How did we get to where we are today? Has some kind of mistake been made, or am I just getting to the age when things make less sense, because I can't help but thinking that absurdity has somehow taken precedence. It is a disbelief - disbelief in what I hear, read, watch and observe about current happenings in our country.
There has been a startling increase in racial and religious intolerance at McCain rallies, and a few highly regarded Washington insiders (David Gergen to name one) have called out the campaign for its lack of action. We live in an age of information, yet so much misinformation gets salience.
In this age of misinformation, 10 percent of the population still thinks Barack Obama is Muslim, and over 30 percent don't know if he is or isn't. How is this possible? And how is it possible that this number has risen among republicans since June? He is the democratic nominee for the President of the United States, after all, and this leads me to believe it is either willful ignorance or a willful campaign of misinformation. Either way, it doesn't bode well for the American people.
Furthermore, since 1972, we have lost hundreds of thousands of $20 an hour factory jobs that once meant employment for a large portion of middle class Americans, the dominant populace of this country. However, at the same time, CEO wages and salary income increased from 30 times the average worker's wage to over 400 times. What may be more incredible is that during this same period the wage and salary income for the top 99 percent has increased almost 87 percent and for the top 99.99 percent it has increased 497 percent. Warren Buffet, the third richest man in the world, blasted the U.S. tax system for permitting him to pay less taxes than his secretary.
In 2005, a U.S. city was nearly destroyed by a hurricane, and our response was tragicly inadequate. In 2007, a bridge collapsed in Minneapolis, killing 13 people, and still 30 percent of our bridges are 'structurally deficient'. In the recent years we have foodborne illness outbreaks of salmonella (four outbreaks), e. coli (two) and botulism.
Over 41 million people in our major cities are affected by contaminated drinking water in the United States. We've lost 4183 young lives in a war of choice (4044 since 'Mission Accomplished'), with over 30,000 more injured. We've appropriated over $600 billion to the war but haven't actually paid a dime for it yet. What happenswhen we have to close that tab?
We graduate less than 50 percent of urban youths while their suburban counterparts graduate over 75 percent. Over 11 percent of our nation's children are uninsured (almost 9 million). More than 60 percent of the people in prison are now racial and ethnic minorities. For black males in their 20s, one in every eight is in prison or jail on any given day.
Are we heeding any of these warning signs?
Has acquiesence set in? In recent weeks, I'm continuously reminded of a Kurt Vonnegut quote from Breakfast of Champions,"" stating: ""The girl ... kept her poor greyhound, who was named Lancer, in a one-room apartment 14 feet wide and 26, and six flights of stairs above street level. His entire life was devoted to unloading his excrement at the proper time and place ... Lancer had a very small brain, but he must have suspected from time to time...that some kind of terrible mistake had been made.""
The final straw just may be the collapse of our financial system and the impending deep recession. I can only hope this will give everyone time to pause for a prolonged period of reflection to get their heads straight and break out of this funk.
The most important question is how we will respond. The above numbers show us failing in so many social and structural areas that it is hard to comprehend. I just hope we haven't forgotten what it means to act. The absurd has indeed become audacious, and pernicious. We might need Vonnegut, the great absudist, more than ever these days to make any sense of the current mess of things.
Joseph Koss is a junior majoring in secondary education and social studies. We welcome your feedback. Please send responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
