blog 9- Priorities

I believe that a nation is as strong as its people are allowed to be.  Because of this, I see two priorities in funding.  These priorities are quality educational access and access to health care.

What I do not see as a priority is continuing to give money to corporations and millionaires.

I am tired of watching commercials paid for by insurance companies (costs that are passed on to the consumer) about how bad health care changes will be for us.  I am tired of republican stonewalling and democrats kowtowing in the legislature, both parties getting free health care.  I am tired of a war that doesn’t end which is fought by soldiers who are undereducated; men and women who see the military as a chance for a life outside of poverty.

My son has classmates who cannot read.  He is in the second grade.  75% of the students at his school get lunch and textbook assistance.  Most have parents who work, but cannot make enough money to ever have hope of getting ahead.  Many, like my son, come from single parent households.  Some are homeless.  Some of them will grow to be soldiers.  It is not likely that any of them will ever be corporate CEOs. 

We have the opportunity to create a better country, a better world… and yet, we don’t take it.  Single payer health care would help level the playing field, create more jobs, generate more taxable income, generate more taxes that would go back into the community.  This money would improve our schools, who do the best they can with ever-dwindling resources.  Second graders would know how to read, would have enough to eat, would grow up with hope. 

It is so easy, but yet… so many people aren’t willing to see it.  So many in this country can’t see beyond their own pocketbooks, especially those with deep ones.  How can we convince them?

I don’t know how to do it.  I don’t know how to convince people that our society is in the business of producing oppression.  I don’t know how to convince people that the phenomenal wealth in our country will never be ours if we don’t take control over our country; that the dream isn’t real.  We see the gap increasing between the few haves and the many have-nots, we see the wealthy in congress pass laws that keep the wealth within its circle, and takes more opportunities and monies away from others.  We see working people losing their homes while bank execs get payouts, and we still do not say “this is wrong.” 

Our future leaders will not be children from my son’s school.  Our future leaders will be the children of CEOs and congresspeople.  They will have had health insurance and medicine their entire childhood and will have gone to private schools.  They will not know what it is like to have free school lunch as the only meal that they get in a day.  They will not know what it is like to sleep in a car.  They will not know what it is like to live in a war zone.

They will not want to change anything, either.