In a call center in Denver, Colorado where 400 employees answer help calls when people phone in questions concerning their health insurance coverage, all of the phones went silent at 10:00AM. The call center turned on televisions so the employees could watch the new president take the oath of office and deliver his inaugural address to a crowd of an estimated 1.4 million people. Not one of the 400 phones in the call center rang during the ceremony. After Obama’s address, all of the over 400 call center employees erupted in cheers.
At a traffic light in the north Denver suburban community of Westminster, Colorado a car radio blared out an opened window and into the street, a broadcast of the inaugural address. People went to Washington from all over the country for the privilege of standing out in the cold so they can see the inauguration. Much of America came to a halt while Barak Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. For the first time in decades America elected a president who is not from a wealthy background. The entire nation stood still, dead in their tracks to witness the inauguration of this man who has inspired our trust. We don’t really know why but we don’t simply trust him, we have been awaiting his arrival at the white house as though he were a messiah.
After a long night of celebrations he began very early the next morning and issued executive orders that banned any former white house staff member from lobbying the white house for any reason and froze all staff wages and salaries. He dug right in when no one would have blamed him if he were to have spent the entire day sleeping after having been up almost the entire previous night attending all of his inaugural balls.
An overwhelming majority of the population of this nation has placed their faith in Obama to do something positive to address our weak economy, our damaged way of life and our decaying ability to make ends meet. We have all been stricken by a daunting feeling that we as a nation are in decline. Much of the reason is because we have been fighting a very expensive war and the time has come when we now have to pay the bill. But it’s worse.
We have a health care system that makes money by not taking care of us, a national security system that protects us by stripping us of our rights and freedoms and a banking system that although they have received billions in bailout funds they have no intention of changing their business model. Instead of using these funds to inject life back into our economy as the bailout was intended to produce, they are sitting on the money for future use in mergers and acquisitions.
People’s life savings are dwindling and their ability to be prepared for old age is slipping away. Those of us who have lost jobs cannot even find a good replacement job. What jobs we do find take months to land and pay so little that we have to find a second job just to keep from losing the house. We have slipped from a nation of two job households into a nation of four job households. Husbands and wives are both working two jobs just to be broke all of the time.
We are giving up our gym memberships, our eating out once a week, our Saturday night movies—and for many, even our cable or dish television service just to make ends meet at the end of the month. On top of all of this, we are making progress in the wrong war and losing the one we should be fighting. We are in a dismal fix as a country.
Yet in the shadow of all of this there were people celebrating all over the country when Obama was sworn in. There was elation everywhere. We are so ready for this change and from the looks of things it has begun. It will be good to see America back on its feet again. And like many others, I can hardly wait.
At a traffic light in the north Denver suburban community of Westminster, Colorado a car radio blared out an opened window and into the street, a broadcast of the inaugural address. People went to Washington from all over the country for the privilege of standing out in the cold so they can see the inauguration. Much of America came to a halt while Barak Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. For the first time in decades America elected a president who is not from a wealthy background. The entire nation stood still, dead in their tracks to witness the inauguration of this man who has inspired our trust. We don’t really know why but we don’t simply trust him, we have been awaiting his arrival at the white house as though he were a messiah.
After a long night of celebrations he began very early the next morning and issued executive orders that banned any former white house staff member from lobbying the white house for any reason and froze all staff wages and salaries. He dug right in when no one would have blamed him if he were to have spent the entire day sleeping after having been up almost the entire previous night attending all of his inaugural balls.
An overwhelming majority of the population of this nation has placed their faith in Obama to do something positive to address our weak economy, our damaged way of life and our decaying ability to make ends meet. We have all been stricken by a daunting feeling that we as a nation are in decline. Much of the reason is because we have been fighting a very expensive war and the time has come when we now have to pay the bill. But it’s worse.
We have a health care system that makes money by not taking care of us, a national security system that protects us by stripping us of our rights and freedoms and a banking system that although they have received billions in bailout funds they have no intention of changing their business model. Instead of using these funds to inject life back into our economy as the bailout was intended to produce, they are sitting on the money for future use in mergers and acquisitions.
People’s life savings are dwindling and their ability to be prepared for old age is slipping away. Those of us who have lost jobs cannot even find a good replacement job. What jobs we do find take months to land and pay so little that we have to find a second job just to keep from losing the house. We have slipped from a nation of two job households into a nation of four job households. Husbands and wives are both working two jobs just to be broke all of the time.
We are giving up our gym memberships, our eating out once a week, our Saturday night movies—and for many, even our cable or dish television service just to make ends meet at the end of the month. On top of all of this, we are making progress in the wrong war and losing the one we should be fighting. We are in a dismal fix as a country.
Yet in the shadow of all of this there were people celebrating all over the country when Obama was sworn in. There was elation everywhere. We are so ready for this change and from the looks of things it has begun. It will be good to see America back on its feet again. And like many others, I can hardly wait.
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