Written by John Young   

Listen!! Do you hear that? Open your mind and you may hear the voices of the Greatest Generation. The common men and women who stepped up heroically to defeat the most powerful forces this world had ever seen, the everyday citizens that faced the greatest challenges this world had ever presented. Coming out of World War I, they endured the Great Depression, then emerged from World War II victorious. They didn't assume that title, but with the benefit of an historical perspective of what they had endured their children rightly bestowed it upon them. At the time, they were only doing what they saw needed to be done, to save their lives, their liberty, and their pursuit of happiness, along with that of the rest of the world. You have to listen carefully because only a few remain to lead and inspire us today, but if you listen closely, not with your ears, but with your heart and soul, you can hear a very loud rumbling all over the world. What you hear is the unmistakable rumbling of that Greatest Generation rolling over in their graves at what their children have allowed to become of this great nation for whom they fought and died. Frequently lacking the necessities of life, they worked tirelessly to insure that their children had everything they needed to enjoy a more fulfilling life. Only deprived of desired luxuries, not necessities, their children worked to enable their children to enjoy a luxurious life, giving them nearly everything they wanted, more than needed. Faced only with the challenges of a spoiled deteriorating society, we are now totally lacking in competent leaders with the character to reject the commonly accepted society of degenerate materialistic values. We have one political party with no acquaintance to any moral or ethical opinions, and another party whose commitment to that acquaintance is fragile and opportunistic at best.

In the wake of the turbulent 1960's, the division over the Viet Nam war, the oil crisis, Jimmy Carter, and the Iran hostages, we were politically exhausted and ready to acquiesce to Ronald Reagan's reassuring leadership and policies. Though his policies were well intentioned and had merit, they were dependent on honorable people for their beneficial implementation. Unfortunately, deregulation enabled greed and corruption in our capitalist free market to build a dam to prevent the benefits of the trickle down theory from escaping the reservoir that deregulation had artificially established to create the wealthy. When we ask who is to blame for allowing the conditions we are now suffering, we need only gaze at a full length mirror. The deregulation resulted from the actions of "public servants" we elected. While we do inaugurate some of our officials, none of them have received a divine appointment for life. We have abdicated our responsibility to our country and ourselves by allowing special interests and corporations to usurp control over our government through the creation of an electoral system that requires payment of billions of dollars to corporate media to be elected. But, that extortion alone is not enough. The nature of the corporate media message itself reinforces the misinformation contained in all those false political advertisements. We are willing to accept at face value and be spoon fed what to think because the information comes from media news, so it must be the truth, Right? WRONG!!! Despite a near monopoly on our public airwaves of self serving corporate media messaging and billions of dollars spent, nearly half of the voters think for themselves, through personal knowledge and experience, and reject the lies and misinformation with which they are bombarded.

Again, to identify the source of our problems we need only look in the mirror. With such a narrow margin between competent government and corrupt corporate dictatorship, what have each of us done to expose our family, our friends, our acquaintances, our neighbors, and the few responsible media outlets, to our truths, our experiences, and our opinions? Obviously not enough, or the problems enabled by Washington, D.C., created by Wall Street again less than 80 years after the Great Depression, and the current legislation to return us to that time could not have brought this plague down on this country and the rest of the world. While youthful voters may have inexperience and a lack of historical perspective as an excuse for voting against the interests of the nation and themselves, inattention and gullibility is not a legitimate excuse for the rest of us to have allowed the decline of this country to be one "of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations" with the Supreme Court even affirming that abominable perversion.

Throughout history almost every great superpower has declined due to internal decay of the civilization, not external forces. Apathy and ignorance are the greatest contributors to the moral and ethical cancer now spreading across this country, reflected by current initiatives in Washington, D.C. Back in December, 2010, a political fiscal commission was screaming for cuts in the federal budget including Social Security, despite the fact that Social Security is not funded by the budget and had not added anything to the deficit. Their claim was that these cuts were necessary to prevent passing an unsustainable debt on to future generations. Less than 3 weeks later, having been foiled in their initial attempt to steal the Social Security Trust Fund, these same forces whose corporate owners' greed and corruption created the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression, and after having their "too big to fail corporations" bailed out by the taxpayers, they refused to extend unemployment benefits to save the lives of those victimized by their corruption. But, to show their magnanimity, while reinforcing their commitment to deficit reduction for future generations, they insisted that $70 billion plus interest be ADDED to the federal deficit, so that those making over $250,000.00 a year could avoid contributing another nickel of each dollar in excess of that amount toward reducing the deficit. After giving away $70 billion dollars to millionaires and billionaires, our esteemed political leaders haggled for weeks, risking the economic recovery and a government shutdown, over $61 billion dollars they had just given away. Now, they have the gall to threaten more cuts to vital programs for the very same people from whose labor their wealth was derived? This hypocrisy defies comprehension and cannot be tolerated anymore. An old adage says "If you are not part of the solution you ARE the problem."

These politicians' survival is dependent on apathy, neglect, and satisfaction with the status quo. Well guess what, the status quo is lethal, and whether we are among the survivors or the victims depends on our actions. I have talked to the staff people answering my congressmen's office telephone. I have emailed my concerns to them on their websites. I have emailed the President's website. I have contributed to candidates and organizations dedicated to fighting for the welfare of the citizens of this country. I have spoken before small gatherings of issue driven citizens to express my opinions. Is that enough? NO!! It is not enough that I do what I can do as an individual. It is imperative that each of us energize ourselves and everyone we know to motivate them to stand up for themselves and the citizens of this country who are being enslaved by the power of corrupt corporate greed and special interests. The citizens of this country are the biggest and most important special interest, but until we starting exercising our influence we will increasingly become victims whose concerns and well being are ignored for the benefit of the wealthy and connected.

We have heard a great deal about compromise over the last couple years. In theory compromise can be good if both sides benefit from the compromise. Are you enjoying those benefits? The compromises that have been made have been admittedly to neither sides liking. What is the value of compromise if the result is unacceptable? That is not compromise it's appeasement, and I don't remember the last time in history when appeasement was successful in halting the advances of an aggressor from destroying reluctant victims. Today, we are all being made reluctant victims by a system we are responsible for enabling to enslave us, IF we don't take forceful action today and every day until such circumstances are resolved and conditions are improved. Starting today, do something every day to change these unacceptable circumstances. Talk to someone, call someone, email someone, write a letter, utilize your social network resources, communicate with politicians on a regular basis so they know you're watching them, write a letter to the editor, call radio and television media. Actively advocate those who might be receptive concerning issues about which you are passionate.

Personally, I don't believe the token act of allowing the tax cuts for the wealthy to expire is adequate, but an immediate repeal is required, if that amount of money was important enough to risk shutting down the government and putting all those people out of work in this economy. For those industries that are stable and reporting record profits, continued tax breaks adding to the federal deficit is unconscionable. Certainly banning all earmarks is a no brainer. Eliminating all benefits and perquisites for government employees that are not available to the common citizen who is footing the bill should be examined. While these are relatively small potatoes, my pet peeve is why we talk about budget deficits while spending $400,000,000,000.00 a year administering the for profit private health insurance industry, who complain they are being limited to 15%-20% for administrative expenses, when Medicare does a much more responsive job for 3%-5% with much greater accountability. The conservative $300,000,000,000.00 annual savings would eliminate the waste of having any uninsured using emergency room resources for routine primary care, severely reduce advanced care for neglected conditions due to lack of access and cost, and eliminate network restrictions on what doctors and facilities you could access. Addressing the 45,000 deaths annually due to lack of health insurance, the increased expense of caring for those advanced cases, and the loss of their productivity in the workforce, I believe is certainly enough reason to support implementation of Improved Medicare For All, both at the national level and the state level. I now yield my soapbox, but as every one of these issues has an impact on the lives of millions of citizens in this country, I urge you all to be the SOLUTION, not the problem. GET INVOLVED. Thank you.