This year (2011) marks the 150th anniversary of the United States Civil War. It’s clear that the debates on that war are still ongoing. Not a day goes by in this nation where North versus South is still a conversation had among friends and enemies and the hate toward those of another color has remained a constant that plagues our lives and affects us all. I’m not here to talk about that.
I’m here to talk about the civil war that will soon erupt and the one that will be remembered 150 years from now when we’re all gone from this Earth. I’m talking about Red versus Blue, Right versus Left, Conservative versus Liberal. I do not and will not get political online but I would like to take a few moments to write my observations on this growing disconnect in America and how it will lead to further collapse of our nation and how our children will be affected by the choices made today.
First, a note that I stand by the belief that the Earth is not “ours” and that God does not look over “America” and protect us or bless us and that the Native Americans are the true Americans and, borders, countries, currencies, beliefs and ownership are all complete bullshit and I only wish we didn’t have to label, own, lease or buy anything and that the world could be shared as one planet. Of course, that’s not how things are. Just remember, we’re flying through space on a tiny spec in a vast limitless universe full of other tiny specs and really shouldn’t take ourselves so seriously because it’s all temporary and we’re on borrowed time. This is my belief. Of course, for this argument, I’ll have to go against a few of those beliefs and limit my vision to one piece of land on one tiny spec in a vast universe that we call America. :)
For the past 100 years, the rise of capitalism followed by the efficiency brought on by the industrial revolution has changed how the world economy works. There have always been two classes in modern society; rich & poor. These two classes became three in the 50s following World War II as the government funded more of our men in uniform to go to college via the GI Bill which made way for an educated middle class. This group bought homes and provided for their children and this evolved into the “consumer economy” that we live in today. As the decades passed, the growing corporation became far too efficient and yes, there is such a thing. Shipping jobs overseas, making far cheaper products and highly efficient crops & food made for less farmers, less need for workers to actually build, grow and make things and thus made way for the new business person where, in 2011, the majority of Americans live and work in metropolitan areas and the majority of Americans don’t build, create or grow. They sit behind desks, spending money on goods that were grown or built thousands of miles away in different economies and countries.
When you compound all of the problems that go along with this and look at the financial sectors, volatile stock prices, housing collapses, tainted meats & veggies that make it to our grocery stores, rising health care costs from our inactivity and decline of education, it makes for a very scary next decade. It’s not simply a worry that our next generation will be far less healthy, less active, in further debt and further unemployment than we were as the middle class shrinks and our economy is unable to sustain itself due to costs of supporting Americans without the money coming in to support itself, it’s a worry that everything we know will be flipped upside down.
This is not the fault of the left or the right. It’s our fault. We, as Americans did this. We voted with our wallets, our time, our minds and our morals. No one in Washington is to blame. Washington is us. There is no separation.
The last line most likely pissed off half of the people reading this. Frankly, I don’t care. Unsubscribe and never come back but what I’m about to say is my belief and how I feel things will go if we continue to see the problem as outside of ourselves.
Each time we shop at Wal*Mart or resist getting on a treadmill or give up on trying to better ourselves through education and throw trash out on the road or look at someone with hate or blame someone else for these problems, we’re defeating ourselves. I remember so vividly the 2008 election when Americans got together to call people in support of Obama, raise signs into the air, donate and spread the word of “change”. People on both sides still believed that we needed change and election night was something special. I’ve never seen anything like it. The next day, we pulled up to the drive thru at Mcdonalds and cursed at a person who had a George Bush bumper sticker then threw out that McDonalds wrapper out onto the road yelling out, “god bless america.”
That really was some change we could believe in.
90 days later, we cursed Obama for screwing up our economy and being lame and not getting anything done. We yelled at those Dems / Republicans in the house and their inability to get things done but never once lifted a pen to write our local congress person in protest for their voting decisions. We yelled at BP for offshore drilling in high risk areas while putting fuel in our 15 mile per gallon trucks and we screamed at our employers for dropping healthcare coverage despite the fact that we’re 50 pounds overweight and haven’t stepped foot in a gym since we were in college….outside blame indeed.
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Instead of fixing the problem, we fell into this trap of red versus blue. Today, we are murdering people for voting or being democrat, our radio personalities scream obscenities to those who believe abortion is not Christian and we curse the gun owners for all of their stupidity and make fun of the redneck who likes his big truck while he screams at us for driving a hybrid. Red versus Blue has distracted us from the core that we’re all to blame for the current state of our nation.
The moment that you blame someone else for the problems that plague America is the moment that you become more of the problem. To think that we didn’t cause this and that “they” did is absolutely absurd. The plan of dividing a nation while things collapse is working. The problems that plagued America in 2000, 2004 and 2008 are still problems. Absolutely nothing has gotten better and it’s far worse than we ever anticipated but it seems like no one in America is actually doing anything about it. We vote all Democrat or all Republican as if it’s a popularity contest and you’re either a nerd or a jock. You vote for high school class president goes to the pretty girl who promises better lunch food with absolutely no plan for making this a reality and, when voting is done, you blame the people who didn’t vote for her as the problem. You hate, kill, punish and blame those people for causing this even though the pretty girl actually got elected. Since you voted for her, there’s no way SHE’S the one that is to blame. it has to be something else! It has to be the guy that didn’t vote for her!
The issue with this way of thinking is that, in 10 years, life in America will be far more degraded, our children will be upper or lower class, our economy will be completely owned by China and our schools will be in the lower 15th percentile in the world. Illiteracy will rise and our government will collapse under the price of health care and interest rates from the loans we took from other countries. The economy that depends on oil and consumerism will falter and we will start to see the signs of living in a 3rd world country.
…and we’ll still be blaming the other side for the problems that exist in our nation. We’ll blame red or blue, we’ll erupt in violence as things get worse. The rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer and this country will reach a breaking point but, by then, it’ll be too late. The America that prospered from the 40s to early 2000s will be something our kids read in history books;
assuming our schools can afford them.
Is there are chance to reverse this? Of course, it starts with a few simple words, “I created this problem. Now, I’m going to fix it.” It’s harder to say this than it sounds. You’re welcome to curse me out and unfollow me now. Someone had to say this without attaching a color to it. I’m not red or blue. I’m an American and I want things to get better. Who’s with me?