There is a sense in this country that things are not right and getting worse. But this is not anything new. We've had a love-hate relationship with our government ever since its inception nearly 250 years ago. It's a sense of, we can't live free with government, and we can't live free without it. The freedom/security dichotomy.

We love government when it favors or empowers us, but we hate it when it doesn't. We like to blame our elected representatives and their appointed cohorts when we don't get what we want. It is much easier to blame than to come up with workable solutions to complex problems. We tend to resort to slogans and simplistic suggestions that when put to the test don't serve all the people very well. But the government is us, and we tend to react to its actions rather than take a positive role in making things better. It is our right and our obligation to be proactive.

Here are a few things that you can do that can take this country in a positive direction that I have collected. They are not my ideas, but they are good ones. Nothing will happen or change without your involvement.

Participate

Know the issues on the ballot in your neighborhood, town, county, state and federal government. Once you know the issues, go to the polls and vote. Voter nonparticipation accounts for many issues passed that benefit the few and are not necessarily your views. The same goes for candidates. Candidates these days are so despised, that bad ones, often backed by big local money, rise easily in the ranks without being noticed by an uninvolved electorate. If you don't vote, the ones that do will have their way over you. Finally, encourage good people to run for office or run yourself. I back only the best people with my vote. While parties may be necessary to get on the ballot, make sure that good people get voted in, regardless of political party.

Protest

Get out of your own little world and join in protests that you believe in. Try to avoid cults, special-interests and joining groups just to be social. Learn how to be nonviolent and nonconfrontational in your protest. Humor is good, anger should be carefully channeled, and violence is unacceptable. But people in the street can have a big impact on those with power who see them or hear their cries.

Petition

While we still can't vote online, although it is coming because we already vote online for many things like corporate officers if we are stockholders. We can petition. The right to petition is in the First Amendment to the Constitution. In the old days, people would come around with paper petitions to sign. It was hard work and only the most dire problems resulted in petitions, even though most political candidates need signed petitions in order to run.

The Internet makes it very easy to sign petitions, and in many cases, help formulate the language. Something, as a writer, you should do. I have seen many petitions that I have signed on the Internet create change without legislation of new laws and regulations. I have seen legislation stopped and legislation enhanced by petition. I have seen many bad practices revealed and challenged by petitions, worldwide.

Many petitions ask for a donation. You do not have to donate, just sign. If you sign petitions, you will be receiving email requests for money from the organizations that created the petitions. Don't feel obligated to send money to everyone that you sign petitions for. Donate money only to causes you want to succeed and can afford. For many organizations that are charities, donations are tax-deductible. Political donations are not.

Write

I'm writing this to writers so it's only natural that I encourage you to write your opinions and strategies and post them here in an article like this. I have seen some very good articles recently that are very helpful in helping us come to the conclusions we need to come to, to be good citizens as well as writers. I have found that satire like Gulliver's Travels and Alice in Wonderland, can go a long way in giving people a way of revealing what is wrong in our society. Try writing satire in your poems, stories and essays. It's fun and powerful at the same time. Humor has a way of breaking through long-held obstacles no longer valid. Use it.

Health

While medical marvels in treatment including surgery and pharmaceuticals continue to prolong our lives and make them more vigorous, we have developed habits as we move from the country to the city that are basically quite unhealthy. This is largely due to the commercial power and economy of big corporations that sometimes promote their products as healthy long after they have been proven unhealthy. We are usually caught up in fads and addictions that are detrimental to our health and often lead to great suffering and expense as we reach those, hoped-for, retirement years.

I have a simple approach to health that doesn't require any expense but simply requires self-discipline and simplifying your life. Eat foods that you prepare at home from fresh sources. Fast food and restaurants can be a treat now and then, but relying on them for food can lead to ill health. Limit time-saving processed foods as much as you can. They are costly and often contain ingredients that are not healthy. Cooking from scratch is often quicker than one would think and allows a time for relaxing after a hard day's work. Limit and eat only natural snacks. Eat moderate portions regardless of what your mother tells you to do. "Eat your food. They are starving in India."

Don't waste money on gym memberships, dance class or whatever lose weight fad is current. Walk or run in your daily activities. Take the stairs, not the elevator. Take a walk during your lunch hour after lunch you make yourself. Don't just sit and have a cigarette. Take vacations or weekends where you can walk a lot seeing sights. It's relaxing, a change of pace and a way to learn and meet new friends.

Sleep. There is nothing important enough for you to stay up beyond a reasonable hour and get a good night sleep. Make sure you go to bed about the same time every night and, regardless of your need for some kind of stimulus like music, a book or TV, have the room dark, quiet and as free from noise as possible. I know this will be difficult for many of you that have sleep disorders. Probably the reason why you have those disorders. Food or drink will make you fall asleep while you digest it, but will probably wake you up later. Avoid eating some hours before you go to sleep and during periods when you should be sleeping like the midnight snack many people are addicted to.

Have regular checkups and attack injury and illnesses naturally if possible rather than with miracle pills and fad cures before small problems become big ones. Do not fear surgery. Although I was paralyzed in surgery, several surgeries since have made my life much better by having problems taken care of right away, not continuing aggravated pain. One surgery in 2012 simply saved my life. Regardless of how healthy you think you are, health insurance is a necessity, even while young. Buying health insurance all your life will reduce your premiums when you are older. You never know when you will be faced with a huge medical bill.

Big Institutions

We are drawn to bigness because it seems to denote success and progress, the American Dream… The ideal. We also drawn to the ease of use, low cost and ubiquity of these very large entities. Except, of course, "big government."

Amazon, Facebook, Walmart, Comcast and many other corporations of note got that big by offering convenience and low price with all kinds of incentives to draw us in and away from our traditional way of doing things. But they are all monopolies and with their power and money can easily buy out or quash any competitors that may come up with better ideas. I am guilty of using these corporations as well, but I recommend that if you can that you make purchases from smaller companies that are working hard for your money and probably will give you more value by way of customer service than to get some foreign speaking person on the line after going through a maze of irrelevant computer directed menus leading almost nowhere. Spend your dollar where it counts… Keeping American business competitive by helping out newcomers. I have bought reconditioned computers and computer components from small companies at low cost with great success online. Try it. Use PayPal if you are concerned about monetary transactions online.

Banking

In several articles, Edward Phillips has recommended that we all put our money and money transactions in credit unions because we not only get more bang for our buck, we are the owners of these unions an share in the profits. Credit union services are just as good as the big, monopolizing banks without all the fees and hidden expenses. I have yet to make that move, but I'm getting ready to. One of my universities has a very fine credit union that I will join soon.

Government

I worked for state government in all but one of the universities that I worked for. The private university I worked for failed shortly after I left after a great legacy of over 100 years. A graduate school, it was not supported by alumni and salaries were inflated for administration, like so many schools and colleges recently. As an industrial engineer, an efficiency expert, my last 30 years of employment involved conservation and accountability. Most private and government institutions think of accountability as being monetary. Any savings from cutbacks or reorganization tends to go to the salaries of executives rather than increase salaries of workers in the ranks. A recent study found that CEOs make, on average, 237 times more than their workers that do the work that makes these companies profitable.

In my position, I continually learned of schemes to outsource some of the university function to private, profit-making companies. Often these schemes were politically driven, benefiting those proposing them with kickbacks. The companies were very good at window dressing and gathering low hanging fruit, but quick to charge more for anything beyond what was easy to do. Inevitably these schemes involved hiring more people and buying more proprietary equipment and software, costing the state more. Just providing the existing employees with better equipment, training and promotion often would do the job better for less cost. Outsourcing shown to save money never does. My calculations always showed that it costs more and takes autonomy away from the university, putting it in private hands.

Government jobs are good jobs. Internet jobs, They have good benefits and are usually more stable than corporate jobs, always in jeopardy because of the need for continual profits. Most jobs in government are not political, but skilled service. They do not cater to making a profit, so they generally treat everyone the same. People in government jobs have skills just like people in profit-making businesses. Big government and large organizations in government are generally created by laws and regulations passed to serve the people or to protect them. When a branch of the government is doing a good service and helping people, it may need to have an increased budget, rather than having it cut. There certainly are organizations in government that should be reorganized because they no longer serve a good purpose. But those decisions should not be made by legislators, but by careful analysis of what those organizations do and whether they should grow, have stable funding, be cut back or eliminated.

Copyright 2017 © Ronald W. Hull

7/23/17