbyists and political manipulation in the election process, one in which the people’s voices really matter, and politicians are held accountable for the votes they make and the favors they do. But unfortunately that will never happen while the American people simply accept the “business as usual” excuse, shrug and move on with their lives, ignoring the direction we are being taken in.

Directing Our Children

When we are in the blossoming days of our youth everything seems to be accentuated beyond the point of containment. The love boils up within our hearts, the hate, the despair, the passion, the general rightness that those deep seeded feelings are all that is, that they are simply the truth. This rightness is so ingrained, so entwined with our emotional state that all semblance of logical thought cannot exist. We are prisoners of our age and though we long to believe that we see deeper into the nature of both reality and emotions than others, the simple fact is that it is not true. Even if we were to travel back and attempt to convince ourselves of this unalterable fact we would fail. It is simply impossible to convince youth that their sense of absolute knowledge, even in confusion, about nature of things is false. That passion can be subtly directed, even brainwashed, but once accomplished the damage is done until the logical dispassion of adulthood finally sets in. We have seen this situation play out throughout history, even Jesus pointed out that the faith of a child is far greater than that of an adult. They believe with fanatical devotion in that rightness, that justification within the depths of their emotions about the truth.


We’ve also borne witness to how it can be used for ill. The Hitler Youth, the children of the USSR betraying classmates and friends for the good of the Rodina, in this day we witness the hatred born of Islamic extremism, convincing whole generations of the glory of jihad and “martyrdom”. Such sinister examples of this corruption of youth for some others purposes are obvious to outsiders, and yet accepted and encouraged within the ranks of those groups doing the manipulating. Yet it is that same manipulation within our own society and communities that we miss, that we remain blinded to because it is simply not possible for it to happen within our own schools. Still it does not take telescopic hindsight to see just how it happens here. The Peace Movement of the 60’s took that youthful vigor and transformed it into a political force, one whose puppet masters were in bed with the socialist movements in the Soviet Union and North Vietnam. It was not truly seen by those hapless followers believing in peace and love and the unity of mankind, but their passion only served to prolong a political war all the while giving aid and comfort to the enemies of democracy.

So who is it that seeks to direct our children in this day, and what are they being directed towards. I look back at my own education and can see the subtle hints of what I was being taught, the angle and the source of what was being fed into my impressionable mind. It becomes accepted as truth without true knowledge, it is half-truths and propaganda utilized to sway a generation into looking at the world through the lens of another’s making. Of course this is how traditions and values are passed on; it has always been so and will remain so for the rest of human history. It is how our parents instructed us in our beliefs about right and wrong, it is how we were taught how to look at the world and others in it, ultimately the choice becomes ours. Yet it is awfully hard to break away from a course that was plotted in the flower of our younger days. So what traditions and history is being taught today? What course is being plotted for the next generation? And who is plotting it?

I look at my two young children and wonder who will try and direct their passion and what they will try and direct it towards. It is a fear any parent should rightly have. Are the values you wish to establish within you children being undermined by forces outside you home? What spin in perspective will the teachers and schools of tomorrow try and use to direct my childrens’ passion and youthful exuberance? Will it be contrary to the spiritual beliefs and values that my wife and I hold dear? What will be the ultimate purpose of those behind that spin? Is it benign or malignant? I believe as parents we have an inherent responsibility to teach and instruct, but also to ensure that those within whom we entrust care over our children are not trying to thwart those values we are seeking to instill. Today is an extremely turbulent time in the history of our society; wars are being waged over what it will be, ideas and belief in opposition to each other fighting across the entire landscape. In what direction is the youth being led, by parents? By teachers and school systems? By political ideology or extremism? The lessons of our own youth must be our guide to helping direct the willful perspective of our children, ensuring we protect them from forces that exist in contradiction to our own values.