Tuesday, June 5, 2012

God Help Us


Soon another school year will be coming to an end, and with it will be ending the careers of countless teachers around the country, their jobs sacrificed while the school administrators save their own asses, even giving themselves raises to do it.  What happened America?  When did teaching go from a noble, safe, all but guaranteed profession to the career version of Russian roulette?  Explain to me how placing the future of our youth in jeopardy makes sense?  The country is in bad enough shape as it is, how in the hell does giving our future leaders less of a shot at a good education make any sense at all?

What has happened to this country?  When did it become ok for corporate fat cats to run their companies into the ground and then spend millions of dollars of taxpayer money to bail them out, when the average American is struggling to get by?  Why do so many work multiple jobs to just barely eke out a living, when so many of our richest citizens refuse to even pay their fair share?  What sort of future will we be leaving to our children if we continue down this perilous path?  Explain to me why nearly a quarter of my tax dollars go to national defense, with the bulk of it financing overseas operations, when less than 4 percent goes to education and job training?  Why does our environment and natural resources deserve only 2 percent of my taxes?  Why is law enforcement and immigration only worth 2 percent?  Why do science, space, and technology only get 1 percent and natural disaster response less than half a percent? Do I think that we should be helping to promote peace and democracy around the world and rid the world of terror?  Absolutely!  Should it come at the cost of our own citizens?  Hell no!  We have people dying in the streets of starvation and disease, unable to afford medical care or a decent meal.  We have seniors, the very people who helped to make this country what it is, forced to work into their 80s or older because they cannot get by on the pittance that is doled out to them each month.  Explain to me why this is?  WAKE UP AMERICA!

Shame on you Wall Street, shame on you corporate executives, and shame on you sports stars and celebrities.  Shame on all of you for demanding such high salaries for doing so little work.  Since when did playing a sport or singing a song or making a movie mean that you should earn more in one year than most will earn in a lifetime? Shame on you elected officials, shame on you all for allowing this to happen.  Why do we pay you to serve us and yet you can barely agree on what color the sky is, let alone figure out a way to keep this country from collapsing. 

Shame on all of you who drive gas-guzzling SUVs around with nobody in them except yourself.  Shame on all of you who live in your McMansions when so many can’t even afford to rent a room.  Shame on our greed-driven society, shame on the manufacturers and advertisers who insist that we cannot get by without the latest and greatest new gadget, when the last “next big thing” only came out 6 months ago.  And shame on all of you who are buying them, encouraging this cycle of greed and waste and excess to continue.  Shame on you for letting videogames and computers babysit your children, shame on you for not taking them camping or hiking or fishing. The world is meant to be explored in person, not in a videogame simulation.  Go and see the ocean, sit out at night and look at the stars, take a walk in the woods, go and see the world around us, don’t just go and see a movie about it.

To the younger generations, our future leaders, get off your lazy butts before you are dead of a heart attack at the age of 20, get out in the world and see and learn and experience reality, don’t just make due with virtual reality.  Take heed in the lessons of today, and try not to repeat or continue the same mistakes of our current “leaders”.  Learn from our mistakes, learn from the past, and forge ahead, make this country strong once again, save what is left and make it worth something, before it is gone and there is nothing to save.  Good luck to you, since you will be trying to accomplish this in overcrowded classrooms with teachers who are over-burdened, underpaid, and worried if they will have a job at the end of the school year. 

God Bless America? Not good enough anymore I am afraid….  God Help America is more like it.