Social Problems: A Call To Arms

If a voice screams in the wilderness and nobody is there, does it make a sound?

That is the question I asked myself when I woke up this morning. Am I being heard? Am I making a difference with my rants and philosophical discussions about life? Is there any point in my continuing?

“I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestioned ability of a man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.” Henry David Thoreau

We are seven billion strong on this planet, each with our own needs, concerns, desires, dreams, defeats and victories. Such a disparate group and yet so similar. There are days I want to know each and every one of my fellow inhabitants; there are also days when I want to roll the stone across the opening of my personal cave and have nothing to do with most.

I am in awe of mankind! I despise our inhumanity! I love our possibilities! I hate our self-imposed restrictions! I walk down the street and smile at another person and feel the warmth of our commonalities, then read in the paper about our greed, our selfishness, and our lack of compassion and empathy.

What do I do about it all? How do I find a happy balance? How do I reach out to the millions and teach them to live as one? How do I make others see the insanity of our current lifestyle? What can I say that will finally shed light on a universal truth, that only through humility and love can we find happiness and accord as a civilization?

You have all heard the statistics. The top one percent of this nation controls 40% of the wealth. We are no longer a country with a poverty class, lower class, middle class, upper-middle class, and wealthy. Nearly 47 million Americans are living at poverty level, or roughly one in every seven. We are well on our way to being a two-class system, the poor and the rich, and although millions of people realize this fact, nothing is being done.

We pass the poor on the streets daily and turn our heads in an attempt to block out a reality that resides all too close to home. The unions have been slowly disappearing in this country for decades, jobs are being outsourced in the name of profit, and our government is now of the rich, for the rich and by the rich.

We turn our heads, for as long as it isn’t happening to us, let’s not acknowledge it and maybe it will go away. There was a song by Garth Brooks several years ago called “Wolves.” A haunting song, it spoke of a farmer and his family who had to leave their farm because of foreclosure. It is the last line of the song that I remember best: “Lord keep me from being, the one the wolves pull down.”

Well folks, there are more and more of our fellow citizens being pulled down by the wolves, but these wolves dress in three-piece suits and dangle American Dream carrots in front of us, hoping to keep us in line. The truly frightening thing….it is working.

Say hello to one of the leading industries in America: drugs! This is a $400 billion industry that shows no signs of diminishing. As could be expected, areas where there is heavy drug marketing also have higher percentages of violent crime. Do not be deceived in thinking that this is unique only to the poor among us. Illegal drug use spans the entire spectrum of our society. Evidently, “just say no” didn’t work!

Our response as a society is to live in gated communities, lock up tight at night, jail the offenders and hope the boogie man goes away by morning. Unfortunately, the boogie man looks just like you and me.

So we turn our heads, stare off in the other direction, and pray that we’re not the one the wolves pull down.

Oh, how sneaky thou art! Gone are the white, hooded robes of hatred. No longer do we see burning crosses and “Whites Only” signs on businesses, but still….racism is alive and well, lurking in the shadows, whispering the vileness spawned by ignorance and fear.

If you can’t see it then it must not exist, right? Oh how silly you are if you believe that! Racism is no longer in your face, demanding attention, for that would not be politically correct, and in today’s society we are all about PC, right? No, racism is covert, slinking just under the surface like some mythical creature that can’t be killed. It is embedded in the very fabric of our culture, allowed to fester because, once again, we turn our heads, stare off in the other direction, and pray that some day we are not singled out by the wolves as being different, and pulled down.

Who will save the children of Spirit Lake Nation? Who will save the children who are forced into sex slavery and prostitution? Who will save the children who are abused daily, no matter the nature of the abuse, be it physical, mental, sexual, or emotional? Who will save them?

The numbers are staggering! 1.25 million children are abused each year in the United States. Four die each day from abuse. Human sex trafficking is a $32 billion industry and in the United States between 100,000-300,000 children are sold as sex slaves each year. Child pornography is a $3 billion business in the United States and there are 100,000 pornographic websites for viewing pleasure, 55% of which involve children.

Still, we turn our heads, stare off in the other directions, and pray it isn’t our child who the wolves pull down.

No, it is not big business nor is it the banking system. It is not the drug pushers or the porno kings. It is not the racist, it is not the government and it is not the Islamic Nation.

Our greatest enemy, our primary foe in this fight for humanity, is complacency! As a society we have allowed it all to happen. We welcomed the wolves by turning our heads. We stood by as our government sold out America in favor of globalization. We stood by as children were abused and drugs held court in our neighborhoods. We heard the racial slurs, witnessed the de-humanization, read the reports, and did nothing.

Thoreau had it right! We must raise our level of humanness by conscious endeavor. I have a responsibility to speak out against these atrocities of modern civilization. I have been given the gift of the written word, and it is my calling to use those words to bring awareness to as many as possible.

A voice in the wilderness? Perhaps, but maybe another voice will join me, and then another, until one voice has the strength of many, and a chorus of voices, singing in harmony, will have an effect on the status quo.

Is it a worthwhile endeavor? I will let you answer that for yourselves. What is the value of one life? What is the value of one child’s happiness and well-being? What price tag do we attach to a life without bigotry, greed, sexual-exploitation or poverty?

Yes it is worthwhile! I could not live with myself if I did not speak out. I was not raised to snuggle under the covers, content in the knowledge that the wolves are in another part of town. It is beneath me as a human being to be complacent when others are suffering.

I am not a rich man, nor am I in a position of power so that I can affect outcomes in a board meeting or strategy session. I am a simple man with simple powers, but I am not helpless. As long as I have the ability to write, I will be heard. As long as I have a voice, I will be heard.

I owe it to the poor. I owe it to the children. I owe it to those who suffer racism.

And I owe it to myself!

2012 William D. Holland (aka billybuc)