HOME | POLITICS | SPORTS | LIFE | SCI/TECH | OPEDS | HELPFUL TIPS
|
Mar. 27, 2009 The Bad Ol Days: The so-called "experts" say we are in a recession, but I'm certain what are Americans are witnessing is a DEPRESSION. I’m operating under the assumption that there is no widely accepted definition of "depression." I thus, must rely on imagery, and what images from The Great Depression do I recall seeing most? Soup lines, homeless people, high unemployment and banks in serious trouble. What do I see today--soup kitchens and emergency food pantries being overrun; long lines of unemployed people; banks in trouble; the homeless. I know that during the Great Depression, many families and individuals lost everything. There were high numbers of suicides. According to sources I checked, During this time President Roosevelt argued that increased spending on relief programs would provide the necessary sustenance to prevent people from resorting to crime. An analysis of 83 metropolitan areas for the years 1930 through 1940, indicated that such spending lowered property crime. Wikianswers contends that this study showed a 5.6 to 10 percent decrease in such crime per 10 percent increase in per capita relief spending. Like in the 20's and 30's, corporations put profit over persoinnel, and thsi is what we got/are now getting: A depression, defined by pictures from history. Sound familiar? Deregulation and corporate mergers led to downsizing, overvaluation of assets, book-cooking, corporate lechery, etc. Kids Will Be Hard Heads: While youth crime rates are declining slightly, the crimes that children commit are becoming more egregious. Some argue the internet and other forms of media entertainment not only desensitize youth to violence, but in some cases – such as rap music, glorify it – and expand the types of mischief children engage in. For example, it is “fashionable” for groups of teens to administer “beat downs” of unsuspecting victims and upload them to the worldwide web. Teenage criminality in the U.S. , while declining, is still higher than rates found in most industrialized nations. The declining rates of adolescent crime began during the Clinton administration. Janet Reno attributed the decline to more cities establishing curfews for minors (at least 146 cities across America have such statutes), trying more youthful offenders as adults. As for curfews, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) opposes such legislation. They contend that such laws violate first and fourth amendment rights dealing with freedom of speech and association; and under the latter amendment, it violates the right against unreasonable searches and due process. They further argue that the law punishes all kids, not just criminal offenders. The seriousness of criminal infractions has been a cause for concern. For example, according to U.S. News and World Report, in 1945, public schools cited this list as the top problems in public schools: 1. Talking 2. Chewing gum 3. making noise 4. running in the halls 5. getting out of turn in line 6. wearing improper clothing 7. not putting paper into a wastebasket Forty years later, none of the above would make the top seven: 1. Rape 2. robbery 3. assault 4. burglary 5. arson 6. bombings 7. murder In the past ten years there have been at least 29 campus shootings in the U.S. , most notably: April so, 1999: Columbine High School , Luttleton , Colorado , 15 killed; March 21, 2005, Red Lake High School ( Minnesota ), 10 killed; October 21, 2006, Amidh High School , Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania , 6 killed; April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech University , Blacksburg , Virginia , 33 killed AnComm is a company that provides students with an anonymous means of reporting school problems to authorities. The system is anonymous due to the teen “no snitching” (telling a person in a position of authority) culture. In a report issued by ancomm, and that relied on data from 54,000 students from 52 schools across 8 states, these are the main concerns of today’s students: 1. Stress 2. bullying 3. depression 4. family problems 5. fighting 6. peer pressure 7. drugs 8. cheating on schoolwork 9. cutting / self-injury 10. suicide 11. pregnancy 12. eating disorders 13. alcohol usage 14. dropping out 15. threats 16. weapons (Source: Lou Hughes, New Report Reveals Top Ten Problems Facing U.S. Students, ancomm.com, June 13, 2007) Kids are not only struggling in school, but at home. They are tempted on both ends by the allure of escapism—drugs, alcohol and the internet. What role can the church play in reversing this trend? This question is important, for our children live in a time of unlimited access to violence and pornography, and worse, they are bombarded by Satanic and anti-religion symbols, celebrities and literature. Does Church Have A Role In Our Xociety?: Attending church regularly has been shown to increase grade-point-averages (Source: news.aol.com/article/church-attendance). Church attendance is also becoming an acceptable form of community-based sentencing, the ACLU notwithstanding. It is used in cases when sentencing someone could break apart a family or when the punishment exceeds the damage inflicted by the crime. Moreover, Americans believe that a lack of a moral compass is a reason why people commit such acts, though there are no studies that show such a causal relationship. Parents can influence a child for a while, but studies indicate that roughly half of American adults leave the faith of their childhood and either adopt a new one, or refuse to acknowledge a new religious affiliation. Those under the age of 18 make up 21% of the population. More than a third of people in this age group attend church, and this rate is a third higher in the south. Another third attend at least once a month. (Source: The Influence of Geographic Region On Adolescent Church Attendance and Youth Group Participation.) “The strength of the family unit is intertwined with the practice of religion. Churchgoers8 are more likely to be married, less likely to be divorced or single, and more likely to manifest high levels of satisfaction in marriage.” (Source: Patrick F. Fagen, Why Religion Matters: The Impact of Religious Practice on Social Stability, www.heritagefoundation.org,. January 25, 1996). Stable families tend to produce children less inclined to commit crimes. It is hard to promote moral values and church attendance when we see anti-religious symbolism in television, movies and the book market is flooded by works such as God is Not Great: Why Religion Poisons Everything (by Christopher Hitchens), Godless: How An Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists (Dan Barker); What’s So Great Abiout Christianity (Dinesh D’Souza); The God Delusion, (Richard Dawkins); God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist and God: The Failed Hypothesis (Victor J. Stenger).. Seems like we are in a depression, financially and psychologically. Just a little food for thought. ------------ About the author: Timothy N. Stelly is a poet, essayist, novelist and screenwriter from northern California . His novel, HUMAN TRIAL, is the first part of a sci-fi trilogy and is available from amazon.com, allthingsthatmatterpress.com and in e-book format at mobipocket.com website: http://stellbreadO@tripod.com Email: stellbread@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
