The Age of Hipocrisy

It started out as a normal day, travelling the metro by bus after taking my fiance to work

Shortly after we left our start point, the driver called back to a young lady in the back of the bus to remove her feet from the walk space. At first, I took this in stride, recognizing this as a safety concern.

A couple miles down the road I heard an emergency siren approaching us and looked around to see where it was coming from. I quickly realized it was coming from behind us. I looked to the driver, expecting her to pull over and stop, as required by law, but she kept going, forcing the ambulance to come around us. This troubled me.

Understand, the old me would have simply walked away from the situation, but the new, activist me was upset by the hipocrisy of the driver.

When we got to the end of the line where I was to catch my next bus, I paused before getting off and looked to the driver. The conversation went something like this.

ME: Can I give you a piece of advice?
DRIVER: Sure
ME: Before you get onto someone about some dirt on their face, maybe you should wash the mud from your own. You got onto that girl earlier about her feet in the walk space and rightly so. Someone could trip and get hurt. But then you had an ambulance coming up from behind a few minutes later and you failed to pull over to let it by.
DRIVER: But it pulled to the left and went around, didn't it?
ME: And what if it needed to make a right turn at the corner? It is a safety issue and why the government requires drivers to pull over and stop. You do not know where that vehicle might have been heading. In Michigan such an act can get you a thousand dollar fine.
DRIVER: I see, perhaps I was in the wrong, I'll be more careful.

Yes, she really did accept responsibility, which in honesty surprised me. I smiled at her, tipped my hat, and headed off to catch my next bus. If I was sure she wouldn't get in trouble over the ambulance incident, I would call her supervisor and compliment the professional way she accepted my criticism.

It also made me think about my own responsibilities in life and the example I am setting for my young nephews.

My seven year old nephew at one point took to refusing to do his chores around the house. His excuse was that I and my 22 year old nephew were lazy and didn't do any work, so why should he.

Understand, I work almost exclusively on the computer with research, advocacy activities, and website development. My 22 year old nephew has ADHD, aspergers and Turet's syndrome, the combination of which makes it very hard for him to keep a job in the main stream economy due to employers not understanding the conditions and subsequently discriminating against him. Both of us have household chores to do like cooking, taking out the trash, cleaning our rooms, and doing dishes. All of which we normally do when my younger nephew is at school. When he is around, he sees me working on the computer and my older nephew playing games on the other computer.

I had to sit down with the younger nephew and explain everything that goes on when he is not there before he would once again begin doing chores at his house.

Children learn what they see us adults doing. At times, it is not what is actually going on, but how they interpret what they are seeing. If they don't see how hard we are working to make our households and communities work, they judge us accordingly and learn that perception. If they see us using aggression and violence to get what we want, they think that is the way to do things. Equally, if they see us cooperating with each other to make things better in our homes and community, they will learn this instead.

Personally, I am going to try harder and make sure my younger nephews understand the work I am trying to do with House Wyldstar and the Social Policy Center blog from now on.

A System Run Wild

I just returned from an errand and happened to run into a woman who showed a great deal of interest in the book I was reading, How to Overthrow the Government by Arianna Huffington (www.huffingtonpost.com). I mentioned this blog and she proceded to tell me the following:

A couple years ago, she was arrested for driving without a license and no proof of insurance, two offenses she readily admitted to me. Apparently, a short time before she was to appear in court, she lost her apartment (no details on why) and was preoccupied with trying to establish a new residency. She forgot about her court appearance and, naturally, a bench warrant was issued for her.

Within a few days, she was arrested at one of the homeless shelters in Denver and her children were taken into the foster-care system. The system tried to place the children with their fathers (two children, two different dads), but one placement did not work out well when the father proved to be abusive and neglectful. That child was put back into the foster-care system and awaits a non-familial placement. Fortunately the other child fared much better. His dad took the situation seriously and is working hard to care for his son. Guess which father gets the blue ribbon of the day.

The mother served her time (in jail since she didn't show up for court) for her rather minor crimes and returned to the community. The problem got worse when the foster-care/social worker stated she could not get her kids back until she re-established her housing and employment situation, something that for someone who is homeless can take months, if not years.

Such demands and expectations, though seeming reasonable on first glance, can be a virtual life sentence for the kid, sentencing him or her to spend the rest of their childhood lost in the system. Statistically, to say this is a less than ideal situation would be an understatement.

Keeping any mother or father from their children because they are homeless is an insult to our community. Any of us could end up homeless for one reason or another. To label someone as unfit to be a parent because they lost a job or had a disaster occur that cost them their home is adding insult to injury.

It is high time we come up with realistic solutions to situations like this. The system as it stands is doing far more harm than good.

Days of Future Past - Remembering the Fallen

May you live in interesting times.
Chinese curse

Until six years ago, I never really understood that curse. We are approaching the sixth anniversary of the day that changed America, forever.

I finally had a chance to see the movie "World Trade Center" and could not keep back the tears remembering that day.

I was helping my niece, Jasmine, get ready for school that morning. The morning cartoons she was watching as she ate her breakfast were interrupted by the news of the first plane hitting the towers. Moments after they went live, the second plane hit, sending flames and debris into the morning sky over New York City. My niece looked confused and turned.

"Uncle James, what happened?"

All I could do, in the shocked state I was in at the time, was say that something very bad had just happened. To this day, I still do not know how to adequately explain to a child about that day.

Looking back in my mind while watching the movie, I wonder if we as a nation have learned anything. I, for one, have taken many lessons from this horrible, historic event.

First, Americans are capable of so much more than we are doing now for each other. During the events of September 11th, 2001, people rallied together to help dig survivors out of the wreckage, heal those who were wounded, donate much needed blood, and comfort those who lost loved ones in this unforgivable attack.

Second, it made me realize that we as Americans can never take our safety and freedom for granted. It is something that must be fought for and protected with our very lives if our children are to know what it is.

Third, it made me realize that we must continue the struggle against oppression and fascism which is still very much alive in our world. Where there are men and forces that would work to harm and intimidate mankind into slavish obedience to any philosophy or religious dogma, we must be ready to oppose it with deadly resolve.

The attack against the World Trade Center was an act of war, undeclared and cowardly, no different than another attack that happened over 60 years ago. Perhaps you have heard of a place called Pearl Harbor? If not, ask your grandparents.

During the Civil War, there were almost 500,000 deaths. During the First World War, over 100,000. During the Second World War, over 400,000. During the Korean Conflict (America's forgotten war), over 50,000. During Vietnam, over 90,000. During the Gulf War, a mere 2,000.

Now in Iraq and Afghanistan, so many in our nation are screaming over the deaths of just over 3,000 over the past three years. Have we forgotten how many have died before to secure and encourage freedom around the world?

Don't get me wrong. I hate war. I wish we as a race could come up with better ways to handle our conflicts. It is unfortunate that the tree of freedom must still be watered with the blood of brave warriors. I agree with Eve Mirriam when she spoke of one day having a child who would ask her "What was war?" But as John Stewart Mill said:

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

We as Americans must remember these words, least we loose our resolve to maintain the freedoms that we have so richly enjoyed. If we do, our children's futures will be poorer for it. Personally, I struggle not for myself, but for my niece and my nephews. I hope that one day they can take their children to a museum where our guns, bombs and machines of war will be displayed the same way that instruments of torture and archaic weapons are now. I hope they look upon them with startled amazement that such devices could ever have been used. I pray they look up at their parents and ask.

What was war?

Eviction of a Criminal

The news this week has unfolded the story of an illegal immigrant who was finally apprehended and deported to Tijuana, Mexico. The problem? An 8-year-old child left behind in the U.S. in the care of a church pastor and his wife.

For some time, Elvira Arellano has hidden behind the sanctuary of the church to avoid being deported as an illegal immigrant. If she had stayed in the church, she might still be there, but she came out trying to speak publicly for the right of all illegal immigrants to stay in the United States without fear of deportation, particularly if they have had the good fortune of giving birth to a child in the United States.

What is wrong with this picture?

Everyday fathers and mothers are arrested, jailed and even imprisoned for criminal activities, often with their children ending up either in the care of other family members or of the foster care program. Why should illegal immigrants be treated any differently? Because their 'punishment' for their crime is deportation instead of imprisonment? I think not.

The fact is an illegal immigrant is one who has violated American law by entering our country without permission. They have commited a crime and simply having a baby does NOT exonerate them for that. They are STILL subject to arrest and punishment for their crime. All-in-all, they get off lucky. In many countries entering without official permission carries the penalty of lengthy imprisonment in rat-infested hell-holes or even summary execution.

It is unfortunate that the illegal immigrants put children into the middle of this, but we do not let criminals out of punishment just because they have kids. If we did, most of our prison population would still be on the streets, unpunished for their crimes.

The only way to eliminate situations like this, if illegal immigrants continue to insist on putting themselves and their children into them, is to completely do away with our immigration limitations, throw open our borders, and risk anyone and everyone entering our country from Mexico, potentially including would-be terrorists, which would make us even MORE vulnerable to 9/11-type attacks.

Many advocates for the illegal immigrants (the Council on Foreign Relations, for example) try to argue that the illegal immigrants do not enter the United States because of abject poverty in Mexico, claiming that Mexico has a robust and thriving economy of its own. But they also claim that people migrate to where there is greater development. Excuse me? If Mexico's economy is so robust and thriving, why are there thousands of women and children scrounging in the city dumps, looking for anything and everything that might be of any value to sell or living in make-shift structures that do not meet even the basic qualifications to be called a home?

Their response to that is a claim that it is because Mexico does not have a viable mortgage industry. Again, this proves my point. Mortgage lenders tend not to invest in impoverished areas, even within the United States. If Mexico's economy is so great, why have banking companies not extended their mortgage businesses there?

It takes people within their own country and communities to build hope for the future. Siphoning capital from other regions is NOT a long-term answer. The illegal immigrants would do better working in their own country to fight corruption and make sure the funds and resources that ARE in Mexico are used more wisely and effectively. We routinely grant scholarships to students from countries like Ethiopia and Bangladesh to educate them on how to develop their own countries, with an increasing level of success. Yet Mexico still lags behind, despite the significant amount of foreign aid, tourism income, business investments, trade payments, and personal earnings of illegal immigrants being transferred to their country from the United States.

Could there be a problem with this picture?