So lately I've been thinking a lot about America and the direction we are heading in. In my gut I feel like we are making progress. I feel like we have a president that is on our side, yet I am shocked by the amount of Americans who choose not to see this. Ironically, or perhaps by the grace of God I started to read in the midst of all this confusion.
I picked up Kurt Vonnegut's "Bagombo Snuff Box" and read three stories back to back that touched on what I felt was the problem.
Now I, more than anyone, want this economy to get moving. I've been saving up to start a business, I want to get a job, and I want to leave a future that is bright for my children.
Yet, I also feel that there is a moral way to do this and I think that is done by properly preparing this generation to take on the responsibilities of running the country, that we can't treat people like corporations, and most of all we can't let greed run this country.
In Kurt Vonnegut's "The No-Talent Kid" the protagonist, Walter Plummer, is a clarinetist, in the C Band who for three years has desperately been trying to move up to band A. He puts in the most effort, and tries the hardest, yet he is still not fit to be on the team. Finally, he tries to get on the team through the purchase of a one of a kind instrument that would put the A Band on top again in the competition circles. However, the musical instructor fed up with having to deal with Plummer year after year does not accept him on the squad. He tells Plummer "Nobody can do everything well, and we've got to face up to our limitations. You're a fine boy, Plummer, but you'll never be a musician-not in a million years. The only thing to do is what we all have to do now and then: smile, shrug, and say, "Well, that's just one of those things that's not for me" (Vonnegut 88). That quote really struck a chord in me.
In our American culture we teach our children that if you strive and work hard enough for greatness that it will come. That you can do whatever you set your mind to do. Yet, here is an authority figure telling our child that no matter how hard he tries no matter what he does he will still not be goot d enough. And I feel in a lot of ways that is the message Romney brings to kids too. He was born into privilege meaning effort was never really expected of him, he has gotten this far in the election not by truth but by bending the truth every which way he can, he has countless of times vetoed laws that help minorities from women to Hispanics showing that there is a hierarchy in the American culture and that some people no matter how hard they try will never be good enough, and I don't think that is an America that we want. Our children need to see that hard work does pay off and that there are people out there looking for that work ethic who are willing to give you that chance. We need to prepare our children to think this way.
Secondly, we can't treat people like corporations. In Vonnegut's "Poor Little Rich Town" the protagonist Newell Cady could "stroll through a plant that had been losing money for a generation, glance at the books, yawn and tell the manager how he could save half a million a year in materials, reduce his staff by a third, triple his output, and sell the stuff he'd been throwing out as waste for more than the cost of installing air-conditioning and continuous music throughout the plant" ( Vonnegut 92). Now does that sound like someone to you? Does it rhyme with Domney? Now in the story he makes some pretty good changes to a town that was declining and that indeed needed help building itself up. However, he makes these decision by just looking at the facts and figures. He cuts here, there, never really realizing how though this is helping the town fiscally, that it is severely curtailing the town spiritually. Finally, he makes one cut too many he states, " If you'd looked at Mrs. Dickie's face instead of how she was doing her work, you would have seen she was crying," said Beaton. Her husband died in a fire, saving some of these people around the village you call blind. You talk a lot about wasting time, Mr. Cady- for a really big waste of time, walk around the village someday and try to find somebody who doesn't know he can have his mail brought to his door anytime he wants to" (Vonnegut 105). Mr. Cady wanted to cut the post office from the town and just have everyone's mail sent to there door as this would save the town from paying this woman and time. Yet, the town(taxpayers) knew they had this option all along, but they did not choose to take it, because it was the right thing to do.
I feel like what Romney doesn't get is that there are people behind poverty figures. People who though they work hard, and have made all the right decisions in their life have been struck with some circumstances that have put them in their negative predicament. Simply, looking at the situation through facts and figures does not solve a problem. We CAN'T treat people like corporations.
Lastly, we can't be greedy. In Vonnegut's "Souvenir" a man walks in to a pawn shop and tries to sell the pawn owner a pocket watch at the price of 500 dollars "I kind of hoped to hang on to it, and pass it on to my oldest boy, but we need the money a whole lot worse right now" ( Vonnegut 110). He is obviously having a tough time selling the pocket watch telling the pawn owner that it is a tough but necessary decision. When the pawn owner saw the jewels that were on the stopwatch he realized that by themselves they were "worth at least four times what the farmer was asking" ( Vonnegut 110). However, he was trying to trick the poor man into selling it for less. It is only after the man tells the pawn owner that this pocket watch was the only evidence he had of the death of his friend during war that the pawn owner is willing to accept his bid of 500 dollars. Yet, by that time it is too late, he has offended the man to wits end. It goes without saying that the pocket watch was worth a lot more than he had ever expected, but his greed got in the way.
Greed is the primary reason we are in this mess. When is it enough? The country almost collapsed because a few chose to take advantage of the majority. The next time it will be late we are going to be too deep in the whole to come out of it. Romeny is one of those people. He was President of Bain Capital after all.
In my gut I feel like Obama is going to win, but I am hoping that even if only one person reads this it somehow at least encourages them too look deeper into their election selection.
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