I’m a nobody.  I recognize that.  My daddy isn’t a billionaire oil man from Connecticut or an Admiral in the Navy.  I wasn’t fortunate enough to attend Cornell for my undergraduate studies or get to live off a trust while I pursued my artistic inclinations.  No, my father is a truck driver, and I’ve worked since I was 10.  While trying to launch my writing career, I’ve worked full-time my entire adult life, mostly as a teacher but also as a salesperson.  While I stand behind the quality of my books and believe they are as good as anything else on the market, I recognize that in the eyes of the publishing world I am, to date, an abysmal failure.

I didn’t get to enter college in the ROTC program as I had planned because of a traumatic accident in high school, and I also couldn’t enlist for the same reason, so the opportunity to serve in the military as both of my grandfathers had done was denied to me.  According to some, that means I must not be as patriotic as others.

As an educator, I’ve been grossly underpaid for my entire career.  I’ve hovered around the poverty line for as long as I can remember and have never felt like I was fully capable of participating in this society because I’ve never had enough money to enjoy the basics of the American Dream.  Healthcare has always been too expensive.  Home ownership is a laughable dream.  In every company I’ve ever worked for, I’ve watched the so-called leadership demand more and more from their employees while simultaneously denying a basic, livable wage and funneling more profits to the very top.

So if you want to know why it pisses me off that Fox News spends 24 hours a day fabricating bullshit about a “socialist” regime in the White House and lamenting the good ol’ days of Mr. Bush, it’s because for the first time in my life I see real hope for change in this nation.  The economy is chugging back to life and the leadership in Washington is making an attempt to hold companies accountable for their business practices.  I see an administration that understands the value of education because he had to lift himself out of meager beginnings and put himself through school, and education served him well.  So maybe, just maybe, since we have a president who values education, maybe my salary will begin to reflect the education and professionalism demanded of the job.  And if our education system gets a much needed overhaul, maybe we can save the next generation before their brains are completely crippled like this current generation has been.

I’m pissed off because the objective data all points to economic recovery, but the people who dislike the current president refuse, flat out and loudly refuse, to look at the objective data.  The stock market is up over 40% since Mr. Obama took the oath of office.  For the first time in a couple of years, the economy is creating jobs.  Corporate earnings are up 32% this quarter.  And the administration has bent over backwards to compromise with conservatives on key points on contention.

If those aren’t markers that this country is moving in the right direction, what is?  What would make you happy?  Eight more years of greed, corruption, and scandal?  Eight more years of outsourcing jobs to China and India?  Eight more years of unbridled healthcare inflation?  I understand loyalty, but slitting your own throat for the sake of allowing wealthy elites to play crony capitalism is just insane.