E PLURIBUS UNUM – OUT OF MANY ONE PEOPLE IN NEWTOWN

Jessica Rekos
 An American Girl, Age: 6

 

    

Perhaps finally we can all put last fall’s class warfare rhetoric to one side and try to absorb a true lesson from the Newtown Massacre.

Take one look at the picture of 6 year old Jessica Rekos in local papers.  She has the gift of her age, angelic innocence and purity.  She and her fellow classmates, twenty in all, woke up that cold Friday morning in December and after giving a good stretch for her parents, scampered down to breakfast and off to school – Sandy Hook Elementary School.  The rest is painful history.

With all the suggestions pouring into Newtown, CT from around the world, I have one that has been percolating below the media radar - it deals with us as Americans.  Please stop breaking our country into factions – especially people, like the president, who continually talk about the rich, the top 2%, as nefarious interlopers who are only interested in money and greed.  Think about it, the top 10% of income earners pay nearly 70% of the federal income taxes – is this a group shirking their obligations?

Jessica is the daughter of parents living in Connecticut (the wealthiest state in the nation by per capita income) – she and her family also live in Fairfield County which is the 9^th wealthiest county out of 3,000 measured according to Ralph Stewart of the Federal Bureau of Economic Analysis.  That puts Fairfield County in the top .3% of all American Counties.  The Sandy Hook part of Newtown is a very wealthy bucolic town on the Housatonic River; a quintessential New England Village founded 65 years before the Declaration of Independence was issued.  In short, don’t blame Newtown for being the stuff of Norman Rockwell’s America.

One look at Jessica and you’ll realize how precious ALL American children are – possibly you’ll find in your heart to remove that faux rage and that manufactured anger and reach out to your fellow Americans, even among the 2% and say, we’re all in this together, Newtown, how can I help?  Word total: 335

Geoffrey G. Fisher is a federally designated highly-qualified state-certified history teacher working in southwest Florida as a guest teacher.  He holds a BA in History from the University of Connecticut and a MA in Public Policy from Trinity College in Hartford, CT.  In addition to teaching he is a former elected official and speechwriter.  Mr. Fisher now writes the political blog: THE THINKING CAP at:  

www.theamericanthinkingcap.blogspot.com .