What are we good at?

     We have been very good at teaching patriotism in this country; "this is the greatest country on the planet," "the home of the free, the land of the brave," " the land of opportunity where everyone is equal and no matter where you came from or what circumstances surrounded your birth, you could accomplish anything--become anything"... "the sky is the limit as long as you work hard, say your prayers, save your money and be true to yourself."

     If you question that, if you ask someone what the greatest country is, if you point out that our equality statements don't seem to represent anything--you will be met with ridicule or even violence.
Yet the statistics are out there that indicate those statements are not true.
     We have a lot of problems.
Apparently, only a very few people are working hard, saying their prayers, saving their money and being true to themselves:
       99% of the U.S. money is the personal property of 1% of the population.
       While our unemployment is lessened, more people are working all the time so they can live at under the poverty level---maybe they aren't praying enough, maybe they are wasting their money on food and rent.
        We have free public schools, granted we have known since the 1940's that the current system is not effective, but we are sending more people on to college---where they can, with a 2 year degree get any minimum wage job, or with a 4 year degree get a job that pays a dollar an hour over that, although probably not in the field of their degree.
         If you are born in poverty, your chances of occupying a prison for a portion of your life go way up.  Maybe because you keep trying to find that opportunity that will allow you to be anything you want.  Maybe because the public defender's job is to talk you into taking a plea-bargain whether you are guilty or not because a trial takes too long and requires more resources than either of you can afford.
         When you get out of prison, you will be a felon, may not ever be able to vote again, may not ever be able to get a job that includes benefits or even a W-2.  You are now an "under-the-table" kind of guy. 
Thank God we are not the kind of heathens that tattoo a giant F on your forehead making it impossible for you to partake of the advantages of living in the land of opportunity.
         In this great country, it is everyone's right to fail, everyone's right to be poor, everyone's right to develop a preventable illness without the interference of good health education, knowledge of the effects of poor choices, or a single dollar spent on screening after you leave the hospital you were born in.  We are truly free.

What are we good at besides being proud of being citizens of the greatest nation in the world?

Being reactionary.

Someone shoots someone, we want to ban all guns, then we have a backlash wanting to ban all gun bans.
(we do not address the individual cause of that shooting--that would be too simple, make too much sense---once mental health care stopped being funded, crazy was also a right.)

Someone has an abortion, ban all abortions, there is never a reason to have an abortion, then there is blood in the street due to two groups of people that are quite sure they are fighting for right and they should be the winner.  (we do no ask the woman why she had an abortion, we do not listen to her reasons for making that choice, and if she has made that choice many time and with no qualms, do we really think we should make her be a mother? do we really think a child born in those circumstances will be healthly--will that child grow up and thank us?)

I have heard of child born of rape/born with known genetic issues and most are glad they were born....but they were born so therefore that question and answer is not the same as the one you would get from the one that was not born.  Perhaps they would also glad.  Inevitably, the reason not to abort is religious, and I find it interesting that so many think a loving God would punish the unborn.  If living on this planet is important, I'm quite sure they will get their chance--hopefully a better chance.

Most civilized/stable nations have some sort of healthcare for their citizens, but in this great country we guarantee everyone's right to die without good healthcare.  Surely the only one's freer than we are live in those countries without stable governments or stable laws.

I'm so proud.

open your eyes

Some people would consider me to be wasting my time talking to myself, but i think it is just more private on here than a diary or journal.  Its a really good place to rant about the injustices in the world, the horrors, the accepted things that make me want to cry.
Am  I powerless?  Pretty much. 
My children are inheriting the world I allowed to come into existence--I had my eyes closed, I was so focused on my little world I didn't see the crap the power-mongers were doing.
The 2-bit pimps are now sex-traffickers, and no one is touching them.
Where pitiful women with no self-esteem were degraded for money and a supply of drugs, children/teens/women from countries and places with no rights, no worth are sold to the highest bidder.
While our prisons fill up with drug addicts and desperate poor people, the powerful are given a free pass to do what they will--drugs that aren't safe passed to allow pharmaceutical companies to make more money, banks allowed to launder crime money--with evidence they know that is what it is from, kickbacks, perks, owning politicians to ensure their own not-quite-legal, way not ethical behavior. Fear-ridden fundamentalists that want to run everyone else in the name of their god, while ignoring their own persecution of people different than themselves.
What is the answer?
If everyone looks in the mirror and examines their own morals/ethics/behavior how many of those people would adjust themselves, and how many would shrug and tell themselves they were better than everyone else, more deserving, more justified in taking what is not theirs to take, more capable of deciding for other people what is best for them.  We need to look in the mirror and out at others with the same eyes, with the same expectations.
If you own a business, unless you can do everything in that business alone, you should not make all the money.  If it is your idea, and you don't produce anything except that idea, (how is that different than a one-hit-wonder?) how do the people doing the working not share equally with you.  Not 50% for you and 50% for all of them, but 100 people, 100 equal shares.  Why are people so greedy they want to use other people, profit off of their sweat and tears, steal their time on this earth and wear down their health with the stress of no time for their own dreams, no time for their loved ones, no power over their own lives, not enough money to buy healthy food, live in a safe environment, send their children to schools and activities that will make them better people.
The original goal of public schools was to provide workers for the factories that were literate enough to run the machines and fill out whatever  paperwork was needed.  Isn't it time we educated  with a goal of their own self-satisfaction and not to feed the machinery of the wealthy?
Why, in a country that supposedly has no class system are there ghettos?
Why are the prisons full of the poor and uneducated?
Why are there homeless people in a country where an individual can possess more wealth than a small country?
I would ask those people with small, medium, and large businesses to share fairly with the people that are allowing them to be successful.
I would ask that those corporations share their wealth more evenly with those people that they currently treat like unimportant and interchangeable droids.  One hour in the life of worker is worth as much to them as one hour in the life of a rich man is to him.  We sell our time for money so we can buy what we need.
Those of you that have mistaken money for a scoring system are truly lost.  Life is not a game, and a person that can not see the worth of all life is either asleep--or blind.