By Georgie Bright Kunkel

In a culture in which the rich are getting richer and the ordinary middle class people are getting poorer, there remains the extremely poor who are always with us. I can refer to the poor as outside myself as I am still living relatively comfortably. To try and change the world for the better there are pressure groups of one kind or another, each one trying to change things. You can imagine the overhead costs for organizations trying to find homes for dogs or working for better conditions for the homeless—on and on. In a so-called democracy it would seem that if we can put people on the moon that we could feed and house everyone, right? Recently the author who chronicled the story of the first man on the moon was interviewed on TV. There are funds made available to spend on extremely expensive space travel and space stations to please the egos of our citizens who would squander lots of money to be the first or the best while many go hungry. And all this reminds me of the time when we citizens learned that there was at last a man on the moon. I wrote to NASA and asked if the first man finally reached the moon then there must have been a woman there first. Go figure.

If we could just take all the money spent by the myriad of interest groups to get their messages across there would be money for the hungry and homeless, right? Or are we destined to remain a human population that resembles the so-called lower animals who fight amongst themselves for food. It has always been thus. The survival of the fittest and in this case the fittest would be the most powerful who can command what they desire of the natural resources of the earth. But not everyone is one-upping each other. There are benevolent societies that are not viciously competing with each other for food. But, for the most part, there always seems to be this extreme of cooperation on the one side and competition and killing on the other.

Parents have a grave responsibility to raise children who grow up to cooperate and share rather than becoming self serving or even violent. I personally had an upbringing in a home where I never heard horrid name calling or experienced uncontrollable anger. My mother never gossiped or showed evidence of hatred toward anyone. I was really shocked when I grew up and realized that not every family was so well meaning as ours seemed to be.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t make my ideas known in the world. I have always been willing to express my views about bettering the world. Recently I decided that I was going to start a movement against football since it represents violence in a society which needs to foster cooperation and benevolence. My friends said, “You are wasting your time. There are too many people who either play football or support it in one way or another.” But I have always been a change agent and change starts with just one person reaching out to others with an idea which takes hold.

My own son said, “Mother, I am afraid for you if you would go down and walk with signs in front of the stadium teeming with enthusiastic fans. You might be hurt.”

I replied, “That would prove my point that football breeds violence.” No matter how many people are willing to shell out big bucks to attend a football game there are a lot of people who don’t spend their money and time sitting on their behinds cheering on violent behavior. Life is short. In a so-called peaceful society we may want to choose more peaceful ways to recreate. Or am I a lone voice in the wilderness? Hope not. .
Georgie Bright Kunkel is a freelance writer who can be reached at gnkunkel@comcast.net or 206-935-8663.