America The Great!
It is a sentiment shared by many. The rich, the poor, conservatives, progressives, the old and the young. A shared love of our foundations, our rights, and our home.
But then there are the fanatics. Those with a deep, violent pride, over being a citizen of a nation they did not forge. Did not fight for. And have not served.
A belief in superiority through birth. A God given right thanks to our forefathers' sacrifices.
When asked what makes America great, they can only shout generalities such as “Freedom!” It was a novel approach back in 1776. It is not unique in 2021.
Yesterday’s feats are not today’s accomplishments.
Maybe they’ll claim the great American dream. The promise that you can achieve anything regardless of your position in life.
Who you are, how you look, where you were born, none of it matters. Work hard, stick with it, and your dreams will come true.
Then why are there 50 million Americans living in poverty? We have the highest income inequality in the world. Our friends and our neighbors are dying preventable deaths.
If all it takes is hard work, why do we have the world’s largest debt? Our country, teetering on the edge, one wrong move will trigger an economic collapse.
What of our military? They will say we can’t deny America’s military might. Instead of our money going to roads, going to bridges, education, or helping those in need, it funds the military industrial complex. All for the greater good of our rolling coal, oversized, overcompensating pickup trucks, and keeping those Muslims in their place.
The world is your oyster if you take it by force.
Challenging this notion of extreme greatness is heresy. For a true patriot knows America can do no wrong. Apology is a mortal sin. Only a traitor would say aloud our failings, our transgressions, our murky unpleasant past. Because America always has an enemy. Yesterday’s red scare is today’s socialist boogieman.
Manipulated by those lies and all the rhetoric, tens of millions of people screamed about one of the safest and most secure elections in US history.
If the outcome isn’t what you want it must be a conspiracy.
Their ringleader was a sociopath who craved to turn these divided states into a fascist regime.
It can feel hopeless. Corruption, misinformation, corporate influence. Citizens that are trained to hate the protesters instead of the injustice.
The rich keep getting richer, the poor even poorer. All the while the politicians collect their large paychecks and their universal healthcare.
Our rights are lost and progress is stalled when we give up.
You have a voice!
Speak up and challenge the status quo. Challenge your government’s decisions and their inaction.
Our nation fought a bloody revolution, fought in world wars, to forge and protect these ideals. The greatest disrespect we can bestow on those who suffered, and died, to get us this far, is to allow the light of our republic to be extinguished through apathy and despair.
Those who forget history will repeat it. Great nations came before us. Weakened by laziness and greed, they stopped improving, stopped adapting, stopped learning. And their dynasties crumbled.
Look around you! See the cracks becoming fissures. The fabric of our nation’s soul is tearing at the seams.
Change is difficult. America once proclaimed that we do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard. We cannot fix this nation by ignoring our problems. We will not fix it without working together.
It is time to face the American Reality.
American Reality