Abraham Lincoln stood on the war torn battlefield of Gettysburg and gave a speech that ended with 'A country of the people, for the people and by the people shall not perish from this earth.' What did he mean by this? I guess this is open to all of our own interpretation. To me he ends the speech how he starts it, trying to help us understand that we control the past, present and future of this country as its citizen's.
Over the years we have celebrated our country as the land of freedom, opportunity and protector of the world. How we always seem to rise above in the face of adversity, how we seem to be part of innovation and we invite people of all kinds to come be part of the country. We are free to elect whoever we want to run this country as well as to walk into any church for our spiritual side. The American Dream we sell to everyone within these borders and outside these borders.
Recently, I had a conversation with a guy that lived the American Dream. He came here from Mexico, grew up here, has himself a family and a successful career. Then at dinner last week he told me he hates living in this country right now. The more I thought about it, the more I could see that being the general attitude.
So I guess I ask this question, what do you see when you look at our country, the American Dream or what I am now calling the American Delusion?
We have killed our own citizen's for no reason other than profit and fear. We have allowed our leaders to die without answers to the question of why. We have brutally attacked other countries and have paid for it with destruction of our country and its citizen's. Our freedom's only seem to come up when it offends us, therefore missing what they truly represent. We say people that do not vote should have no voice without realizing that maybe they are speaking the loudest. We call our military people heroes today but baby killers in the past. We let our businesses use us as temporary labor they can discard at whim so they can acquire slave labor in other countries.
I see this country being under a foundation of delusion, one we have lived with and accepted for hundreds of years. The more we accepted this, the weaker we became as a country and its citizens. Now the country is spiraling in turmoil and the $64,000 question is whether we continue to accept this delusion or we start to knock down those delusional walls. It is something each of us needs to take a step back and think about.
It would take some extreme measures on how we can do this. It would entail not using our anger to instill an uprising of violence which seems to be our normal reaction to things. We would stop hurting the people next to us because these are the people that might have the answer on how to help. We need to stop being silent because we are afraid that using our voice might ruin our comfort zone. We need to stop the wrong thing from being done even if it does not effect us at all, because when it hurts one of us, it hurts all of us. We need to realize that working together means knowing the person next to us has different beliefs but that is alright because you can still work on the beliefs you agree with. Is this possible or am I as crazy as everyone thinks I am?
I have always said that we are the real power in this country and yet we hand it over to people that do not have our interest in mind. I am only one voice in a country of millions but what we need to get away from is thinking that our voices do not count. I know I will offend some people, probably piss off some others but in the end if we all find our voice and work together, the delusions that we hide under can soon become a reality we can live in. Only then can WE stand up and say that this country is of the people, by the people and for the people.
Over the years we have celebrated our country as the land of freedom, opportunity and protector of the world. How we always seem to rise above in the face of adversity, how we seem to be part of innovation and we invite people of all kinds to come be part of the country. We are free to elect whoever we want to run this country as well as to walk into any church for our spiritual side. The American Dream we sell to everyone within these borders and outside these borders.
Recently, I had a conversation with a guy that lived the American Dream. He came here from Mexico, grew up here, has himself a family and a successful career. Then at dinner last week he told me he hates living in this country right now. The more I thought about it, the more I could see that being the general attitude.
So I guess I ask this question, what do you see when you look at our country, the American Dream or what I am now calling the American Delusion?
I can tell you that what I see is a country of the selfish, for the greedy and for people that want to be rich and famous. I see that we feel we are entitled and think we have the right to do anything we want without consequences. We use our military soldiers like pawns in a chess game, except in this game offering up your pieces means people die. Dying not defending our country but so we can show our 'big dick' or to protect our interests. We elect politicians that represent the people but who have no clue on what the people want or probably don't give a damn. Our own citizens fear each other, not because we have reason to but because we are all different or have different beliefs.
We have killed our own citizen's for no reason other than profit and fear. We have allowed our leaders to die without answers to the question of why. We have brutally attacked other countries and have paid for it with destruction of our country and its citizen's. Our freedom's only seem to come up when it offends us, therefore missing what they truly represent. We say people that do not vote should have no voice without realizing that maybe they are speaking the loudest. We call our military people heroes today but baby killers in the past. We let our businesses use us as temporary labor they can discard at whim so they can acquire slave labor in other countries.
I see this country being under a foundation of delusion, one we have lived with and accepted for hundreds of years. The more we accepted this, the weaker we became as a country and its citizens. Now the country is spiraling in turmoil and the $64,000 question is whether we continue to accept this delusion or we start to knock down those delusional walls. It is something each of us needs to take a step back and think about.
It would take some extreme measures on how we can do this. It would entail not using our anger to instill an uprising of violence which seems to be our normal reaction to things. We would stop hurting the people next to us because these are the people that might have the answer on how to help. We need to stop being silent because we are afraid that using our voice might ruin our comfort zone. We need to stop the wrong thing from being done even if it does not effect us at all, because when it hurts one of us, it hurts all of us. We need to realize that working together means knowing the person next to us has different beliefs but that is alright because you can still work on the beliefs you agree with. Is this possible or am I as crazy as everyone thinks I am?
I have always said that we are the real power in this country and yet we hand it over to people that do not have our interest in mind. I am only one voice in a country of millions but what we need to get away from is thinking that our voices do not count. I know I will offend some people, probably piss off some others but in the end if we all find our voice and work together, the delusions that we hide under can soon become a reality we can live in. Only then can WE stand up and say that this country is of the people, by the people and for the people.
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