The Forgotten Issues of America

The last four years have been hard for all of us and with a public health crisis like the one we are experiencing at this moment, things have become even more difficult as we try to navigate through this difficult time that we all are going through.

It does not help that the President of the United States has made the public health crisis worse and pushes a racist and divisive agenda as he seeks to gain more power and become richer than he already is. It does not help that we do not have a leader during such a crisis and in fact, it makes the problem that much worse and hard to deal with.

However, Trump or no Trump, pandemic or no pandemic, or the many other issues that we have today, there is one thing that is clear and that is that while we have the worst public health crisis that we have had in decades, we also have other problems that plague our nation and make life so difficult for the few and the many in this country and these issues must be dealt with whether we have him for four more years or not.

Some of the issues I am going to speak of are talked about a lot and some are hardly ever talked about but they all are ones that impact our nation and are ones that cause problems for us all and must be addressed no matter who is our president come this November. These issues are ones that divide the right versus the left and have fo some time, but are ones that should bring us all closer together as we look for solutions.

Racism

The events that have transpired over the last two weeks have brought up once again one of the major issues that has plagued this country for decades and even centuries without any result being achieved. The killing of yet another black man by law enforcement and the ensuing riots and protests have once again shown us that racism is alive and well in America.

It is no secret that racism is a major issue in this country and has been for generations. This has recently reached its limit and once again people have taken to the streets to fight for change on this issue and once again we have someone in power who adds to the fuel and shows us just how racist our country is.

Donald Trump is that person in power who adds to the racism and who has made this issue come to light yet again. We have had leaders in the past who pushed a racist agenda but none with the level of power that Trump has or who had such influence in bringing the racists out from hiding like he has over the last nearly four years.

There were many in the segregated south in the 1960s who fueled racism and hate and who committed racial hate crimes against black people during the civil rights era and these same types of people are doing it today as they try to continue the legacy of racism in America. Trump has a history of racism that dates back to the 70s, but the problem goes much deeper than him, it is an issue that has been with us for a very long time.

During the Obama years the racism against President Obama was everywhere from Fox News to the tweets of then private citizen Donald Trump as he and Fox both pushed the racist birther lie about Obama and then that racism was pushed further by the far right of the country and the viewers of networks like Fox and Breitbart and other outlets that help to keep this racism alive and well in this country even today.

Racism remains to be a major issue that exists in our country and in many ways while we have made some real progress throughout the years, the systemic racism I speak of persists in our schools, offices, court system, police departments, and elsewhere and while the progress cannot be denied, the ways racism still exists also cannot be denied and should be called out and fought against. It is clear that racism against not only black people but also against latinos, asians, and so many others exist today perhaps more than it ever has.

The comments from this president against Mexicans, Muslims, African Americans, Asians, and so many more have shown just how racist he is and the support he gets from these comments and policies that keep systemic racism alive in well in this country by his supporters drive the message home that we must do more to end police brutality and racism that exist in every facet of our country and our society even some 55 years after Bloody Sunday in Selma.

Immigration

I have a different view on immigration than Trump supporters have, a much different view.

This issue is similar to the racism issue because today in our country we have a president and millions of his supporters who hate immigrants and certainly do show racism towards them. This issue is how Donald Trump was elected to the White House and it is still his main issue for the 2020 election, even with all of the other problems our nation has.

We most definitely need immigration reform in this country and a path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants who are Americans in every way than on legal paperwork. The legal paperwork system is one that must be changed where the fees are waved for the millions of poor people who want to come to this country but cannot afford the legal process to do so.

This administration has locked immigrant children in cages and mistreated their parents to the point of human rights abuses. This issue was getting better under the strong leadership of Barack Obama during his years in office, it was Obama who gave dreamers a chance at the American dream and who was a believer in immigration reform.

It is Trump and people like him who think of immigrants who want to come here and seek a better life as criminals or as Trump himself put it, “rapists” and “killers”. This issue must be addressed as we are a nation that was built on the backs of immigrants and thrives from the work of undocumented people and their families.

LGBTQ and Women’s Rights

Just like racism, it is clear to us that sexism, transphobia, and homophobia are still big issues in our country and especially more so with the current resident of the White House and all that his “Make America Great Again” has gave us over these last almost four years. These are still big issues in our nation, even despite the major progress that we have made over the last several decades and especially that progress made during the previous administration.

During the Obama administration there were a lot of victories for both of these issues. For instance, in 2015 same-sex marriage was legalized in all 50 states and Barack Obama celebrated the historic moment by lighting up the White House in the LGBTQ rainbow flag. Both of these events were amazing moments for our nation and for gay rights and there were many more wins for equality during his administration.

Transgender rights were also an area that we gained a lot of wins in during the Obama years. Transgender Americans were finally given the right to serve in our armed forces and be open and free within our school systems and so many other places. There were many things that were great about those 8-years for LGBTQ rights but in the nearly four years since Obama left office, many of those rights have been attacked by the current president.

The same is true for women’s rights. During the Obama terms, women once again had their rights valued and respected. A women’s right to choose was protected more than at anytime in history and women became empowered voices in politics and in our communities once again as Obama was one who believed in gender equality, equal pay, and a woman having the same rights as a man.

However, a woman’s right to choose is being attacked by Republicans and the current president as we stand today just as LGBTQ rights are also being taken away by the right in this country. These are issues once again that are ones we must talk about and fight for, even at a time when there are other issues that are being talked about more in the media, let us not forget LGBTQ Americans and female Americans who are having their rights attacked as we speak.

While same-sex marriage and abortion remain legal in all 50 states because of the Constitution of the United States, let us remember that they are being attacked by those on the right and this president even as I write this article and as things are now. This president is the most anti LGBTQ and anti Woman president that we have ever had in our history and has worked hard to take away rights for these groups.

Make no mistake about that.

In 36 states LGBTQ people can be fired, evicted, or discriminated against in a variety of ways in the public and private sector. Yes, even today with all that has been accomplished for equality in America, LGBTQ people struggle to be accepted and have full equality and especially with this administration there remains issues that must be dealt with and victories we must strive for as we strive for equality.

The Equality Act is something that Democrats continue to fight for and it is a piece of legislation that Republicans continue to rally against, but it is a law that we most certainly need so that all LGBTQ rights and LGBTQ Americans are protected from wrongful termination and other forms of discrimination during such a difficult time for all people in this country who want to gain full equality.

Women’s rights are equally as important too and must always be protected from tyrannical leaders in our government who seek to get rid of Roe V Wade and a woman’s right to choose. There are other women’s rights that we must fight for too like equal pay for equal work, women’s voting rights, women’s rights to move up in the private sector, and to be treated fairly in politics as well as other ways they are discriminated against and mistreated in this country.

Just look at how the president talks about women and you will see just how much more work we must do in this area.

Healthcare For All Is Needed

The healthcare system (or lack of one) in this country remains a huge problem that we must address. The pandemic revealed what many of us already knew about the flawed system in America when it comes to health insurance and the lack of leadership to fix this problem makes the entire situation much worse.

Obamacare was not a perfect system but it was much better than what we have now, which is a system that has tens of millions of uninsured people who are sick and dying and need health coverage. Now, we have a pandemic with nearly two million Americans who have the deadly COVID-19 virus and no healthcare to help them.

We have great doctors and even better technology to treat patients yet it is all about the mighty dollar so many do not get access to those doctors and to that medical technology to help and heal them. This is wrong and an issue that we must address as we try to truly make America great again. What happened once Trump was elected is that we made America SICK again and then 3.5 years into his first term we get a pandemic and they become even sicker than they were before.

We are the richest country in the world and we have the worst healthcare system in the world.

Explain that! We have money to give everyone quality health insurance and refuse or fail to do so. Look at places like Canada and Denmark and even a country like Cuba. These places give their people access to free healthcare and do not turn them away or give them huge medical bills, these places care for their people as any nation should and these places do the right thing.

How can a nation be great if they do not take care of their citizens?

We need to fix this issue once and for all.

Addiction and Mental Health

Another issue that we must address that deals with the health of our citizens that we have failed to do so for far too long. There are more than 22 million people who struggle with some sort of addiction in the United States and more than 46 million people with a mental illness in this country and those are just the people we know of.

These are highly stigmatized issues so we truly do not know the real numbers, but we do know that these are people who suffer and who are largely left in the dark by our government and our country. They have been forgotten and have been ignored for far too long by those who supposed to be there to care for them and their needs.

Ronald Reagan had the mentally ill thrown out on the street from the mental institutions in the 80s and this is exactly the type of mentality many in the Republican Party still have to this day. They do not care about the millions who struggle with addiction and millions who have mental health issues and do not want to help them. It brings up the same issue about the previous issue I brought up.. lack of help and health coverage to address these very issues and get them help.

Homelessness and Poverty

There are estimated to be around 553,000 homeless people on the streets of America on any given night and the federal min wage is $7.25 and has not been raised since 2009. Some cities and states have raised their min wage and some as high as $15 an hour but those places also have the highest rents and cost of living.

It is a tricky issue to navigate because they tell people to get off the streets and Republicans attack homeless and poor people by calling them names while the politicians on the right take away their food stamps and offer little help in the way of affordable housing and other programs. How can people get out of the revolving door of homelessness and poverty if they cannot get high paying jobs or find affordable housing?

These are legitimate questions in the quest to solve these issues as those on the right in D.C. do not make things easier as they are always cutting these programs and want to do away with them altogether. They do not want folks to have food stamps, welfare, Section 8, or Medicaid. They think that the issue of homelessness will magically fix itself and that poor people will suddenly not be poor and that is not how it works.

This is a major issue that transcends presidential administrations, although some presidents have been much better on the issue like the previous one and then Bill Clinton was also very good on this issue. The problem remains and that is because we have had very little bipartisan legislation to give low income Americans help with finding affordable housing , high wages, and help in these areas.

There are more programs in places like San Francisco and others like it for the homeless, addicted, and poor but there are many cities and communities that do not have anything to help these marginalized communities and people who struggle to get by. These two issues are one in the same and have been ignored for a very long time and it is beyond time that we address these long standing problems that people face.

Gun Violence

This is an issue I am passionate about, an issue I have written multiple books about, and an issue that I fight for and have for many years now and will for sure continue to do so. It is an epidemic!

Make no mistake, this is a public health issue and must be addressed as one for things to change in relation to gun violence. Those in pro-gun circles do not agree with this assessment but every major medical and psychiatric organization in this nation say the same thing, it is one. Firearms are the only product that isn’t subjected to federal regulations and recalls yet it is the one that causes the most deaths.

For us to understand this public health issue we just need to listen to any medical professional speak on the topic or spend a few minutes in the emergency department of your local hospital to see how this issue impacts these communities because besides the 33k killed per year there are tens of thousands more injured by firearms and this is a strain on our health system costing billions per year, but the real cost is in the tragic loss of life.

The pro-gun people call me everything from a “traitor” to a “tyrant” when I mention these life-saving steps we can take but I am neither, I am a concerned American who is tired of seeing precious lives stolen from us due to gun violence which is entirely preventable.

The following measures do a few things, they prevent gun deaths as a whole but they also help out law enforcement by reducing the ammo and weapons the public can have, both have worked in other places. Some of the following have been passed in some states but we need them and more in every single state.

– Ban high capacity magazines (above 10 rounds)

– Require liability insurance on all firearms

– Ban assault type weapons and all semi-autos

– Require home owners to secure firearms and ammo separately

– Mandatory mental health exams on all gun purchases

– Home inspections for gun owners

– Registration

– Ban public carry (open and conceal)

These are just some steps we can take now to reduce gun deaths and make life easier for our law enforcement officers, since the right claims to support the blue (cops) then they should want to prevent them from being outgunned, you would think right?

Unfortunately, the pro-gun people just care about keeping their toys, they do not care about preventing gun violence or about the many lives lost to it on a yearly basis nor have they ever. This is a public health crisis of epic levels and there are things we can do and we must do to change it and save people from dying.

Thousands die every year due to gun murders, accidents, and suicides but that can change, it is up to we the people to change it though.

Over a million Americans have lost their lives since John Lennon was gunned down some 37 years ago. Over a MILLION! Now if that is not a public health crisis then I do not know what is. Gun violence has reached epidemic levels and yet the pro-gun people like to lie and say that gun violence is at a “50-year low”, it is not but even if it was it doesn’t matter to the families that do lose loved ones to this health crisis.

After the tragic attacks on September 11th, 2001 steps were taken to prevent that from happening again, we secured the cockpits on commercial aircraft and upped airport security.

The American Medical Association and countless other medical organizations state the obvious and that is that gun violence is a public health issue and it must be addressed now. No, we are not “Anti-American” for wanting to restrict who can have guns and what guns they can have, no we do not want people to die, no we do not hate the constitution. What we do want is to save precious lives and prevent people from dying, we want to fix this health issue and prevent even more violence and death.

Guns save lives the NRA says. “Law abiding citizens” have a right to “protect” themselves and their families they go on saying as well as the so many other things they try to feed the people into scaring them so they buy more guns but the facts are there, guns do not save lives, they take them.

We know this by the thousands killed by guns every single year and the many more who are injured and broken.

The NRA has blood on their hands and now they want to have a guns everywhere agenda that will make us all less safe and our country much more dangerous, but we cannot say anything about it or we are labeled as a “traitor” or “Un-American”.

I am sorry but I refuse to be silent about an issue that is so deadly and destructive for our country, I just will not be quiet as our fellow Americans are dying.

This is a hot topic and the one I am most passionate about and that is gun violence and what we can do to prevent it, this is a topic that I get an awful lot of flack for. I care about many issues but perhaps this one is the issue that I care most about and there is good reason for that, for me it is more than policy, for me it is personal.

Why is it personal?

I have had gun violence personally impact my own life and have lost someone to gun violence. I care deeply about this issue because of this as well as the fact that we have more mass shootings and gun deaths than any developed nation on earth and someone must do something about it.

Now, I know that I cannot change this issue on my own but I can do what I am can to have an impact and you my fellow citizens can do the same. We all can make a difference and change things on this and every issue but to do so we must speak up and fight for our beliefs, even when the bullies in the pro-gun movement call us names and try to silence us with threats.

Just like I always say, protect people, not guns. This is what we should do in this country but far too often those in charge of public policy and the American voter defends the gun rather than the lives that gun takes and that is something that needs to change. There is something clearly wrong when people value an inanimate object over a human life but that is what happens in America on this issue.

The Way Forward

Our country has a lot of issues that we must address. We have this pandemic and the wreckage that it has caused but we have many more issues that we must address as well that existed before the pandemic came along and even before Trump was in the picture. Of course, we have the racism going on in our country right now that is causing unrest in our cities and a divided nation throughout and then we have the public health crisis of COVID-19 that has caused so much sickness and death that must be addressed as well and all that goes with that but there is more.

We must deal with the problems that we have had for a long time with the issues that I outlined and we must deal with the most divisive and most dangerous president of our lives that make all of these issues worse and do not help matters one bit. We must find our way out of all of it and deal with the things that keep us divided, the things that keep us stuck, and the things that make us less than great.

I believe that we can find a way out and make America kind again, make us sane again, and make us GREAT again. I believe that we have much that we must face and address but we have overcome so much in our past, I believe that we can overcome these things too and find our way out of these issues that drag us down.

As Obama said — Yes We CAN!