The Times, They Are A-Changin

In my travels around the world I am often asked to explain why the American people allow its government to carry on a war that no one seems to support. Why do we spend taxpayers’ money for an army, with people dying on both sides, without justification?

Americans are sheep, I explain. We do as we’re told, don’t ask questions, demonstrate dissatisfaction, demand action. We don’t want to be bothered. We accept our leaders’ misbehavior as though they had the right to do whatever they want.

We don’t manifest in the streets like the French, don’t riot or protest like people in other countries because we are scared to rock the boat. We’re more concerned with our personal comfort: driving big cars with cheap gas, a TV in every room, movies on demand; we’re more interested in the lives of celebrities and who wins the football playoffs than the future of this country and the fate of our children.

Our president and vice president and their henchmen have lied to and cheated the people of this country ever since they took control. They scorn education, health, welfare, civil rights. The masters of war have murdered, maimed, tortured and destroyed innocent people, laughing all the way to the bank. They destroyed my faith in America.

And I’m no better than anyone else. Convinced we were going to hell in a hurry I gave up. No sense in protesting or writing to congresspersons who have given carte-blanche to a government in cahoots with drug companies, insurance companies, and the military industrial complex.

I dropped my newspaper subscription, stopped reading intelligent political analyses in magazines, stopped caring about what’s going on in the world. I became complacent; pathetically cynical and hopeless.

My despair made me reckless; I didn’t recycle, turn off the lights; I let the water run when I brushed my teeth, drove the extra mile for something frivolous; didn’t vote, didn’t read the news, didn’t care. I stuck my head in the sand while waiting for the apocalypse.

I ignored all but headlines about the coming election. Nothing will change, I thought. I scorned all the candidates whom I took to be phony corrupt politicians.

But something happened this week in the mid-west. A black man won the state of Iowa Democratic caucus; a young black man who doesn’t talk about race and division but about change, unity, and the future; who speaks with eloquence and intelligence—something we haven’t heard for eight long and terrible years.

I still don’t know enough about Obama to say he’s the man, but I see this country can change; that young people will vote for change, for ideas and principles instead of following traditional party lines and dogma. That a young black man can win the presidential caucus in the state of Iowa is a sign of great things to come in this country.

The impossible has happened and I have no choice but to change myself. I’ve had an epiphany; my faith is restored. I’m going to conserve water, recycle plastic, drive less, use energy saving light bulbs, become more informed, care about the environment, smile at my neighbors, care about the world, care…

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