By Michael Cole

 

Facebook, Twitter, the Coffee pot in the break room. Find one of those and eventually you will find a discussion in politics. Whether it is local, state, or Federal; you will find some person or group talking politics.

And it is always the same,

Darn Government is raising our taxes again.

Can you believe that so and so got caught doing…

I can’t vote for (insert party) they are all crooks.

And of my all time favorites

Things would be different if I were in charge.

Unfortunately, most Americans are all bluster and no action when it comes to politics. We talk about rugged individualism, we talk about self determination, we talk about choice.

But that is usually all we do, we talk.

We want new roads, and talk about how bad the current ones are.

We want better utilities in the area, such as high speed internet, we moan and complain.

We want to end homelessness; eradicate illiteracy; any host of problems that plague our society on a local, state, or federal level.

We complain.

Then we turn the page and move on.

Some of us protest, some of us organize into groups to bring awareness.

We protest for change, yet that is all we do.

We are now talking in groups.

Then after the protest is done, the march over, the protest postcard or letter mailed, we go on with our lives.

We pat ourselves on the back for bringing awareness to a problem.

But what does bringing awareness solve?

The hungry are still hungry.

There are still stray animals.

The list goes on and on.

Americans have become comfortably numb to the problems they hate.

Somehow along the way, we felt that talking about them was a way to make them go away. That is a group therapy session.

And here we are.

Because of our apathy, we live in a nation that everyone has to admit it has room for growth. I drive around my county and see both hardship and promise. I see a mess of problems, but I also see a host of solutions, if we want them.

But I am not talking more government. There are things government cannot do, and things that government just will not do.

And to be honest, we have waited far to long on government to fix many of these local problems.

It is time for us to say that if the two parties are not going to act on what is important to the people here locally, we need to come together and do it ourselves.

We see the problems, and many of us have solutions. But, we do not know how to work it, or have the resources to do it. Together we can solve a host of problems that many have talked about, that government has talked about.

But no one has been about to do anything about.

I am starting (or in this case, restarting) a local charity. I call it By the People, For the People. Right now all it has is a Facebook page, but I want it to be a force for change in the area.

What we accomplish will depend on those involved. But I want it to be something that the whole community can be proud of.

I think that the mission of this charity is best summed up by Pope Francis

 

You pray for the hungry. Then you feed them. That’s how prayer works.