What Once Was Proud...

I feel bad for our President.  Really, I do.  Not that I follow politics, you all know this.  But he has had such a daunting task from day one of repairing this country, and has been given nothing but disrespect and angry disappointments hurled in his face in return. 

The United States is in a state of despair, and disrepair.  We rallied in the election of 2008, with the promises of “change,” and “hope.”  I don’t think President Obama understood the weight that these two words carried when they came out of his young, earnest mouth.  I think he grossly underestimated just how far down in the shameful depths this country has sunk.

For decades, we lived high on the hog – buying up houses at prices we couldn’t afford, sinking dollar after dollar into cars we don’t need instead of shoring up our public transit systems for the day we might really need them (Here in the Bay Area, the BART and bus systems are laughably ineffective). 

We spent freely with credit cards that have become the bane of our existence with their life-altering “scores.”  Credit has become so important in this country, one now can’t get a job without that magical number. 

We’ve mistreated our teachers, stripped the police of their superhero powers, overlooked the importance of a nurse to a doctor, and we look down upon our blue-collar laborers with a sneer as if they don’t work harder than any fat cat executive.  The difference?  One pays a fortune for the piece of paper his job depends on, the other is dealt a misfortune for keeping a country moving.  Emphasis is now on celebrity, and idiot contests on television.  We are a nation of empty fame and false talents (steroids, anyone?).

What I find to be tragic is that the jobs this country was founded on – the factories, the farms, and the independent businesses – they’ve sadly slipped into their cave.  Only fifty years ago, America had a dream.  It was a fine dream of generational jobs, of values, of a hard-earned dollar well-used.  Jobs were our most important commodity, and something to strive for.

Now our jobs are going, going, gone.  They’ve been sent up north to Canada, overseas to India, and mass-produced in China.  And what do we do, in our grand America tradition?  We hate on those who’ve taken the jobs, when the truth is – it’s not their fault.  They’re living our dream because its been handed to them on a platter.  We should be rallying once again, and fighting those giving our jobs away.  Hate on the corporations, and their decisions, if hate must be doled out.  Although, I don’t recommend going all Palin and putting the crosshairs on anyone.

And now the President implores us to create jobs.  Yes, please do.  I only beg that we don’t create them, then yank them away to send elsewhere.  Give us back our dream.  Re-open the factories that stand like a forlorn patriarchal ghost in a desolate, depressed town.  Not only do we need to find our spirit again, but the backbone and balls to go with it.