While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Bad role models                                       Poverty/Welfare
No telephone skills                                   Billions of Foreign Aid
Lack of respect/civility                             Military Waste
No accountability                                     Lobbyists and Greed
Inadequate education                                Tax Evasion
Zombies/Horror are funny                        Religious Fanaticism
Too much junk food                                 Healthcare & Fuel Costs



Emboldened by a conversation on the phone at work with Contractor Keith, I am agitated to the point of taking risks. The maze has trapped us and no one has a map to the exit. Constantly turning down dark alleys has taken us ever further away from solutions. Their is no leadership with a true desire to be part of planning a way forward, only egos seeking power and money.

Keith and I are now connected. Even though we have different backgrounds, education, locations and political beliefs, we agree that America is in deep trouble. The significance of our phone call on Tuesday has caused me to get very worked up again about this crisis. I was pushed over the edge yesterday when a friend at my work place was terminated. A smart, calm, friendly guy, a man who had quickly become part of our team, our work family, was suddenly dismissed.

These 2 events have set me off and find my brain churning and my fingers shaking. I am hopeful I can make a point in the next 3 paragraphs that will cause you to action. George Harrison emphasizes my point:


I look at the trouble and see that it's raging,
While my guitar gently weeps.
As I'm sitting here, doing nothing but ageing,
Still, my guitar gently weeps.

America is beyond the tipping point. This is about the economy, education, false idols, and the shift in American values. The people under 40 at my work place have grown up playing violent video games, wasting their education, and disrespecting authority. They are distracted by "reality TV", play fantasy sports, get no nutrition from junk food, do not have conversation skills, spend hours texting nonsense, love zombies and horror, and idolize and emulate people like Snoop Dog, Snookie, and Lindsay Lohan.

Keith is the owner of a large contracting company and has to have skilled carpenters in his employ. His workers spend every day in our customer's homes and they have to communicate with respect and personality while working efficiently and thoroughly. Think about the pool of 20-30 something men he has to choose from and realize how hard it is for him to maintain his professional service company.

My company hires hourly retail staff. They pay peanuts and get monkeys. Young people who are lazy, overweight, under educated, with no work ethic, and little desire to improve. Our retail staff is reminded endlessly that customer service is paramount and that positive customer feedback is essential. Yet the company does no customer service training nor does it screen potential workers for interpersonal skills, telephone skills, or sales skills. They look at the pool of candidates on a weekly basis and if an individual has no criminal background, doesn't have drugs show up in their pee test, shows up to interviews on time, and are desperate enough to sit still and be moderately polite during their interview, they are head and shoulders above their peers.

It is a sad state of affairs. During the past 20 years as our major corporations have focused on their stock values, lowered their costs and improved their profits by moving manufacturing jobs and customer service phone jobs overseas, we have lost the middle class. The reason these jobs are gone is not only because labor is cheaper overseas, but also because without unions and watch dog organizations like the ACLU, overseas workers can be brow beaten to get results, given no benefits, and still appreciate their opportunity to work.

OK that's 4 paragraphs and I'm just getting started. We have to have this conversation. More people have to speak up and we have to provoke more voices like yours to tell the truth about our real problems.

1. The solutions to this mess DOES include collecting more taxes from tax evading corporations and millionaires.
2. The solution DOES include more jobs created to fix our crumbling infrastructure; roads, bridges, waterlines, dams, power grid, etc.
3. The solution DOES include health care for everyone and more sales tax on unhealthy products like cigarettes, junk food, and polluting vehicles.
4. The solution DOES include more exercise for our youth, more reading and less computer and cell phone time, better control over graduating illiterates.

TO BE CONTINUED SOON ..........  Please comment below