Moving

Rise from apathy is moving to a new location  so It will be down 8/13/12 to bring you more good stuff and information about who is running your country.

Jobs are important.

   Since the age of 18, I have had trouble finding work. My first job, was a summer job working for the Richland County Waste Management Authority at the age of 19. I mowed a decommissioned landfill. I would grasp hold of temporary positions sporadically over the until I was around 23 or the year 2009. During this time period I was enlisted in the Air National Guard. It took me 5 years to get a position that was permanent and full time. Even that was a fluke/ it was a contract that was suppose to last I months and finished early that miraculously turned into a position I held for 3 years. I sit here writing this, in my mom's basement, about to enter my second month of unemployment. In 8 years, with the summation of my glossed over work experience, I had only worked for at most 4.5 years and at least 4 years.

   I have no degree.I have marketable skills and experience thanks to that miracle (or recognition of my hard work) and my military experience though that doesn't matter. Many college graduates go through spending thousands of dollars of their money, their parents money and/or loaned money. They are faced with the same situation: "Wondering and pondering where is that job that was promised to me when I received this embossed manila paper with a couple of gold star and signature of someone who I never met?"

   Jobs requirements are drastically different from a decade ago and the cost of education is to the point of being counter-productive. Pay isn't matching up to effort, skill needed or investment in the education for skill set. Applying to work these days is like playing darts, blindfolded, while spinning around in a circle. The job market is the room spinning in the opposite direction threatening to toss the occupant out at any moment. That is where we stand jobs are limited, inflaming debts everywhere and no one knows where to turn.

   So what are we going to do? What will our representatives, senators, governors and mayors do. What will our president do? There are so many issues, that all of them can  not be fixed at once: deficit,war,jobs and poverty. The worst is America as a whole is not a team. We fight among ourselves be it  party, sexuality, gender, ethnicity, social class and what ever other thing  we have chosen to align and identify ourselves with. America is in a silent civil war.

What are your ideas on fixing the unemployment problem? Can you state them with out point fingers at some group?

Obama arrives in Mansfield... to a storm.

   In this post, I am including a link. My goal is to gather as much information about candidates that I will be choosing from when I vote this November. I do not  align my self with many labels so  the information i present int this blog will try to be as non partisan as possible. This link has a negative view on Obama, but  I am not for or against him. I am just looking for knowledge.
  
   I had planned to attend the Obama speech here in Mansfield today but found out too late on how to  go partake in it. If I had sooner discovered my true interest in America on Sunday, I would be there now  so I could blog about what he said. Instead my friend posted this  link on my Facebook. A glimpse of what  he will have to answer for as he faces the citizens of Mansfield, Ohio's dying economy. 


The storm Obama walked into.

Rise

I am writing this as I am about to embark on my first journey into voting. I have long believed my vote has no meaning, to some extent, it doesn't in the mindset of Presidential elections. I have come to the action of questioning why this is. Is it because  the long standing, outdated electoral college systems is still in effect? That the only time mass media pushes  the American public to vote is during presidential elections were the decisions of the mass is decided by the few? The fact America has one of the lowest voter turnouts during any election and it only rises during Presidential elections?

I have been staring longingly at our America, looking at its people, at myself. Seeing us fight among ourselves our medium hiding world events and our apathy grow in search of security. We have been/are surrogating ourselves among different blurry lines. We scapegoat and blame presidents or other groups for the issue at hand and not realizing we the people are the issue. Yes a constant a push to vote may make a difference, but how many of us vote on the smaller scale of local, county, state or congressional elections? How often do we blame the President for things we could change by petitions or  representatives at these tiers? How many of us complain without voting in the first place, without letting our voices be heard? The latter I am guilty of.
America should of have an 80% plus voting turnout every congressional and presidential election minus kids and those revoked the right to vote.

http://smpbff1.dsd.census.gov/TheDataWeb_HotReport/servlet/HotReportEngineServlet?reportid=767b1387bea22b8d3e8486924a69adcd&emailname=essb@boc&filename=0328_nata.hrml

This graph shows our voting percentages. Scary. Have we, America, numbly accepted the status quo? Have we forgotten the power we possess? This country was built on revolution, on progress for the greater good, equal rights and Freedom of beliefs. Amazing since most of the founding fathers were atheists. This country used to be in the hands of the people. It now sits in hands of religion, money and a stale unchanging law making body. Whose fault is this? Us the people.

So for the past 8 years of my life (18 to 26), I have opposed voting due to the generalized notion the only vote that counts is the presidential, which doesn't, due to the electoral college. I never heard the importance of  other elections pronounced through "Rock the Vote". If they were mentioned, it is in the demeanor of a whispered side note. Sadly these unsung elections is where our vote has the power to change our country. If your representatives and your senators are not listening to their caucus, the caucus has the power to change those people out and change how they are represented in congress. On the state and local level our vote is immensely powerful.  We change our community and we see the change directly and usually more swiftly.

We make the change if we vote.