Complacency and Current Social Issues: H.O.W. Must Happen Now!

“self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies”

What a great definition for a disease spreading around the world. To put it another way, complacency is being satisfied with the current state of affairs all the while being clueless that the poop is about to hit the fan!

“Don't let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth - don't let that get swallowed up by the great chewing complacency.”
Aesop

Character and values swallowed up by the great chewing complacency! What a great description of today’s world! Think not? Well then read on if you will!

We had barely finished reading about a shooting at a shopping mall in Oregon when our comfy little world was knocked off its axis by the horrors at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Millions cried out in horror. Donations were taken for the victims, editorials were written and tears flowed, as the world tried to comprehend yet another horror against humanity. Children were hugged a little tighter by their parents, gun control became the hot topic, and promises to do better were issued by politicians.

And then we went about the business of living once again.

The wolves are howling at our door and yet we do not hear, and worse, we do not act.

2012 has been quite a year for mass shootings. To date, there have been 79 killed and 95 wounded this past year in these senseless acts of violence. The shootings happened in Norcross, Chardon, Pittsburg and Oakland. They happened in Seattle, Auburn, Tuscaloosa and Aurora. From Oak Creek to Old Bridge, from Minneapolis to Brookfield and Clackamas, our world was briefly shattered, and yes, they happened in Newtown as well. In the aftermath of each one, donations were taken, editorials written, and tears flowed. Children were hugged a little tighter by their parents, gun control became the hot topic, and promises to do better were issued by the politicians.

And then we went about the business of living once again.

In truth, over 8,700 citizens in the United States were firearm fatalities in 2012. Eighty-seven hundred human beings suffered the pain and indignity of having a small piece of metal invade their bodies at incredible speed and strike them dead. One moment they were here, going about their daily lives, and the next they were gone, the latest in a statistic that can in no way be considered an anomaly.

The wolves are howling at our door and yet we do not hear, and worse, we do not act.

The housing market is fine in the United States provided you aren’t one of the 650,000 who are homeless. That is a statement born of complacency.

The housing market is fine in the world provided you aren’t one of the 100 million who are homeless, or one of the additional 1.6 billion who have inadequate housing. That is a statement born of complacency!

Remember the definition of complacency: self-satisfaction accompanied by cluelessness! In other words, we think all is well as long as the wolves haven’t found our door.

Fifty million people in the United States living below the poverty level, but all is fine because we have our big-screen television and two cars in the garage. Complacency!

We all know the human trafficking figures. We all know it is happening around the world and yes, in the United States, as supply meets demand and the only cost is the life of yet another innocent child. We know it is happening in Portland, St. Louis, Sacramento, Washington D.C., Cleveland and a city near you, but all is fine as long as our children are safe. Complacency!

We all know that pornography sites flood the internet. We all know that prostitution quite often involves girls and young women forced to perform unmentionable acts but hell yes, all is fine as long as we can see our child sleeping peacefully in bed. Complacency!

Billions are spent each year to influence the votes of our Congressional leaders. Billions! Those dollars are spent by the war machine and the alcohol industry. They are spent by the NRA and the drug industries, and they are spent by the oil and banking lobbyists as well.

Compare that to the amount of money spent by lobbyists who have the average citizens’ interests at heart. Do you honestly believe for a second that your representatives in Congress are looking out for your best interests?

Millions of American Veterans cannot get the benefits that they deserve; on any given night over 100,000 Veterans are homeless. Considering the fact that they fought for our freedom, that is 100,000 too many.

But all is well in suburbia because Joe and Paula Average managed to make their credit card payments this month. Complacency!

I was deeply touched by the outpouring of love, from around the world, for the Sandy Hook families, just as I was deeply touched by the outpouring of love following the twelve mass shootings prior to Newtown. I’m sure the families were deeply touched, and I’m sure those who gave donations and sent letters of condolence shared in the sorrow. Perhaps they were even moved to write a letter to the White House demanding change, or they wrote a song or poem in honor of the fallen.

All well and good, until a few weeks pass and it is back to business as normal.

All the while the wolves howl at our door, and we once again fail to hear and worse, we once again fail to act.

How many more must die before we are slapped out of our complacency? How many more children need to be stolen in the night from shopping malls, and how many more homeless need to die on park benches in the richest nation on earth?

Everything is not alright as long as we can afford cable television. Everything is not alright as long as we have gas for our SUV and our children are receiving a good education in their private school. Raise up a glass of champagne and toast the good times, and thank God it hasn’t happened to us….yet!

The donations have been made, and the condolences sent, and now it’s back to normal, except that the normal is getting a bit scarier with each passing month…..and if we do not continue to cry out, if we do not continue to demand change, and if we do not continue to feel the pain of others, we will be walking, talking, breathing examples of complacency.

We are not done just because we sent a donation to Sandy Hook! We are not done because we donated an old blanket to the Homeless Center, and we are not done because we righteously decried the illegal drug trade or bought a flag pin from a Veteran at Safeway. Nice acts for sure, but they equate to lovingly placing a Band Aid over a cancerous tumor.

We need to make this world a better place to live in. We need to make our communities safer and our homes temples of learning and love. We need to do those things because we can’t count on our leaders to do them for us.

We are all in this together, and the sooner everyone wakes up to that fact the better. Find out what you can do, not after a disaster, but right now, today, to make a difference in this world.

Do not let the wolves keep howling and do nothing. Shake off the complacency and demand change; be an instrument of change; and show others H.O.W. to affect change.

Now, while there is still time!

2012 William D. Holland (aka billybuc)