The following is an article I wrote in 1999 and submitted to the JS who did not print it because it was too lengthy. The title was “Responsibility Has Been Replaced” and reads as follows:
“This year, the U.S. will spend more money building prisons than on building schools. Yet many people still live in fear of their safety. The discipline of our children growing up is left to others, mainly the public schools who spend more time on social problems than the do on their original purpose. Many schools close their doors and offer little in after school programs for those who need these programs most.
Studies indicate that most teen pregnancies occur between the hours of 3-6 PM, a time when parents are often not home and no meaningful projects have been planned for them such as work, study or organized recreation. Should we be surprised that Peoria leads the nation in teen pregnancies? Fear of ones own children is widespread largely because of the lack of correct parental training, conflicting doctrines or how to raise children and failure to discipline them for fear of charges of child abuse.
To correct these problems, we often throw money new good-sounding programs only to fine out later that these programs “sounded good only”. We ignore proven solutions because these solutions are no longer “politically correct”. We are forming new committees of well-intentioned people who feel more prisons, entertainment centers, and gated communities are the answer.
Leaders who understand what is happening are often “put in their place” by a power structure that operates behind the public scenes to be sure that the same people are kept in control positions in the community.
By now, we should know are problems are “people” problems, not “things” problems and our leaders, elected, appointed or volunteer, must have the common sense to sort these problems out by priority and involve people with proven “can do” records. Unfortunately, we still use the “good old boy and girl” systems along with a generous sprinkling of nepotism and the rest of us follow as sheep behind those who say they know what its best for us.
Our current local priorities appear to be the park barrel tainted ring road and a new roadbed to Chicago including another new bridge, which would be number seven in an eighteen mile span; more bridges than any community our size in the nation. Other priorities call for a half billion dollars to study how to prevent the filling up of Lake Peoria, this filling up caused in part by neglect, roadbed construction, new malls, subdivisions and a general rush to get the water off the land and into our creeks and rivers.
We continue to make a priority of what most knowledgeable people agree is a failed mass public housing system, continuing to pour millions into an area that is blight on the community.
We have created a culture of “if I don’t take it, someone else will” and our kids are quick to observe this.
Despite the affluence of many individuals, record corporate profits, large public entertainment projects, and new highways, we have the largest number of bankruptcies in history, a public education system that most people feel is not accomplishing what it was intended to do, a general fear of rising terrorism, a demand that more money be spent on incarcerating people than educating them, and a federal deficit so large it can not be comprehended by the ordinary citizen.
No wonder most people are suspect of the future. Accountability and responsibility have become just words that had a meaning in another less “enlightened” era, and are now replaced by “not my problem” and greed.
Other than noting that my grammar needs work and I have a tendency to “ramble”, I would like comments from you, the reader, on what has changed since I wrote this article approximately six years ago. We have made some progress but IDOT is still spending millions and millions of dollars studying how to improve our transportations systems into Peoria and we may no longer lead the nation in teen pregnancies. We may have built half a dozen “white elephants” and may have had a record number of outside “experts” telling us how we can become just like Las Vegas, a destination.
Please comment.
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