Forty Jobs for India
By Pat Racimora on November 27, 2009 at 8:10 AM in Current Affairs
* Bumped up *
Michelle Obama made a stunning appearance last night at the State Dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife, Gursharan Kaur. The gown is beautiful. She is a striking image of both strength and grace. Our American Queen.
So what’s my problem?
I never like it much when commentators rip apart…figuratively, speaking…what movie stars wear to the Academy Awards ceremony. But this gown took 40 people working full time for three weeks to create? Oh, and they did it in India.
Yes, I get the connection. But I wonder what my friends who have been laid off from their long-term jobs think about such a spectacle? Specifically, I worry about a friend who had a high power job with a major computer company before they shipped her job off to India. She is now an inch away from being homeless.
But here is my main point. I recall during the campaign that Michelle Obama (and her husband) often warned how all Americans (and seemingly including themselves) must be prepared to sacrifice for the good of our country.
Examples (emphases mine):
We have lost the understanding that in a democracy, we have a mutual obligation to one another — that we cannot measure the greatness of our society by the strongest and richest of us, but we have to measure our greatness by the least of these. That we have to compromise and sacrifice for one another in order to get things done. That is why I am here, because Barack Obama is the only person in this who understands that. That before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation.
Most Americans don’t want much. They don’t want the whole pie. There are some who do, but most Americans feel blessed just being able to thrive a little bit. But that is becoming even more out of reach.
If we don’t wake up as a nation with a new kind of leadership…for how we want this country to work, then we won’t get universal health care. The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.
Well, Mrs. First Lady, we have sacrificed. We have only a few pie crust crumbs left on our plates. So, who is that “someone else” who can have more of the pie, thanks to our sacrifices? Would that be you?
