Funny how President Obama took time during his ‘State of the Union’ address to explain the many ways in which we are divided as a country. Sadly, this is the case. Put a little ice cream on the fruit of our heartland and we’d have a ‘Nation split’. Having 42% of people entrenched into one party’s philosophy or the others isn’t a bad thing unless we want to pass a 10 question second grade math test. In this case, splitting the answers evenly wrong, both sides would fail. This is the case now in America and KO Obama laid it out there plain and simple: we don’t lead the world in much any more-other nations have passed us in infrastructure development, power grid expansion, student test levels, health care, longevity expectancy and lastly, what should be first, in happiness and in a sense of well being. Darn it! It’s my gut feeling that within my lifetime this hasn’t always been the case…and I’m pissed about it. What to do? Yeah, this is the question.
I keep thinking the Vietnam demonstrations have more to do with our current failures than we might think. And this may be the exact result power people were looking for-that we wouldn’t ‘think’ it. You see the people in power saw right then what a good education might lead to: people protesting government involvement in our Nation’s intervening international actions which We, the people, didn’t want to be a part of. It wasn’t long after these protests we heard the news about additives missing from baby formula which might stem brain development; it wasn’t long after massive raiding on school appropriations began under the guise of lotto funding; it wasn’t long after budget cuts to education were presented as necessary putting sports, arts, music activities, those activities which are known to enhance some people’s learning skills, ‘out of bounds’ financially; it wasn’t long after teaching methods were turned from individual learning skill development to ‘test based’ progress only; it wasn’t long after that ‘no kid left behind’ financing policies ensured most would be. Now, what do we have? We have a whole country, the one so many have fought and died for, being ‘left behind’ by other world countries. Like it or not, you could spend a month reading the facts that support all of the above statements. This is our country; this is the ‘state’ of our Union today. I’m thinking dog poop here.
Buckle up for safety? We need more than that. We need to tighten up, fly right, step up, step out, charge a head, cover our backs, look forward, pedal to the metal, blast off, take off, zero in on and get on with it-the business of our country. Not the business of a party’s cheap bias, internal imaging, back up dialogues and convoluted reasoning. We need less crooks in Washington than we have in jail; we need honest, selfless people who wish to govern for our National good to run and break the 2 minute mile. We need leaders who will not sit on what has been led; we need leaders who will push us forward and beyond. We need a very large pooper scooper.
You just took an early exit from America if your next vote is simply along party lines. Why? Lobbyists can answer this question as they always do: with cash, that’s the ‘why’ of it. I don’t care whose name is on what party-look to see how they vote and who deposits their checks. Sure, there are, seemingly, some political differences between our party philosophies. Basically the Republicans like to siphon tax dollars through businesses on down to the middle class while the Democrats like to siphon tax dollars through government run programs on down to the middle class. Both party members slash at the money to get as much of it for them selves and for their backers as they can before it leaves their control. Simply though, history has shown we have enough crooks in congress to sink the titanic-that’s a problem. The middle class is asked to be the ‘life boat’ time and time again and we simply can not do this. We need leadership-I may have mentioned this.
I give Obama kudos for taking ‘down’ the Supreme Court members during his State of the Union speech. It is with guts he called their decision to allow corporate funding of our National elections a total disaster to America. But I have to say during his speech, over all, I thought I could smell the money being used in that room to oil our future. It doesn’t burn clean, money never does. But before I ask for more strawberries to go with that ‘Nation Split’ I have to peer around through the fog in search for a light like the one our Statue of Liberty holds. What I find is we’re not out of fuel yet, we just need a new wick. How to get that wick, how to trim it, how to light it-that’s the question we need to answer now.
Franque
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