Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Light a Candle

            I’ve been around for a few years, and I don’t remember so many people being so put out with the state of things. Many aren’t just ‘put out’; they’re down-right mad. I’m trying not to join the cadre of the angry, but it’s hard. I believe the current mal ease which is so prevalent among us is the result of frustration, frustration and the intuitive fear brought on by the realization that we, as individuals, are not nearly as self-sufficient as we thought we were.

            You and I are totally dependent upon outside forces. Operative word: totally.
            We have so little control over those forces that we can only admit that we are little better off than the flotsam that drifts upon the sea, carried wherever the tides would take it. We’re told that we have control; that we can vote. Well, I’ve voted for forty years and the same empty smiles and empty promises that were in office forty years ago are still in office today. Yes, the faces have changed, but that’s about all. The average person in this country is not better off today than forty years ago. We’re worse off. And the scary thing is - worse still is in the offing.

            We’ve been led all our lives to believe that the powers that be are kindly disposed toward us, but we see with increasing clarity that they are utterly disinterested in the wellbeing of us as individuals or in the wellbeing of that class of millions of hard working citizens we call ‘the middle class’. They are interested in one thing and one thing only: their personal bottom lines, and if you don’t contribute to that bottom line, well, then you can go to hell.
            For my part I believe the real purpose of the recent soap operas in the halls of congress between the one side and the other is to divide the people and to focus our attention on peripheral issues so that we won’t see the real problem with this country.

            What is the real problem with this country? The problem is the scarcity of men and women in positions of power who hold dear the precepts of justice and equality which were espoused by our founding fathers. The problem is the scarcity of men and women in power who actually care about the people of this country. Personally, I’m convinced that we could fire every member of Congress, go town to town across the country picking people at random to fill their positions, and those chosen at random would do a better job for the people.
            Abraham Lincoln said, in his Gettysburg Address, that this is a nation of the people, by the people and for the people. I don’t know if that was true in 1864. Today we are, more and more, a nation of the very rich, by the very rich and for the very rich.

            Here I am, doing what I didn’t want to do. I’m cursing the darkness. It’s better to light a candle that to curse the darkness. I want to view the present situation as an opportunity for relevant change which will benefit my children and grandchildren and raise anew this nation as a symbol of justice, freedom and equality. But what can one person do?
            I can be a squeaky wheel. With this post, I just started on that road. Maybe you’ll be a squeaky wheel, too. When there are enough squeaky wheels, when the noise gets loud enough, someone will have to listen. There is a fundamental truth that we must understand and take to heart. Those in power over us may disrespect us, disregard us and discourage us. They may try to divide us against each other and divert our focus to trivial things, but at the end of the day, they deeply fear an unhappy populace. An unhappy populace is not good for the bottom line. So if the sound of squeaky wheels gets loud enough, things will change.

1 comment:

  1. I truly believe that fear is what prevents adequate people escalating to the next level. A few idiots do not have that fear and can do it without dignity.

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