Priorities

Want to know what is wrong with our society today? Try this on for size: a man who has fed millions of meals to millions of disaster victims worldwide, giving them hope and letting them know that someone truly cares for them is not recognized for his Herculean efforts; but someone who takes advantage of his own factory workers and the US tax system is Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year.” What is wrong with this picture?

In theory and practice, men or women of the year are supposed to have made an impact on others by inspiring and leading others to pass along their torch of inspiration while performing good deeds in support of that effort. Think of it as a tikkun olam mandate. This is precisely why Time Magazine has never placed the image of Donald Trump on its cover or voted him “Man of the Year.” If you want someone to overthrow your government, destroying your Constitutional protections in the process, he’s your guy. If you want someone that shows up even as volcanoes are erupting, floodwaters are rising and earthquake aftershocks are still making the ground shake, Chef José Andres is the one you want on your side. Perhaps we should institute a “Mensch of the Year” especially for him and those who think and do just as he has done?

That Chef José Andres is one of the greatest of transplanted Americans seems lost on those who revere money over everything else. He is as capable of leading a recovery effort with food as Lieutenant General Russel Honoré was with repairing the broken rescue and recovery of an American city after Hurricane Katrina. Elon Musk is the worst possible example of a man of our time. He is just another kind of grifter with a really bad haircut.

Our American system of government is badly broken. This is largely due to wrong priorities by people in positions of power that make the absolutely worst decisions for everyone else. Politicians in particular forget that they are supposed to be doing their job and that job does not mean constantly running for re-election or aligning themselves with special interests that have no interest in helping people, just themselves. On this subject, I feel it incumbent upon me to point out the spectacle of a sitting member of Congress begging the Federal government for assistance for his state after a series of tornadoes while denying help to every other state in the Union that has suffered a natural disaster. His use of words like “Communist” and “socialist” monikers for decent behavior by others and his utter rejection of any form of Federal assistance for them shows he is totally unfit to represent his own state and he really couldn’t care less if anyone helps his own state, as long as he keeps being voted into office for another round of incompetence. This hypocrisy must stop.

Israel is projected to have another major earthquake in the near future. Ask yourself if you would choose the one who shows up to help out, bringing hot meals, diapers and hope to the victims, or do you want a politician who is told where disasters have struck who then just shows up for a photo op, throwing paper towels at people who need to be housed, fed and given back their lives? If you cannot answer that question, then please stop voting in elections. Your priorities are too badly damaged to be useful.