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The World Is Going Crazy, and the White House is On Vacation Mode
by James Glaser July 21, 2014 
A civilian passenger plane gets shot out of the sky with 298 aboard, Iraq is being overrun by terrorists trying to set up their own country, Syria is still in a civil war, and Israel is killing Palestinians like they are fish in a barrel. On top of that, something I didn't know, and I bet you didn't either—we have active military operations going on in Mali, Barkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Nigeria, C.A.R. South Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda, Kenya, Djibouti, and Congo. I bet you haven't even heard of some of these countries, much less that we are at war there. Here is a map pointing out where these countries are. All those operations are in Africa, and I don't remember our media giving us any "heads-up" about what is going on there. We get to hear everything that is going wrong in the world if we are not directly involved, and especially if we shouldn't be involved, but who really knows what our military is doing, let alone what the CIA is doing? So we know much of the rest of the world is moving toward more chaos, but if you listen to President Obama and his administration, everything seems just fine. Of course, nobody wants to talk about the war going on here in America. "22 Shot in 12 Hours" —that was the headline from Chicago this week. It's not just killings in Chicago because every day we see video clips of some policeman killing a suspect someplace in America. We have tens of thousands of kids coming across our southern border wanting to be taken into custody, because they believe President Obama will allow them to stay, and the United States will take care of them. Meanwhile our schools report we already have a million plus homeless kids of our own whom we have not taken care of.
We have children, American children and their families living on the streets or in shelters, and we have children, American citizens, who go to bed hungry. Yet we have created a situation where we are compelled to take care of illegal immigrants before we care for our own children. Crime? Well we do have 2.4 million in our prisons now and that's 25% of the world's prison population, but the United States only has 5% of the world's total population. Here is a chart that shows where all those prisoners are housed. So we have wars and terrorists all around the world, tens of thousands of innocent kids coming here and expecting to be taken care of, millions of homeless Americans, crime in the streets, and then there's racism—oh I almost forgot about racism. Oh yeah, the National Debt, how could I forget about that? Watch this for just a minute, and you will understand that our debt is beyond mind-boggling. So, I know I have left out some things we should be concerned about and should be trying to fix, but it is really too depressing. It hurts my mind just thinking about it all. Oh, that's it! I guess that it's the same for President Obama — it must hurt his mind, too. But wait a minute. That's his job. He wanted to think about all these problems, he wanted to fix these problems, and he promised to do something about them. We pay the guy hundreds of thousands of dollars, and in his eight years in office he will make more money that 95% of Americans will make in their lifetimes. So, with all these needs, challenges, and crises on his plate, what is he going to do? You already know, because the media talks about it with carefree ease and approval. He is planning his next vacation. To be fair, very few Presidents get much good done. Heck George W. kept us in war, and I don't really feel that is a legacy that one should be proud of. Obama has kept us in war, too, and I feel the same about his legacy, but the man still has two and a half years to go. He could do something great, and we would sing his praises for hundreds of years. He knows he will be in our history books, you would think he would be spending every waking hour trying to do something, but about all we see and hear are photo ops and fund-raising and now vacation planning. Now you might say, "Jim, why are you begrudging the President a vacation?" I'm glad you asked. There are millions and millions of Americans who never get a vacation, and many of them work 60, 70 or more hours a week just to make ends meet. A person who takes on arguably the most important job in America, a job that they know will last only four years, should hit it hard six or even seven day a week and forget about vacations, shooting pool, or drinking beer. They know going in that American students are going to have to memorize their name, maybe their picture will be put on our money, schools will be named after them, and for generations to come their off-spring will talk about their relative who was President. With all of that riding on their performance I don't understand how a person can give less than their all. So If Barack Obama's claim to fame is that he was the first black man to become President. I guess that is enough to keep his name out there, but with nothing to show for an accomplishment other than a health care plan than might or might not work, I think I would be putting my shoulder to the wheel in hopes of being above average and maybe even great. So few get the chance to try — in fact, there have been fewer than fifty presidents in the whole history of our nation. Barack Obama has the choice. He can go down in history as another Millard Fillmore, or he can strive to be an FDR or a John Kennedy. I guess the choice is his, but what a waste to spend your time in history planning your vacation. We all hoped for something more from this President, and most of us prayed for something more, but it just doesn't look like it is going to happen. For the next several decades I am afraid that the Democrats and Republicans will have a never-ending argument about who was worse, Obama or Bush. Sad to say, I think it is a toss-up. |
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