I can't believe that the entire month of January flew by in the blink of an eye. There were many days that I sat at my computer with the intention to write but came up blank. So much has been going on with me personally and the world, at times it just felt overwhelming to pick a place to start.
The past few weeks the Middle East has exploded again with civil unrest. Starting in Tunisia when a man set himself on fire in protest to the government regime. Tunisia-a small Islamic country kicked off a series of revolutions throughout the Middle East with Egypt at the forefront of all the world news headlines. I'm shamed to say that until the protests started I had no idea that Egyptians were so unhappy and oppressed by their current President, President Mubarak. I've known of him only from our own government's praises that Egypt has been a staunch ally to the US all of these years. It's been 30 years that he has been in power and I do remember as a little girl in 1979-1980 ( I was 10) when the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat was assassinated and Murbarak came to power. President Jimmy Carter was in office.
The young people of Egypt took its cues from Tunisia and took to the streets in a united voice calling for the end of the corruption and brutality of Mubarak's regime. He is a stubborn and proud man and even as I write this he has not conceded to the people's wishes. I watched on Al Jezeera TV - stream on my computer, the peaceful protest that is happening now in the streets of Cairo. Over 2 million people have gathered and are in for the long haul until the president steps down. It is a very powerful sight to behold.
In these recent events and even looking at the state of political turmoil and resentment happening here at home in the United States, I wonder if revolution will ever take place again here. The climate is heating up for one but I'm unsure if the citizens of the United States have reached their tipping point yet. Speaking with my daddy a few weeks ago, I was venting on my frustration of not finding a job since I've been unemployed for a year and half and the insane process of receiving unemployment benefits. Some republicans wanted to cut the benefits after the initial 6 month allotment but President Obama has extended it multiple times now. THANK GOD for it. Even though my earnings have gone from $1500 a week to $400 a week it is SOMETHING. The audacity of the wealthy saying that people will become dependent on government assistance is absurd to me. There is no way I can ever get used to maintaining a lifestyle that I worked hard to achieve to basically poverty level. At 40 years old, I'm considering going back to school to get my master's degree but hesitate only because I don't want to acquire more debt of student loans and still have nothing available to me at a decent wage when I'm done earning my degree. Feels very much like damned if I do and damned if I don't. The divide of the wealthy and the poor is growing fast here in America and once the divide collapses to the majority being poor, I firmly believe the revolution will be televised. It's exactly what the country was founded on (revolution) and it would be remiss of the government to not keep this in the forefront of their decision making and political agendas on Capitol Hill.
No comments:
Post a Comment