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.

Guilty

We live in extremely turbulent economic times, where plenty of blame is being thrown this way and that in an effort to avoid culpability. The politicians blame the banks; the banks blame the politicians, who turn around and blame Wall Street, who blame the politicians, who then blame the oil companies, who are pretty much everybody’s punching bags. No it’s the enormous price of healthcare because of those greedy insurance companies, it’s the special interest groups, the EPA with out of control regulations, no it’s definitely the politicians, it’s the Republicans, no it’s the Democrats, it has to be the Media. Guess who it really is? Guess who the truly guilty party is in this entire mess of payoffs, oh I’m sorry I meant “campaign donations”, and corruption? Guess who stood back and watched the Federal Government get bought off by every Special Interest under the sun, from ACORN to the Environmental Lobby to the oil companies to the Health Insurance Industry to the banks on Wall Street? Have you figured it out? You look at them in the mirror each and every morning.


We are the guilty parties in the equation because we have sat back and watched it happen, re-electing the same corrupt politicians over and over again and expecting things to get better, more honest. It doesn’t matter what side of the aisle they stand on because, but for a few honest men and women, they are all either crooked or enablers to this system of thieves. They are in collusion with one another while blaming each other in the public domain, just take a look at how much Goldman Sachs gave to Barak Obama $994,795 during the 2008 election, which was 2nd to the University of California at $1,591,395. Then they pay $6 billion dollars in taxes in 2007, get a $10 billion dollar bailout, and shift their assets overseas so they end up paying only $14 million in taxes in 2008. Our politicians make the laws that make this possible, never mind that Goldman Sachs is set to make billions in the Chicago Climate Exchange if the Cap-and-Trade legislation passes. Republicans and Democrats, all guilty, all looking the other way, and all put there by us.

The American people as a whole have an extreme case of ignorance. Ask any random person on the street and they couldn’t name the Supreme Court Justices, they wouldn’t be able to accurately say what legislations were currently under consideration in Congress, or name the purpose of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution (or any for that matter). We are uneducated when it comes to the operations of our own government because we fail to see how it is our responsibility to remain educated. As long as we remain so we live our lives while ignoring whatever unethical plan or deal politicians are coming up with this week. The American people then buy every line fed to us during the election cycles, and vote in whoever sounds better because we fail to truly consider what is at stake for us and our children.

We only start paying attention when something bad happens, for instance the oil spill in the Gulf. It is awfully hard to plug a hole that is a mile under the water, so why would we even drill for oil that far out? Well they don’t talk about all the oil America has on land that we are restricted from drilling for or the fact that the platform was out that far because restriction prevent them from drilling closer to shore, or that the federal regulators were not completing the required inspections of the rig. A horrible accident happens in the worst location and we blame whoever is politically convenient because some politicians and the media are good and spinning words. We fail to ask what happened that made this disaster possible in this location. And we ask ourselves how the Germans people didn’t know about the genocide being perpetrated by the Nazi’s, or how the Japanese people could be convinced that Americans bombed Pearl Harbor ourselves. We are as guilty as them in our own ignorance and things are only going to get worse in this country if we fail to wake up and accept our responsibility for what is happening in it.

Finding America

When we think about America today do we truly considers ourselves a part of it? Do we truly look around and feel that sense of belonging and pride? Or do we simply live the lives we have, moving from day to day within the sphere of our own influence without much thought of what we are? Do we even know what we are? I guess that opens up a whole host of answers depending on us as individuals. Am I merely a hard-working family man struggling to get by as are so many others in these difficult financial times? Am I a disabled veteran whose career was cut short so that he might in the end find the love of his life? Am I a frustrated taxpayer, a worried father, a loving husband, the head of a household below the poverty line, am I America?

I am not nearly arrogant enough to believe that I represent the cross section of society, but is it really necessary to have so much in common in order to be the same? Is not America the great melting pot? The place in the world where we are free to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the place where we are not limited by the situations of our birth, but by the work we are willing to put into the pursuit of our dreams. Are not the richest among us, the most successful and hard-working, the most highly educated, and influential a piece of America? Are not the blue collar factory workers laid off in tough economic times, praying for what work a high school diploma will garner not a piece of America? The teacher, the lawyer, the homeless, the police officer, the soldier, and the fast food worker are all a piece of what America is. Yet in this great tapestry there are those who would use these differences as a way to power. As a way to divide and gain advantage.

I like many of you look at what has happened in this country over the last ten years and wonder what it has become. I wonder if the crooked politicians, bankers, lobbyists, unions, special interests, and judges truly have the power to dictate what America is. I wonder if the Republic can stand when "the will of the people" has simply become a catch phrase like "the greater good" and "equality" and "tolerance" in order to justify a transformation we do not desire. I wonder if America will become Europe, trapped in a vicious cycle of socialist policies that have ruined economies and lives. I wonder if it will become China where information is control by the powerful to maintain that power. I wonder what America will be, and will it still be us. Will it still be the melting pot, the city on a hill, the source of freedom, not of outcomes but of opportunity, will it still be a place where the dream is possible.

A dread fills my heart even having to ask these questions, because in the end America should not be changing. Are the rights upon which we were founded alterable? Are the freedoms we enjoy some fluid law subject to whims of political movements? Or should they be the solid foundation upon which we can build our lives? If we are to find America we must look not at the present or the future but to what made us the way we are. We must look to those things that enabled us to get this far. America is not the sum of our differences, it is the freedom to have those differences, it is the freedom to pursue the dream without being hindered by the government, for government is not the source of our comfort and our rights it should be the protector of them.

In the end I guess America should not be what we are, but what it is that allows us to be what we wish to be. It is what we wish to leave our children, and the struggle to find America is a responsibility of those who truly wish to be a part of it and love it for what it protects not what it gives.