Listen Carefully and Scream Louder

Today I wondered why we don't scream louder at the injustices of the world.  I have been watching many people on the news talk about what should be done.  What a great luxury it is to have your own talk show and spew out all that is wrong with the world.  When do we take action?  How do we take action?  We can't even agree on who should be in charge of a women's body!  While the pre-election debates and commentaries take place, I am frustrated to hear so many conflicting reports from people who are so sure that they are right.  And the more heated they get, the nastier they get.  I can't even watch a network reporter without feeling that he/she is biased.  What happpened to unbiased reporting?  I try to focus on on the 3-4 minutes of information.  Here are the issues that concern me:

Education - what the hell is going on in our public schools?  How is it possible that this has not been a priority for our communities?  As parents, my husband and I send our children to private school.  We chose a school that is a Jewish Day School with a dual language program. We sweat every year to make it possible for our children to attend this school and we believe that they are in the best place for them and for us.  My husband and I are lucky; we make it work.  What about those who can't afford to choose where they want their kids to go to school? Education has changed so much here in Los Angeles.  When I was growing up, I knew very few (and I mean very few) kids that went to private school.  When you planned on having kids, you moved into the area with good schools and that was it, your kids went to the neighborhood schools with all the other kids. I hope we can figure it out soon.

Women's issues - I am not sure how to make this any clearer - I do not want anyone telling me what I can or cannot do with my body.  That is the first issue.  Secondly, I want society to care about educating both men and women about equal rights, which means to me that men and women have the freedom to choose who and what they want to be in life.  Shouldn't we spend our energy teaching our children how to be productive members of society rather than she can't do this or he can't do that?  Man or woman, we should be able to teach our children that both sexes are our best partners and together we need to solve our communities problems and not create more.

Gay marriage - can't we just get this done already?  It is going to happen.  Let's just make it possible already.  I think it is ridiculous that we are preventing people who want to simply express their love for each other.  The weirdest part is that the heterosexual community is not that successful at it, so I am not sure why we feel we should prevent others from doing it.  This really takes up too much of our time and eventually it will happen, so let's just make it happen.  

Israel - I am Jewish and I want/need Israel to survive.  My generation does not know a world without Israel.  It scares me that there are people in the world who want the Jews to die (not just go away, but actually die) and this does not seem to get people crazy.  I want peace.  I want to help to achieve peace.  I want people in public office to also want to achieve peace.  I also want Amercians to support Israel simply because it is a thriving democratic society.  I hear Americans criticize Israel and I wonder if they criticize our country so harshly.  Maybe they do, and yet we still have our own problems to solve.

Poverty and homelessness - I don't even know where to begin.  The older I get, the sadder I get seeing so many homeless people in our society.  I drive by them or walk by them and feel guilty.  How is it that we have not fixed this problem? How is it that we allow people to live like this?  I understand that many of us allow ourselves luxuries, but after seeing Tom Shadyac's documentary I Am, I really wonder at what point do we stop collecting stuff?  Why are waiting in line for the next better phone when we just bought our phone within 6 months?  I feel guilty having the choice to write this blog on 4 different devices.  This ill in our society truly saddens me because I know that I am not doing all I can to help those who are suffering.

These are the issues I think about when I read and listen to "the experts."  And these are the issues that sometimes overwhelm me, scare me and upset me.   And sadly, these are the issues that I often feel powerless to fix. I promise to read more, watch more, listen carefully and scream louder and maybe together we can get something done.