Oh People! Have we all forgotten our history – and all the history of all the ages of man and womankind? What is this “make America great again” rhetoric? Is anybody comparing ‘the state of the union’ today with the interior conflict that grew into the War Between the States? Are we going to do that again? And without the faintest hint of a “glorious cause” that both sides claimed? Can we never ever learn from our mistakes?
The hostility and rancor that are tearing this country apart from the inside are not going to lead to any form of greatness, people. Why can’t we recognize that and stop behaving like the most obnoxious of spoiled children, screaming about the wickedness of our opponents and blaming each other for everything we don’t like about the world around us.
Come on, people. Didn’t someone once council us to love one another? Isn’t that the same Someone the Evangelical Christians claim to worship?
Our current POTUS is not the reason for this terrible situation. The Republicans are not the reason. Nor are the Democrats. This truly ‘deplorable’ (look it up, it means “deserving censure or contempt” according to Webster’s.) state of affairs has been simmering since the unCivil war, but sort of went into hiding when we were involved in World Wars and most people felt a need to hang together out of fear of a common enemy that just about everyone could hate, if nothing else.
Since then we’ve had our ups and downs, but today, as I listen to the latest news from NPR, which I still trust not to bring me any fake news if they can help it, about all I can hear is down, down, down.
Obviously the rift between citizens of this country has widened, but it was there already before the current administration took over. It had to be, or Trump could never have been elected with or without help from Russia or anywhere else. He couldn’t have gotten close.
How did this happen? How could we as a nation be so clueless, so apathetic, so unwilling to look for solutions to problems instead of making them worse by trying to pin the responsibiity for those problems on some hobgoblin we like to call “Them”. “ Them” can be any group of people who happen to have skin of a color different than ours, or who happen to believe in the god or gods they were taught by parents and/or culture to believe in, or speaks a different language from the one we grew up learning, or has more money than we do or . . . you name it, we’ll blame it.
There are no easy answers. Does anyone really think that fear and hate (which go hand in hand, of course) can serve to protect us from our (perceived) enemies, or bring us happiness, or help us sleep better at night? Is the pursuit of the Almighty Dollar (or any other currency) the most important factor in our lives?
What has happened to ‘the Land of Hope and Opportunity’? The New World? America the Beautiful?
Has Lady Liberty’s light gone out? Come on, people. We had a chance to build on the best of the old and try for the best of the new and unknown, to reject the values of a society built on ignorance rather than enlightenment. We may still have that chance, but from here it sure looks like we’re blowing it.
Many others are saying the same thing I’m trying to say, and with far more eloquence. Can’t we, as a nation of diversity, make a blessing of that diversity, rather than a curse? The idea that anybody can “make America great again” by ignoring or demonizing the rest of the world is utterly absurd – and terribly sad, not to mention incredibly stupid.
Please, can people of good sense and good will get together and exchange views, talk honestly and thoughtfully about our differnces, and look for solutions to our problems rather than adding to them?
Is that too much to hope for? Oh people, we have to work together or we will almost certainly fall apart.