Change for Kentucky

Why I HIT THE BAT for Change for Kentucky

"Once upon a time there was a wonderful country called the United States of America.  It was a country where people helped other people; that's how we got through the Great Depression.  That's also how we and our allies were able to defeat the Nazis and the Fascists in World War II.  And, after we defeated our erstwhile enemies, we befriended them and helped them re-build their nations and their societies.  It was a country which I was privileged to serve in World War II.  It was an inspirational land, once which motivated; I enlisted at age 17 before I even had to register for the draft.  And I continued to build, to contribute, to weave the social fabric of that country as a United Way executive for many more years after that, right up to retirement time in 1988.

Somewhere between that idyllic time past and today, that country has lost its way.  Today, the only people who rush out to serve are those who are so economically disadvantaged that they see it as their only way out of a harsh, unfair and unrewarding society where the "haves" act like so many pigs at the trough; where people regularly eschew the taxes needed to provide education and other vital services and where the bellicose "leaders" rally their minions to go to war without provocation.  Even that military function is beset by vultures and opportunists who see it as an opportunity for profit, not service; the Halliburtons and Kellogg, Brown and Roots of the world; the "private contractors" who gleefully abuse captives and who are answerable to God-only-knows who.  And, at the head of this pack of "hungry dogs of war" are the callous, sneering Cheneys, the bellicose, bellowing, hollow and gutless Rumsfeld, and the ultimate "capitalist warrior", the empty-headed, vacuous idiot who has never succeeded by himself, never "made it on his own" but only by the good graces of his family's rich friends, that stain on our country's honor who deserted his duty post and cowered behind his father's coat-tails when it was his turn to serve, that "noble and esteemed" PUS (my new abbreviation for President of the United States).

My country has been in trouble before; it started in trouble, transformed itself through trouble and survived in spite of trouble.  The one, huge, incalculable difference between then and now is the quality, the dedication, the motivation and the competence of our leadership; and of that "leadership's" reverence for this country's renowned and universally admired principles.  The names which pulled us through troubled times ring through the annals of history like a bell sounding a clarion call to honor, to truth, to dignity and to "service above self": Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt.  The names at the top of today's sorry lot read more like those rushing to profit from the adversity of others, elbowing aside all who would share in their "feast", the beasts descending upon the carrion: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell (both the repudiated father and the self-indulgent, fatuous son), Frist, Delay, Hastert.  Where once stood servants of the people now lurk lackeys of greed.  For those, the mantra might better be "Self Ever; Service Never", a list to which might well be added infamous names like Lay, Skilling, Ebbers, Kozlowski and a host of other self-aggrandizing, lying, cheating and stealing vermin, as well as their "off-shored" companies who reap profit but evade responsibility.  Today this country is in trouble LIKE NEVER BEFORE!

My days on this planet are numbered as I look toward my 80th birthday, and I do not realistically expect my country to be restored to its former honor and dignity while I am still breathing its air.  I do not think its people are possessed of the character and integrity of their ancestors, although I see faint signs of hope in the Change for Kentucky efforts which all of you are making; many....many....more like you are needed.   Perhaps my estimates are tinged with pessimism.  But if, indeed, there is hope, then it lies in people like you...people who are trying desperately to revive what this once-wonderful country has known, that which Lincoln so eloquently intoned, and fervently hoped should "not perish from the earth".

An optimist might be described as "a pessimist who has not yet grasped reality"; perhaps that is my current state.  But, after a life of optimism, even when confronted by today's sad  realities, I cannot allow myself to be dragged down, to be disillusioned, to be deterred.....to be defeated.

That.....that is why Gwen and I are out there working for the change which can renew its vigor and re-kindle its noble spirit.  And that......that.... is why we HIT THE BAT"