Growing Pains

So, I started this page on Facebook for my blog a couple of weeks ago, basically because while my thoughts on politics and on society are far from extreme, it seemed, to my dismay, that most in my circle of friends, for whatever reasons, just didn’t want their minds to go where my thoughts might take them. We all have our lives to lead, we all have responsibilities that often exhaust us to the point where we just don’t have the time or the energy to be the Fool on the Hill that gets to sit and watch the world spinning round (The Beatles, paraphrased quote from the actual song, Fool on the Hill.) The gist of the song, is that there is a guy, that sits on the hill, watching everyone below him living their lives. The question raised by the song, in my estimation, is whether HE is a fool for watching and learning about the happenings of the people below, or are we the fools for not taking the time during the hustle and bustle of our lives, to pay attention? Neither, the fool on the hill, or the people below are actually experiencing life completely. Is there a happy medium?

So, I started the blog, suggested it to a couple of friends and started commenting on my favorite Facebook pages, probing, I suppose, to see if there was anyone else out there who might want to share in a discussion, who might see even a bit of what I see, the way I see it. And people DID like it! So, now, I feel compelled to write for them, instead of for me, which was the whole antithesis of the reason behind the blog. So, Friday, when I usually try to post on my blog, was filled with the necessity to write something, and since it was Earth Day, I thought I should write about that. I tried, I had an idea, which I am sure I will later revisit, but my research was coming up VERY dry. Then I realized, that, being that we LIVE on Earth, every day should be Earth day and since it first started in the 1970s, maybe it’s about time we DO make taking care of our home an occurrence that happens everyday. Seriously? Do we only vacuum one day a year? Do we only take garbage out one day a year?  I am sure some of us do, but I will digress.

Earth Day, to me, is as much about the Earth as it is those who inhabit it. Generally, people who are HAPPY in their homes are more likely to take care of their homes. So, why aren’t we so happy?

There are powerful nations on this Earth that have been around for hundreds of years. The United States’ birthday is logged in the history books as July 4, 1776. In comparison to other countries, the US is still in its adolescence. In our youth, we emerged energetic and ready for action. We wanted our independence and we fought hard for it. We declared to our Mamma England, that we can do it (to quote my 3 year old) BY OURSELVES! And we did. We did do it by ourselves. We took our small corner markets and we prospered. Everyone had a craft or a purpose and we all made enough to get by. We opened our doors, borders, to people that could be our friends. And they came in and they worked hard and they prospered as well. Then the Industrial Revolution came about, and we still all knew what it meant to spill blood for a cause, whether it be independence from another country, or whether it meant the independence that comes along with pay day. We had the energy of happy, spirited children that had a goal and just went after it.

We were a savvy bunch. In America, you could go from rags to riches and no one could get in your way. Of course, as Darwin’s “Survival of the Fittest” may suggest, the savvier ones rose farther and higher. It was okay, though, because after the Industrial Revolution, working conditions evened out, thanks to the unification of the workers, and we transitioned into a glorious time just like the Donna Reed Show said it was. All innocence was lost after that, like when we find out the truth about Santa and the Easter Bunny and sex (for the first time!) We were divided over the necessity of American soldiers dying in a crazy place called Vietnam and we didn’t like the ones that came home, because TV footage had, for the first time, brought the inexplicable violence into our living rooms during dinner.

It’s then that we entered our adolescence, as a country. Questioning our leaders for the first time in a long time. Realizing the truth that, just like parents, the representatives that we hire to make decisions for us, really might not know best, because they are human and make mistakes and are susceptible to urges and inclinations that the rest of us are. So, we rebelled in the 1960s and even the 1970s, protesting, experiencing life in other “realms” and such. By the time the 1980s hit, we were freakin tired of all that- like a teenager that forms a little garage band and then can’t do our chores, like monitoring our government of the people.

Technology made it easy to get lazy. Why walk when you can drive? Why buy American when it’s cheaper to buy good made in China? Televisions and VCRs transitioned into where we are now. Who remembers what it felt like in 1776 when the Colonists decided that the freedom they wanted WAS worth fighting for? Who remembers being willing to lay down one’s life for a cause? It’s easy to say that we are a bunch of spoiled teenagers, the Democrats and the Republicans, fighting so much amongst ourselves that we have totally lost sight of the real goal and purpose, fairness, justice and freedom, and then we have the new kid on the block, the Tea Party that comes in and does nothing, but add to the turmoil.

It’s time to grow America up. It’s time that we decide if we want Corporate America to dictate how we live, like my parents that instituted a 2am curfew until a week before I got married. Ya don’t like the way things are going? You don’t like what America has decided you get to do? Then change it. We don’t have to do what Egyptians did, we don’t have to protest in the streets. Besides, what do most protests achieve? Recognition? Yes. Results? Sorry to say, not so much. Nowadays, everyone is screaming at each other and placing blame, but no one is coming up with actual solutions.

Mine? Well, I am not a big political theorist and I don’t have a doctorate in Sociology or anything. I do vote though, and I am a citizen. I am more than happy to admit when someone else has a better idea, but until then, I am gonna keep suggesting mine. It can’t hurt. What’s the easiest way to stop the One Percenters from dictating our lives as Mother England once did? Cut them out of the picture! Do I mean a revolution with guns and forts? No. This nation prospered when small business was king. When we had corner stores and corner bars and corner churches, we walked everywhere, which meant no pollution and very little obesity. We got our food from local farmers, which meant no preservatives and no weird effects. Everyone knew everyone and trusted everyone, which meant no abductions or molestations. We had small, corner schools, there were no Columbine incidents back then.

United We Stand, Divided We Fall. We used to be a melting pot, now, we are like a meal on one of those sectioned plates from the junior high cafeteria. Diversity is fine, but right now, we need to remember that the enemy is not the person next to you that may have a different job or a different color skin or even, dare I say, a different country of origin. We are fighting FOR the middle/ working class. That is what MADE America, through working hard and, actually, it’s what DEFINES us and sets us aside from so many other countries that don’t acknowledge the rights and the plights of the common folk. And we still have the fight and the work ethic in us- it’s in our heritage! This country can settle into adulthood just fine. We just have to step it up a notch, take responsibility and make it work. Stop the bickering, figure out a Plan B and make it happen. We have been up against so much worse and done so much better.

I am kind of silly to think that a blog with a whopping 32 likes is a responsibility or that anyone really cares if I update it regularly, but who knows, with enough dedication and steady work, I could make it into something more. On Friday, I spent most of the day doing a thousand and one other things, mostly legit, I have little kids, and also avoiding having to write, stepping up, and standing behind my ideas, but, at the “witching hour,” I sucked it up, like a grown up, and forced myself to write. Thirty two likes might not seem like a lot to pretty much anyone, but to me it does. It’s hope. It’s 32 people that just might see possibilities. That’s 32 people that know the difference between fighting for a cause and yelling at someone. It’s 32 people that take a little bit of time everyday to be The Fool.

Hope everyone had a great Earth Day! For you Christian folk…I hope your Good Friday was solemn and that your Easter is joyous!

Actually, It DOES Affect Us

A couple of action-packed weeks ago, I sat, enthralled, following every power-to-the- people moment of the protesting that eventually led to the stepping down of now former Egyptian President Mubarak. I would toggle between political commentaries, personal accounts, uninformative White House press releases and Al Jazeera’s live feed and comment aloud to my husband, or whoever else was in the mood for one of my soapbox rants.

I had never really devoted any thought to international politics, really, ever in my life. I just supposed I was a small working class gal living in a small working class town with my small, cozy working class family. Surely, I had my own life about which to worry. Plus, it seemed rather burdensome to keep straight in my head all the names of all the countries and all their respective leaders and geographical locations in the midst of formulating my own grocery lists other such critical factoids that kept my family fed and healthy and happy. Then, the economy tanked and it was like I woke up and discovered that neither my own little world, or the great big global society was ever or will ever be flat. It’s round and we are connected!

For the longest time, I lived in a happy, little isolationist world where as long as I focused on my little problems and ignored the big problems of elsewhere, they could not possibly affect me. Why worry about there when we have so many problems here? And then, like a flash of lighting, the protests in Egypt happened by way of an impressive use of the modern technology of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. The protests were organized and unceasing, massive and determined. For what were they fighting?

I had grown rather accustomed to religious battles in the Middle East and surrounding regions, which was actually probably the source of my apathy, but this unrest was different. It was the middle class, the middle class that had actually become poor because of the government and their lack of empathy for the plight of the proletariat- for their own constituents. This fight, however, was against an elected “President” that had been in office for thirty odd years. It was against a government that had, for thirty years, made little progress in anything economically, but making the poor poorer and the small percentage of the wealthy, wealthier.

Of course we, in the United States, elect our President every four years.  It’s done through a democratic republic process where we cast a confidential ballot in order to choose the person best qualified for the job. At least, that’s how it is on paper. Can someone working in a blue collar job, making $30K/ year and supporting a family of four run for President? Absolutely. Anyone, barring felonies and the like, can run for office (well, the President has to be at least 35 years old.) The Kevin Kline movie, Dave is categorized as a comedy about a Presidential doppelganger  who finds himself in the most powerful seat in the most powerful office in the United States. He normally runs a temp agency, in other words, he actually finds sustainable employment for those that don’t have jobs. In, arguably, the best part of the movie, he gets together with his regular Joe best friend, a run of the mill accountant, and trims the budget to find a way to save a children’s homeless shelter.  The movie reminds us that regular people built this government and there’s nothing wrong with a regular person running it. We don’t need to belong to a special club with special rules (like the Democrats or Republicans or Tea Partiers.) Those clubs, with their players, have not helped anyone other than themselves.

Has any candidate in the last 30 years balanced the budget? Has any candidate in the last 30 years fixed our environmental woes, increased the effectiveness of our educational system or our healthcare system or product/ drug safety? Has anyone of our “honorable” representatives, the representatives that are supposed to work for us, really done anything aside from pushing papers, dressing in fancy suits and crying while reading the Constitution?  Has anything gotten better?

I am really starting to think that the last United States President that actually cared about the working/ middle class was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And that, folks, puts us WAY past the thirty year mark with which Egypt is dealing. Maybe he only cared to get re-elected, maybe not, but he did CARE and he took actions to acknowledge that fact.

From the time FDR left office, we have been inching towards the very lack of representation in government that caused a revolution for the colonists in the 1700’s. Take a walk down the street. Ask passersby. Or simply reflect on your own. When is the last time you actually felt represented by someone who actually understood your plight in the middle class? When’s the last time we elected someone to represent us that really was from the middle class. When’s the last time we had someone in office that knew what it meant to put off buying  a new pair of jeans so that a utilities bill could be paid?

So then, the real question is,  how do we, the common folk, take back our government? Is there a way to do it without violence? The Egyptians have been tying for peaceful change for 30 years. They have been working hard, trying to make the best of what choices their President had made for them. And where are they now?