-By Frank Hyland
If there is one complaint heard far more often than any other in today’s political climate, it is that those in Washington — those in power everywhere — don’t listen to We the People. The message is phrased a number of different ways and is issued by a good number of different groups and individuals, but the fundamental complaint is the same. In response, some politicians claim to be hearing the complaint and claim to represent a slice of America. Some politicians appear to be deaf when they respond that their efforts are, indeed, succeeding. Some, albeit still only a relatively small number at present, appear to be keeping their word. A few, though, appear to be “clueless,” if you’ll allow me to slip into the vernacular.
Picture this, or perhaps you needn’t: You don’t have a job; you search for one every day, as you have since 2009; you’ve sent literally hundreds of copies of your resume’ to companies and have not heard back from a single one of them; you have come to know many more people from your city who are in the same situation as you are; your unemployment checks are due to run out soon; you have written your City Council Members, Mayor, United States Congressman, United States Senators, and President, none of whom has answered you except for ridiculous, infuriating notes thanking you for your “interest” in the issue. You are one person among an official jobless rate of 16.7%, although you know very well that that number is a great underestimate.
A teaser on TV catches your eye – the President will give a speech before the Congressional Black Caucus on Saturday, September 24th, and he will be asked about the jobless problem. Eagerly you tune in to see what the President will say that he will do and how he will respond to the pleas of the Black Caucus on your behalf. You settle into your recliner in front of the TV with a sense of real hope for the first time in many months. When he has finished speaking, you remain in your chair, speechless, thinking back to his words, “…Stop complainin’. Stop grumblin’. Stop cryin’.” Who in God’s name was he talking to, you ask yourself. Even a vocal critic like Rep. Maxine Waters was somewhat stunned, saying afterward that she found the President’s speech to be “a bit curious,” that he didn’t use that tone with Hispanics when he delivered a speech to their national gathering, and that he would never do so when speaking to Gays or to a Jewish audience. That’s a Californian way of saying, “Who in God’s name was he talking to?”
So you tuned in to the speech hoping to hear that the President was listening to you about help in finding a job, and you heard, “I need your help.” Who’s listening to whom here? Thinking back to November, 2008 – back when you had a job — when you stepped into the voting booth with much “Hope” in your heart about the “Change” that was promised, you now have come to think that a change must happen in November, 2012, before true and lasting change can occur and before you have any real hope of finding another job.
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Frank Hyland is a long-time Writer/Editor who has written for The New Media Alliance, and also for The Reality Check and has appeared weekly on Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Conservatism on Sunday evenings on Blog Talk Radio, along with Babe Huggett and Warner Todd Huston.