You hear a lot of talk about Main Street versus Wall Street. In truth, it”s Madison Avenue versus Pennsylvania Avenue because the folks who run for office these days are packaged like products, peddled by corporations and sold by ad agencies. The days when anyone who had the talent and strength of character to run for our nation”s highest office had a chance of reaching it are in jeopardy because if you don”t have the money, you don”t have a prayer of bringing your case to the American people.
Like the old saying, talk is cheap. You get an earful of talk and more analysis of what”s been said then ever before but no matter what party you listen to, most of what you”ll hear is rhetoric.
You don”t get elected by standing for something. You get elected by saying whatever you must to get the votes and once elected; you serve out your term returning the favors of those who bankrolled you. Corporate personhood sealed that deal.
Where politicians once crisscrossed this great country by train from coast to coast in what they called whistle-stop tours, stopping at small towns along the way to bring their message to America, now we are a nation of tweets and few take the time to study the issues or know the platform of those who represent them.
If our nation has failed us, we have failed it. Heads down and too busy to pay attention to what”s going on behind the sound bytes and back doors where our future is being shaped while we”re updating our Facebook profile and retrieving our texts.
With all the distractions available to us, we somehow lose sight of the fact that when we stop watching our back, a world we would not have chosen gains ground on the American dream and what took more than 200 years to shape along with the liberties we fought and died for is being threatened by an enemy we could never have imagined. An enemy within. Apathy and ignorance gives way to the realization of our greatest fear; the undoing of one of the noblest ambitions ever undertaken, that of our forefathers.
This is not a plea to get out and vote. This is much more than that. This is a calling to love our country as our ancestors did and to demand of our government that they respond to our voice. This is a call to get up from the back row and march to the forefront.
As our 35th President John Fitzgerald Kennedy said in his inaugural address on January 20th, 1961:
“Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans ?born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage ? and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.”
“In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than in mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty.”
“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you?ask what you can do for your country.”
“My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”
“With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God”s work must truly be our own.”
Howard Glasser
Kelseyville
