But This Is What We Wanted!

It is quite possible that these are the “end times”, though not necessarily those favored by religious fundamentalists.

They see the end of the world from their own moral viewpoint; one that, in my mind, is self-righteous, self-centered, and hypocritical. They complain about the morals of others while clearly living a life that follows the dictum, “do what I say, not what I do.” They want a vengeful God, a hateful God so they can justify their own hatred, their own anger, and most importantly, their own ignorance.

We hear many on the right side of the political and religious spectrum call for troops to patrol our southern borders or to build an immense wall to keep out those from the south who seek employment in this country. They also use the excuse to keep drugs out of this country (unfortunately it is the American people who have created the demand for illegal drugs). Yet we never hear them speak of troops patrolling our northern border (which is far longer and far more open) or building some sort of barrier there.

And there is no call to penalize the businesses that hire illegal workers, wherever they come from, who seem to do the jobs no one else wants to do. And we hear no calls to improve worker conditions in the third world. Could it be that we want cheap products that are produced in third world countries in conditions we wouldn’t work in?

We don’t seek to penalize the businesses who hire the illegal workers because there are many who don’t want the Federal government interfering in the actions of businesses; what we hear is that businesses are capable of regulating themselves. And we certainly don’t want to waste our tax dollars on some sort of program that helps other peoples; we want our tax dollars to be spent on ourselves.

All we have to do is look at what’s going on in the Gulf of Mexico to know that businesses are more interested in the bottom line than they are doing it safely and correctly. There is an on-going environmental disaster taking place right now because we have endured some thirty years of rhetoric that government is too big and businesses can do the job themselves.

But in that same thirty year span, the power of big business has grown exponentially while the power of the individual has been stripped and stolen away and trampled on.

But in all of this, the single most glaring fact is that the people of this country have allowed this to happen. They have allowed companies like Massey Energy and British Petroleum to trample regulations and throw away safety concerns, all in the name of the bottom line and profits.

We have accepted the notion that it is easier to drill for oil or dig for more coal than it is to seek alternative forms of energy. We have allowed these things to happen and we have accepted the rhetoric of cheap energy and the god of profit over the stewardship of this earth and the care of the people who live on it because we didn’t know what was happening.

We didn’t know what was happening because we have lost our ability to question and to think, to create new solutions. We have changed the nature of education from that of teaching people how to think to teaching people how to answer questions. Somehow we have decided that grades themselves are a reasonable indication of whether or not someone actually knows something. But good grades don’t tell us anything about how well an individual can create solutions to a problem, especially (as I have previous stated) when the problems haven’t occurred.

The problem is that we are so concerned that no child be left behind that we have left them all behind. We think that if we can teach our children how to take tests and as long as scores go up on the tests each year, then they are learning. Our concern is more for the bottom line, the number of students who graduate, than it is for how many students actually are capable of thinking and creating solutions for tomorrow’s problems.

Look around and tell me that we are using our collective abilities to their fullest. We can’t (or won’t) develop alternative energy resources. We are more committed to the destruction of the world through violence and oppression than we are seeing people fed and kept healthy and live in a world of justice and equality. We somehow think that by our use of violence we can conquer violence; we somehow think that we can live in a world of justice by taking away the rights of the individuals.

All we have done is create a world of fear and ignorance. There is a subtle paranoia sweeping this country that threatens not only our physical safety but our mental safety as well. We have built a wall but it doesn’t keep people out; it keeps us in, prisoners of our fears and ignorance. We no longer seek new worlds to explore and our dream of visiting other planets and stars is just a dream and no longer a reality.

As the cartoonist Walt Kelly once wrote in his memorable comic strip, Pogo, “we have met the enemy and he is us.”

Look around at the world in we live and tell me what you see. These are the “end times”, the times of our own making. The world in which we live is the world that we made.

But there is good news in all of this. The fact that we see the destruction, the fact that we the violence, that fact that we see the poverty and homelessness and hunger and sickness and illnesses and oppression and injustice means that we can do something about it.

Instead of destruction, let us try construction. Instead of feeding an insatiable appetite for fossil fuels, let’s really try to develop alternative energy solutions. They do exist and they will cost but, in the end, the cost will be worth it if it means the world will remain.

And finally, let us really invest in education. Let’s put the money in the classrooms so that teachers can truly once again begin teaching our children and grandchildren the skills to think and be creative.

Yes, there are costs involved in all of this. But consider this, if we do not begin to make the changes, there will come a time when we cannot make changes.

We live in the world of our own making; we can therefore make this a better world. We live in the world that we wanted; isn’t it time that we wanted a better world?

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Cross-posted to RedBlueChristian

Is This the Straw That Broke the Camel’s back?

I am a casual flyer these days, taking only one trip a year to go to the U. S. B. C. Open tournament, wherever it may be. Last year, it was in Las Vegas; this year and next it is Reno with Baton Rouge on the schedule for 2012. But there was a period where I was doing a lot of flying and getting quite familiar with the ins and outs of commercial flying.

But lately, I am thinking about giving up flying all together. Every since 9/11, it seems we are more interested in keeping people off airplanes than we are letting them on. One guy attempts to blow up an airplane with explosives in his shoes so we all have to take off our shoes. One guy tries to do the same thing with a combination of liquids so now the liquids that we take with us must be of a certain size and quantity.

And the device that detects explosive materials (which I assume to be nitrate-containing compounds) will also detect other compounds such as the residue of local anesthetics. That has to really scare someone recovering from surgery.

The implementation of policy and training sees inconsistent at best. I have observed TSA agents lift 40-lbs of bowling equipment without bending their knees and being told that they were never given any instructions on how to lift heavy objects. I have observed other agents as they struggle with clear cut instructions (like the time my boarding pass said “must check in at gate” and the agent was telling me that I had to go back to the ticket counter. As he was struggling with this dilemma, I pointed out that the individual behind me had the same boarding pass and that he should resolve the two issues at the same time in consultation with two supervisors. I was told not to tell him how to do his business and after they took some 20 minutes to figure out that I should go to the gate; they took the same amount of time with the next person who had the same issue.

But as I struggle with these annoyances (does anyone seriously think that someone is going to try and destroy a plane with a shoe bomb or a combination of liquids?) I also struggle with the service issues.

I have found that I can get a cheap ticket even two weeks before my departure but that the moment I go to book the flight, the price changes and I am forced to start over. And I know longer check my baggage since they charge you for your checked bags. I now ship my gear instead of lugging it to the airport; yes, it is a little more expensive but it gets to where I need it and I don’t have to worry about the bags being torn up.

And besides, I have to fly out of New York City in order to get any sort of cheap flight. I remember when the airlines were deregulated back in the early days of the Reagan administration. Just as today, there was this cry about getting government out of the way of business. Well, we have seen what happened with oil exploration and the way airlines are going today makes it very clear that while deregulation may help businesses, it does very, very little for the people.

It appears, at least as far as I can see, that all that has happened following deregulation of the airlines is that it robbed many of the smaller airports of service. And if there is service, it is prohibitively expensive. So I no longer can fly out of the regional airport that is fifteen minutes from my home.

Now, the airlines, especially in the past few years, have always charged you for changing your mind. You booked a cheap fare, you had better keep it.

And they have begun charging you for the simple snacks that they serve. But this past Wednesday (May 26^th), I found out just how far the airlines (or at least one airline) will go to take every dollar from you that they can.

I knew from experience that the flight I had booked might be oversold. So I got to the airport early with the intention of volunteering for a bump as I have done in the past only to find out that I would have to pay a charge to fly standby. And after choosing the last seat on the plane, I find that I can pay for extra leg room or a more premium type of seat. Neither option is viable at this time. When I inquired about volunteering to move to the exit rows, I found that I would have to pay a fee. Those must have been the seats with the extra leg room that I passed up earlier.

I will not name this airline but I can say that while the skies were very friendly, the ground personnel were not. Weather-wise, this was the first time in all of my flying that the plane had to be diverted to an alternate airport because it was low on fuel. May 26^th was not a good day to fly as thunderstorms blanketed the Midwest from Chicago to Denver. I don’t know what it was like in Chicago but when we finally got to Denver, ground personnel handed each of the departing passengers a sheet of paper with a number to call about the status of our reservation and a number to reserve a hotel room. No other information was provided. And of course, because of the severity of the storms and the disruption on the system, both phone lines had lengthy delays.

So I spent Thursday morning in, what is for me, the new Denver International Airport trying with so many others to get some sleep and prepare to get to my destination. Fortunately, the airport (and not the airline) was prepared to hand out sleeping mats, blankets, and a bottle of water.

Everyone must have one trip that borders on the disastrous or ridiculous; this has to be mine. But this trip and how the airline handled the flight reflect what I believe is going on in this country.

The reason for my flight delay was not the airline’s fault; the flight crew did their best to get me to my destination. The weather just prevented them from doing so. And when it is weather that causes flight problems, airlines are not required to offer compensation or assistance. Giving the passengers the numbers of the airline and the hotel booking company was all they are required to do.

These types of situation used to fall in the “acts of God” category and were, thus, exempt from corporate actions. But I am reminded that the single most important act of God was to send His Son so that we may be saved from slavery to sin and death. We make a big deal these days about being a Christian country but our actions sure don’t reflect that.

Our interests seem to be in the bottom line, the profits a company makes. It should be, no matter what the industry, on the people that the industry serves. The most important person flying on a commercial airline is not the most frequent flyer but the flyer that only flies once or twice a year. I am not saying that those who frequently fly shouldn’t be rewarded since they have to endure this stuff far more than the occasional flyer but if you treat the occasional flyer poorly, they may not fly again. Or if they fly again, it won’t be on that airline that treated them so poorly.

Our nation’s focus on the bottom line, to cut costs so as to increase profits, does not do well when there is a crisis. Be it the disaster in the Gulf, the mining disaster in West Virginia, or a stack of late airplane flights over the Denver International airport, the desire to keep the bottom line profitable for the short term will have long term negative effects.

But to keep the eye on the bottom line prevents one from keeping the focus on the people being served. I am not against any company making a profit; hey, that’s what you got into the business for. But when your focus is on the profit, and how much money a few privileged individuals can make, instead of the service you are providing, you have forgotten why you began the business in the first place.

I realize that I probably will have to fly to get to many places in this country. I have thought many times about taking the train but it is not always a good trade off. For essentially the same price that I paid for my airline ticket, I could have taken the train. But the time spent traveling would have been greater on the train and you have to make some decisions as to how fast you want to get to your destination and how much time you have to travel. And next year, I will have the same choices to make. As I plan for that trip, I will consider many factors about how I will get there. But one thing is for certain, the way in which this particular airline handled the problem means that I will probably not utilize their service next year.

I think that we, as a nation, have seen too many instances where profits are more important than people. I think it is time that we change that view.

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Cross-posted to RedBlueChristian