Help! What Happened to America?

A Pop-Tart?

You've got to be kidding.

What has happened to America?

Lastnight I heard a frightened seven year old boy

Stuttering on the news,

"I wanna go back to school--

And I want my Pop Tart back."

You've got to be kidding?

We are living in such an insane day

A 7-year old can say, "Bang-Bang" with a piece of bread

And get suspended from school.

What are we really teaching our children?

Stupidity vs common sense?

Keep your mouth shut and act like a robot--

Instead of freedom to speak, do and be?

 May I share more stupidity?

I loved to fly

But I haven't flown in years.

Why?

Because I was treated like the little boy with the Pop Tart. 

That little boy will never forget

That incident as long as he lives.

He harmed no one

And he's been traumatized.

I was too!

Walking through Orlando International Airport

With two college age grandchildren--

Wholesome--

Clean Cut--

One an Eagle Scout

And me a Social Services Director--

An American pouring my life out to help others. 

We were "inspected" and harrassed.

As we walked away I said to my grandchildren,

"I can't believe we're being treated like that."

Security standing nearby with an AK-47 rifle snarled,

"Lady, I could shoot you."

Do you think I'll ever forget that day?

Never!

Another time I was flying out of Colorado in winter

Wearing snow boots.

I and two other ladies

Were locked in a glass cage--

Until they "inspected" us.

Our handbags were cast aside on a table

Unsecured

And when I said something about my money and credit cards

The officer reprimanded,

"Be quiet."

The last time I flew

Officers were roughing up a delicate little 

White headed lady that was so fragile

She could hardly walk across the floor 

To the wanding area.

She looked like a Sunday School teacher

With everything but a class and her Bible.

To observe such abusive 

And insane behavior I looked at

A tall supervisor standing nearby and said,

"That is ridiculous treating her like that."

Casually and with a smirk he said,

"It's because of 9-11."

   

That reminds me of Attorney Crystal Eastman's warning:
 "A good deal of tyranny

Goes by the name of protection."

 In my career I had interviewed and screened

People for years.

Like any good policeman,

I could practically smell a problem.

That woman was pathetically abused

For no reason

But power,

Control,

And an example to all of us around her.

"If the freedom of speech is taken away

Then dumb and silent we may be led,

Like sheep to the slaughter."

--George Washington

 

When are we going to wake up and

Stop allowing our freedom

To be taken away?

 When are we going to  teach our children

Once again--

This is the land of the free

And the home of the brave?   

"A decline in courage may be the most striking feature
And outside observer notices in the West in our days.
The Western world has lost its civil courage."
--Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Commencement address at Harvard - June 8, 1978 

Why should we care?

Why should we stand up and be heard?

"The ultimate test of a moral society is

The kind of world that it leaves to its children."

--Dietrich Bonhoeffer