Sometimes, when I’m deeply immersed in a thought, I have an awkward and uncomfortable expression on my face. I can’t help it; it’s my thinking face.
Inevitably, the uncomfortable mug I am sporting prods someone into asking me the question, “What’s wrong?” I usually brush it off by saying, “I was just thinking about this or that,” but today, today I feel like letting it all hang out.
So here is a brief list of what’s bothering me. Today. Here are a few of the things I see in our world as wrong.
Pink Houses
Between 1983 and 2003, profits for the world’s 200 richest companies rose above 300 percent. Yet this massive increase in wealth did not “trickle down” the way we were told it would.
Instead, American wages have either remained stagnant or declined. All the while, the cost of living ¬— everything from gas to health care — has gone up. And people, American people, are feeling that squeeze.
Unemployment now stands at more than 10 percent. Of course the real unemployment figure, when you include underemployment and people who just gave up, is closer to 20 percent. And for recent college graduates, it’s even worse. But those numbers don’t do the crisis justice.
According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, in 2007 the U.S. had a child-poverty rate of 37 percent, the highest in the developed world (even before the economy imploded).
Half of all U.S. kids will end up on food stamps at some point in time, and since the recession began, government figures show a doubling of American children going hungry.
At this time there are more than half a million children in America without enough to eat.
I don’t care what political leanings you hold, one American child going hungry is wrong. Half a million plus is a shame.
Companies whose profits rose to unprecedented heights were given the national checkbook to be bailed out without batting an eye. These acts of corporate socialism, we are told, are a necessary evil to save us all (by saving the companies that doomed us all).
Increased funding to welfare programs however, that’s evil government socialism that will doom us all to Maoist Lemmingdom.
Toxicity
A health care reform bill would most likely pass in some watered-down fashion in the coming months. As much of a piece of legislative sausage as it will be, anything the millions of Americans without health care can get will be an improvement.
But the end product will be full of giveaways to drug companies, doctors and whomever else they needed to bribe to get this passed.
And it will be too watered down to actually control costs so we will still spend more than any other country in the world on health care, while still not covering everyone.
This health care debate misses often the forest for the trees. The reason we spend too much and are way sicker than most other industrialized countries is simple; we regularly poison ourselves through the crap and toxins we eat, drink and breathe.
As long as millions of Americans line up for the BK quadruple bacon stacker with cheese with a large Diet Coke several times a week, we will have ridiculous costs associated with this behavior. We are still way too much of a fast food nation to make any real dent in health care costs.
And that’s just the poisons we intentionally consume. Write down five chemicals that are commonly found in your drinking water.
Did you write down acetone, arsenic, chloroform, lead or mercury? How about trace amounts of everything from birth control to cancer and AIDS’ medications?
Well, you are drinking this right out the faucet, so I thought I’d let you know.
Women in America and other industrialized countries get breast cancer at a level far higher than less developed countries. Something in our environment is causing that. We are poisoning ourselves.
Everything Else
There are too many things wrong in this world to name. Whether it is the giant plastic bottle island in the pacific that’s bigger than Texas or the Yankees winning the Series, there is something wrong almost everywhere you look.
We could just give up and stick our heads in the sand, or we can add it to the list of things to get done, and start checking off items.
What do you think is wrong? What are you going to do about it?
O’Connor is a senior studying political science and philosophy.
