Moving on

"We are ready to extend the hand if you are willing to unclench the fist"

So I ended up watching the Inauguration of Obama today, uncharacteristically. I don't usually pay attention to world affairs, political dramas, or white house blunders too much mostly because as a cared-for middle-class white female, I really don't absolutely need to. It's not a paramount concern in my life. Usually.
For some reason, call it mature awareness of others, call it a reality check, whatever, I've definitely started being a little more passionate about the rights and freedoms of others. Living in a big city, especially the neighborhood I live in with drugs, prostitution and overwhelming poverty running rampant, has made me want things to change for everyone.
I can't handle sitting on the bus, going home from hanging out with friends late at night, and listen to a woman crying herself into a hysterical stupor over the loss of her job and the fear she has for her children. If I have to see one more kid panhandling with their parents outside the BART station one more time I'll learn to walk with blinders on everywhere. It's not that I don't want to see it for myself, it's just I know I can do nothing to help them. I don't have that kind of power or, let's be honest, we're all friends here, time.
I could do more. I could volunteer at hospitals, functions, Food not Bombs, anything to help uplift and actively push forward the country that has been in weak arms for a while now. And yet I really don't do much.
In fact I'm probably worsening the problem by walking by, intentionally blind, deaf and mute, while the poor, the weak, the sick I see everyday on the street worsen. Some are there by default, their own personal choices that led them to the downward spiral that they now free fall into. But some are there by unhappy circumstance, bi-products of a technologically surging and decreasingly personal world that didn't have a place for them anymore. Laid off and now royally ticked off, these people's options for survival are dwindling. And I can't do anything about it.
Yes, yes, yes, they could do this program or work that job they're clearly overqualified for, but we haven't been in that situation they're living in right now. Their everyday struggles are our worst nightmares (minus the spiders and mummies).

All in all, I want positive change to infiltrate the system, I want the red tape to become clear, and I want the power to be delegated and utilized wisely. I hope he's got it in him.