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Traditionally, American values are individual freedom and self-reliance, equality of opportunity and competition, the American dream and hard work. My generation grew up at a time when we could all realize the dream of owning our own home, having plenty of food in the pantry, and with some effort, sending our children to college, even having a reasonably comfortable retirement. All of that has changed.
While the salaries of CEO’s and other high-ranking employees have sky-rocketed, the salaries of middle and lower class employees have stagnated or even lowered based on cost of living increases. No one can afford an apartment on a minimum (or even two minimum) wage jobs. Achieving the dream of a college education no longer guarantees a good job and leaves hundreds of thousands of students thousands of dollars in debt. We charge college students a much higher interest rate than we do Wall Street corporations. We tell them they must get an education to obtain a good job, then we crush them with debt. One-third of fast food workers have Bachelor’s degrees. They are not lazy, they are not afraid to work hard. They just have no opportunity.
In the 60s and 70s, we marched for racial equality and women’s rights. Now we have voter suppression of minorities, women, and the elderly. Reproductive rights for women are rapidly going down the drain. Abortion is still a constitutional right, but in many states, it’s extremely difficult and expensive to obtain. Planned Parenthood provides health care for 2.5 million women and only 2% of it is abortion services. Yet, politicians want to close Planned Parenthood clinics. Now elderly people and minorities who have never had a driver’s license can’t vote without a photo ID. One state closed almost all of the DMV offices in a county (and left one open only a few hours a week) that is 90% African-American, making it virtually impossible to get a state-issued photo ID. In Texas college students cannot use their school issued photo ID to vote, but you can use your gun permit….
There is no educational opportunity for school children in inner cities when their schools are infested with rats, the pipes are leaking onto their desks and funding for public education keeps dwindling. Now some politicians are trying to eliminate the free breakfast program at schools. How can you learn on an empty stomach?
America has always been about helping people … helping them get jobs, get an education, get health care and housing. Now we have a new generation of military veterans suffering from PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, lost limbs… And yet the politicians are cutting funding for the health care we promised them when we sent them to fight and die half-way around the world.
So what are the new American values? The republican party has created a list of American values as they see them:
*Protecting and preserving traditional marriage – even though 1 in 2 marriages ends in divorce.
*Creating a culture of hope: raising families beyond poverty – but they are fighting increases to the minimum wage and some have even said we shouldn’t have a minimum wage. Donald Trump says Americans make too much money.
*Adoption and foster care – thousands of children needing a home, but according to republicans those kids are better off without a family than a family with two moms or two dads.
*Repealing Obamacare – but they have yet to produce a plan that would help Americans access health care.
*Protecting individual conscience in health care – meaning your pharmacist can refuse to give you the birth control pills your doctor has prescribed.
If you’ve been paying attention during this presidential campaign, here are what seem to be the new American values:
Racism, intolerance, bigotry, violence, misogony, discrimination, an ever growing divide between “us and them”. We can do better. We owe it to future generations to do better.
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