Things need to change. I think most everyone can agree to this. I've seen comments recently, after the debacle in Wisconsin over public employee cuts suggest that public employees are a menace!!! I saw a number of comments on a Huffington Post article suggest that public employees should stop whining and live in the reality of the private sector which hasn't seen wage increases in several years. So it has come to this? Really? Americans have gotten to the point where we are blaming teachers, government office workers, and city bus drivers for clinging to their meager increases and stagnant or declining benefit packages and retirement funds rather than address the leviathan in the room...military expenses?
Did you know that the gap in life expectancy between the rich and the poor in this nation are widening at an alarming rate? Do you care? What will happen to your McMansion and your Hummer truck when the poor come knocking because the are fed up with the haves and have not gap? Or would you prefer that the National Guard or military step in and shoot the poor for daring to object to conditions of despair? We had debtor's prison under King George...maybe that sounds appealing to you.
The founding fathers saw a need for investment in the arts, education, libraries and sciences. Are we saying that we are so afraid of China, the Ayatollah and the other bogeymen of the world that we should sacrifice the very programs that define our progress as a nation as long as we don't touch our Pentagon budget? What will we be? When you went to school did you imagine that your children and grandchildren could be working slave wage jobs, with no hope of ever owning a home, uneducated, living with hatred and fear of everyone and everything else? And here's the rub...corporations that make money by printing up standardized tests convinced law makers that by making standardized tests mandatory, our students would do better in school. What we've seen happen is a dramatic decrease in liberal education in the arts and sciences. A trip to a museum can cost a local school $1500 for the bus ride. Standardized tests force teachers to cancel these trip for economic reasons and because there is no time to visit a local museum or zoo when you have to lose so much education time "prepping" kids to pass. Why so much prep? Standardized tests fly in the face of how we learn. High stakes testing means that schools whose students do not achieve on the high or middle end of the bell curve lose money. Here is a nice article (there are many out there) discussing Standardized Tests. This has nothing to do with the quality of the school's education program. The standardized test is based on a bell curve. If everyone does well, the curve moves. This link provides a decent explanation of the Bell Curve and Standard Deviation here Why go on so long about this? Because the rich want to make it harder for YOUR children to learn. They want you to be poor and ignorant because then they can just keep telling you what to do and they get richer and richer!
Obama campaigned on Hope, but as President he never really gave Hope and Change a chance. Instead we've plodded down the same road that has lead to the current hardships in the United States, keeping all the powers seized by George W. Bush as granted by the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act, giving a tax break to the rich, while punishing the poor and middle class by reduced social programs, allowing businesses to outsource good jobs at no penalty, discussing cuts to social programs and settling on a health care policy that was labeled liberal, but actually is a huge compromise, bring only minor changes to the Medical Cartel we call our health care system. Now we have politicians arguing to shut down government over whether or not to cut your social programs. Hey if you are making millions why would you want social programs...you can buy EVERYTHING you need.
We better start finding our heart again. We better start caring about our neighbor, the poor, children, immigrants. We better start hoping everyone has enough to eat, everyone has medicine, everyone has heat in the winter. Are you proud of the United States? Do you really think we should be starting wars around the world and bullying everyone who is different? Do you think we should be taking care of Americans first, second and third? Why are we angry at each other? Shouldn't that anger be focused on the people who are being paid to represent us?