Last April I wrote this article on the at-the-time democratic party slogan for shared sacrifice. On this gloomy March morning, in a week where we have had yet another school shooting, gas prices are on the threshold of becoming the highest ever, and presidential candidates are on a repeated debate on woman’s reproductive organs, I felt it was the perfect time to repost this. I look forward to hearing your additions, thoughts, vents or any added commentary you have…
The talk from the Democratic Party right now is “Shared Sacrifice”. What they mean is shared sacrifice for both parties on Capitol Hill but how does that translate to the rest of the country? The bigger question is while they are debating what sacrifices both parties will make, why aren’t they really taking into what the American public is willing to sacrifice?
Of course, the lower and middle classes are constantly sacrificing. We are the ones that continue to suffer when paying higher gas prices. We are the ones affected every time there are tax changes and don’t even bother to question the sacrifice that everyone affected by the two hundred and forty tornadoes last week have to make while they wait for assistance. Sacrifices that come with no notice, with no control, with no explanation constantly affect us and we make up the largest part of this country.
I feel that “shared sacrifice” should be a campaign for the entire country; not just the Democratic Party for a sales pitch. Shared sacrifice is something we can all adapt to while living our everyday lives. We have all become greedy and in order to get to a place of productivity and balance again as a society, we are going to have to let go and compromise a little bit. Take what has been happening in Wisconsin and many other states over the last four months for example. The people of Wisconsin said yes, we will make compromises to what needs to be done to balance the budget. As we then saw, that did not matter to Scott Walker and the very wealthy Koch brothers. They went on to change the format of the bill so that it wasn’t even associated with the budget and they could vote legally, without the fourteen democrats in Illinois, to get rid of collective bargaining rights. Who in this situation was not willing to have shared sacrifice? Certainly not the group that continues to sacrifice.
As we are already getting the jargon from many “wanna be” candidates for the 2012 election, I want to see someone take responsibility for what they have done wrong, and make a real plan where we will all a part in fixing our countries situation. Everyone from the poor to the rich, all on board, then we will get some major changes in the right direction. Our government has got to start working with its constituents and all adapt a “Shared Sacrifice” way of thinking. The democrats at least had the words correctly, now we just need to get those words into physical action, not just whispered off the lips of one party on Capitol Hill.
Last October, Jon Stewart and Steve Colbert held a ‘Rally to Restore Sanity’ on the mall in Washington D.C. During this rally, Jon Stewart mentioned how we, in our everyday lives work together and compromise. He uses the Lincoln Tunnel to get his point across. This is the only video I could find that had the images of the cars flowing from nine lanes of traffic into two to get through the tunnel. Thank you mantypants on youtube for this video. Now here, I will let Jon Stewart add to my point.