It's Not OK
It’s not ok to identify a problem and not solve it
It’s not ok to not recycle
It’s not ok to take advantage of someone
It’s not ok to ignore someone’s needs
It’s not ok to ignore someone’s rights
It’s not ok to feed our kids crappy school lunches
It’s not ok to not help each other
It’s not ok to lie
It’s not ok to be mean
It’s not ok to steal from someone
It’s not ok to not see the beauty in the world
It’s not ok to not take advantage of the opportunities that surround us – the beauty of the beach, the wonderful museums, events, etc.
It’s not ok to hurt someone
It’s not ok to make someone feel bad
It’s not ok to give up and just take it
Its’ not ok to ignore something. Fix it.
It’s not ok to be inconsiderate or selfish
It’s not ok to always be working or to work too hard
It’s not ok to duplicate efforts – for example, causes for cancer. If people with the same goals work together for the common good, we will get much further.
It’s not o.k. to not have friends
It’s not ok not to smile
It’s not ok to miss the little things
It’s not ok to not be free
It’s not ok to not make it better
It’s not ok for chemicals to be added to our food
It’s not ok to not be healthy
It’s not ok to be sad
It’s not ok to be overwhelmed
It’s not ok to be prejudice
It’s not ok to oppress others
It’s not ok to use our people as disposable items.
It’s not ok to not realize each and every person is important – that they are someone’s mother, father, child, spouse, friend.
It’s not ok for our soldiers to fight for our country and not get the support they need when they come back with injuries or post traumatic stress disorder
It’s not ok to not enjoy life
It’s not ok for lobbyists to persuade how our laws are made instead of our laws being made for the good of the people
It’s not ok for our politicians to not work for us
It’s not ok for our politicians to not work in our best interests
It’s not ok for someone to take away your (our) quality of life
It’s not ok to leave a mess someone else has to clean up
It’s not ok that there is a job where someone has to clean an animal with a toothbrush
It’s not ok to overfish our oceans
It’s not ok to hurt our environment
It’s not ok to be stressed out
It’s not ok to be frustrated
It’s not ok to not follow your dreams
It’s not ok to not achieve your potential
It’s not ok to not say it’s not ok
– – –
It’s ok to start a revolution.
It’s ok to do something.
It’s ok to be outraged to move to action.
It’s ok to change it.
Copyright August 6, 2011, Doreen Lenore Guma, All Rights Reserved
Visit my midlife crisis project — my goal is to make people smile again: www.timetoplay.com — Resources for a Better Life. Let’s help each other. Together we can make things better.
I read this a few days ago and felt this was pertinent to your mission/goal with Time to Play.
30 Years Ago Today: The Day the Middle Class Died …a letter from Michael Moore
Friday, August 5th, 2011
Friends,
From time to time, someone under 30 will ask me, “When did this all begin, America’s downward slide?” They say they’ve heard of a time when working people could raise a family and send the kids to college on just one parent’s income (and that college in states like California and New York was almost free). That anyone who wanted a decent paying job could get one. That people only worked five days a week, eight hours a day, got the whole weekend off and had a paid vacation every summer. That many jobs were union jobs, from baggers at the grocery store to the guy painting your house, and this meant that no matter how “lowly” your job was you had guarantees of a pension, occasional raises, health insurance and someone to stick up for you if you were unfairly treated.
Young people have heard of this mythical time — but it was no myth, it was real. And when they ask, “When did this all end?”, I say, “It ended on this day: August 5th, 1981.”
Beginning on this date, 30 years ago, Big Business and the Right Wing decided to “go for it” — to see if they could actually destroy the middle class so that they could become richer themselves.
And they’ve succeeded.
On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired every member of the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) who’d defied his order to return to work and declared their union illegal. They had been on strike for just two days.
It was a bold and brash move. No one had ever tried it. What made it even bolder was that PATCO was one of only three unions that had endorsed Reagan for president! It sent a shock wave through workers across the country. If he would do this to the people who were with him, what would he do to us ?
Reagan had been backed by Wall Street in his run for the White House and they, along with right-wing Christians, wanted to restructure America and turn back the tide that President Franklin D. Roosevelt started — a tide that was intended to make life better for the average working person. The rich hated paying better wages and providing benefits. They hated paying taxes even more. And they despised unions. The right-wing Christians hated anything that sounded like socialism or holding out a helping hand to minorities or women.
Reagan promised to end all that. So when the air traffic controllers went on strike, he seized the moment. In getting rid of every single last one of them and outlawing their union, he sent a clear and strong message: The days of everyone having a comfortable middle class life were over. America, from now on, would be run this way:
* The super-rich will make more, much much more, and the rest of you will scramble for the crumbs that are left.
* Everyone must work! Mom, Dad, the teenagers in the house! Dad, you work a second job! Kids, here’s your latch-key! Your parents might be home in time to put you to bed.
* 50 million of you must go without health insurance! And health insurance companies: you go ahead and decide who you want to help — or not.
* Unions are evil! You will not belong to a union! You do not need an advocate! Shut up and get back to work! No, you can’t leave now, we’re not done. Your kids can make their own dinner.
* You want to go to college? No problem — just sign here and be in hock to a bank for the next 20 years!
* What’s “a raise”? Get back to work and shut up!
And so it went. But Reagan could not have pulled this off by himself in 1981. He had some big help:
The AFL-CIO.
The biggest organization of unions in America told its members to cross the picket lines of the air traffic controllers and go to work. And that’s just what these union members did. Union pilots, flight attendants, delivery truck drivers, baggage handlers — they all crossed the line and helped to break the strike. And union members of all stripes crossed the picket lines and continued to fly.
Reagan and Wall Street could not believe their eyes! Hundreds of thousands of working people and union members endorsing the firing of fellow union members. It was Christmas in August for Corporate America.
And that was the beginning of the end. Reagan and the Republicans knew they could get away with anything — and they did. They slashed taxes on the rich. They made it harder for you to start a union at your workplace. They eliminated safety regulations on the job. They ignored the monopoly laws and allowed thousands of companies to merge or be bought out and closed down. Corporations froze wages and threatened to move overseas if the workers didn’t accept lower pay and less benefits. And when the workers agreed to work for less, they moved the jobs overseas anyway.
And at every step along the way, the majority of Americans went along with this. There was little opposition or fight-back. The “masses” did not rise up and protect their jobs, their homes, their schools (which used to be the best in the world). They just accepted their fate and took the beating.
I have often wondered what would have happened had we all just stopped flying, period, back in 1981. What if all the unions had said to Reagan, “Give those controllers their jobs back or we’re shutting the country down!”? You know what would have happened. The corporate elite and their boy Reagan would have buckled.
But we didn’t do it. And so, bit by bit, piece by piece, in the ensuing 30 years, those in power have destroyed the middle class of our country and, in turn, have wrecked the future for our young people. Wages have remained stagnant for 30 years. Take a look at the statistics and you can see that every decline we’re now suffering with had its beginning in 1981 ( here’sa little scene to illustrate that from my last movie).
It all began on this day, 30 years ago. One of the darkest days in American history. And we let it happen to us. Yes, they had the money, and the media and the cops. But we had 200 million of us. Ever wonder what it would look like if 200 million got truly upset and wanted their country, their life, their job, their weekend, their time with their kids back?
Have we all just given up? What are we waiting for? Forget about the 20% who support the Tea Party — we are the other 80%! This decline will only end when we demand it. And not through an online petition or a tweet. We are going to have to turn the TV and the computer and the video games off and get out in the streets (like they’ve done in Wisconsin). Some of you need to run for local office next year. We need to demand that the Democrats either get a spine and stop taking corporate money — or step aside.
When is enough, enough? The middle class dream will not just magically reappear. Wall Street’s plan is clear: America is to be a nation of Haves and Have Nothings. Is that OK for you?
Why not use today to pause and think about the little steps you can take to turn this around in your neighborhood, at your workplace, in your school? Is there any better day to start than today?
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
P.S. Here are a few places you can connect with to get the ball rolling:
Showdown in America
Democracy Convention
Occupy Wall Street
October 2011
How to Join a Union, from the AFL-CIO(They’ve learned their lesson and have a good president now) or UE
Change to Win
MoveOn
High School Newspaper(Just because you’re under 18 doesn’t mean you can’t do anything!)
Kim — this is amazing. Enough is enough. Thank you.
I’d must check with you here. Which is not one thing I usually do! I get pleasure from studying a put up that can make people think. Additionally, thanks for permitting me to remark!
I am trying to make people think. . . education is power. . . and people with power can change the world. Thank you for your comment!