Posted by
grad_1986 on Saturday, June 04, 2011 4:20:34 PM
President Johnson in the 60's launched his "war on poverty". He felt that we should spend our affluency on insuring no person goes malnurished and homeless. Many lauded his plans as a great initiative that would usher in a new American era. Now nearly 50 years later we are on the brink of bankrupcy and insolvency. On top of that we have taken away from our country the driving force that has long made our country great..... HUNGER! Often when we read the biographies of great men and women we find that in their stories a common thread. They will recall their meager beginnings in small homes with little to eat or wear. This will go on at length about how their parents worked multiple jobs and had to scrimp and save to buy their first television or car. They will talk about how their parents urged them to do well school and pay attention to what was being taught because that was going to be their ticket to a better life. They will talk about how this hunger for a better life drove them to making something of themselves.
But where is that hunger today? When union and government workers can make as much money as anyone with an advanced colleg degree why work hard in school? Why even graduate from high school? Where is the impetous to study long hours or stay after school to get extra help when needed? Hunger is not pleasant, but its a much needed emotion and our country and government has done all it can to placate that feeling. If you could genetically engineer a rat to not be hungry, it would starve to death in a cage full of food.
We are now going the way of Europe. Thinking that we can spend our time working 40 hours a week (and no more), with 4 week vacations abroad in the summer, watching reality shows at night and wasting hour upon hour on Facebook. Without the drive to push our children to do better than us, we are harming their futures. We will soon become a nation of insurance salesmen selling each other worthless pieces of paper rather than a nation of creators and entrepreneurs.
So many are worried that our country may enter a second great depression. But rather than fear it, I embrace the idea. A drepression is what we need the most. We all need to know what its like to have nothing again. We all need to learn to do with less. We all need to reconnect with that which is most important: God and Family.
We need to become HUNGRY AGAING!