SAY WHAT?!

 Time to tell it like it is. Time to understand that we in America are now engaged in a multi front war. No, I am not nuts. I am simply putting together everything that I see before me, around me, and behind me, and understand exactly what has been happening. Took me - and indeed all of us - long enough, so long a time that we are enmeshed in an overwhelming plethora of contradictory facts and figures, analyses diametrically opposed in basis and policy, with conflicting predictions, a federal budget which needs both expansion and cutting, and people not quite sure as to what has just happened! What went wrong? How did we get to this mess?

We are at war internally. That has been going on already for more than a decade, far worse than the eternal conflict between those deemed to be the elite and the rest of us, the people who carry the burden once shouldered by Atlas - the world. Sans us, the world would collapse, and the nabobs would be at a serious loss lack of survival skills. Their multiple homes, their high in the sky condos would be for naught unless they could successfully forage for food and necessities in a brand-new world. Computers? Social media? Fashion shows of the rich and obscene? Bah, humbug!!  

How did we get to this point? Society always has had divisions of class. All attempts to erase those classes have been failures, for that is how the world works, like it or not. However, here in America, there was a dream, a dream that mostly had proven true, that our children would be better off than we were. It would be easier for them to educate their children. To live a good life. Not struggle to more than simply survive and live paycheck to paycheck. To be able to pay rent or buy a home.

 Unfortunately, the last decade or two has smashed that dream. College costs are routes to a debt-ridden life. Skilled labor and manufacturing jobs have fled the nation, and we are now only beginning to understand what that has meant to us. At present we are struggling to return these jobs and abilities to our borders, for we cannot depend upon a world gone nationalistic with universal commonalities discarded or lessened in value. 

The impossibility of our leaders to fully internalize the concept of cooperation. and its advantages over the current seemingly forever path chosen, of separation, and yes, selfishness complicates the issue. Cooperation rather than separation is the proper route to a better life. A fairer life not just for this nation or any specific nation, but for all nations. 

Once we understood that profit making and profit taking could be profit sharing, we ignored that fact. It has disappeared.  We never learned that lesson in any long-term manner for war is always there, the last resort to keep an unbalanced way of life alive, even as it is actually longtime gone, a failure of any permanent value. Our leaders refuse even to distinguish between its positive and negative traits, lacking an ability or desire to discern the difference and the necessity to adopt or discard, carefully, with wisdom and compassion.

Over and over again in order to maintain this unbalanced life, nations go to war - internally and externally. Over the centuries the pursuit of 'better weapons' has emerged as a growth industry, so much so that we can kill ourselves, all others, many times over. What is the point? Why could we not address all the energy, all the brain power into   industries which would benefit the world, which would help us live rather. than die. Bloodshed. Deaths. Destruction. Everlasting aftereffects and echoes of a broken past, foretelling a broken present and future to come, inevitable, virtually no change except for the worst for most people. Years, years and years and still we suffer under the damage left behind. Still, we continue to waste the most precious resource we have - people. 

If internal warfare is not enough, we then engage in warfare that goes across borders. Borders that are only imaginary lines, perhaps marked with a stone   or by some natural division which carries not much weight these days. The greed of nations, jealous of what other nations have that they might take, the power that will accrue to the 'successful' leaders of the offending nation. All powerful motivations. Always neglecting the inevitable horrors to come. Always in 'shock' at the ugly results. A waste of life. A waste of resources and never a satisfactory conclusion. Only leaving the door and the windows open, alive and well, simply awaiting the next spark to ignite the entire shebang all over again. Over and over and over. 

Look around you, with eyes and minds open, absorbing the truth. As it is. Not as we wish it. 

Look internally, see the people within that nation. Are they content? Are they unified? Do they agree on what this nation needs and how to fulfill those needs? Are people better often than parents with an optimistic future for their children?

 Are we at peace with the world, an equitable, calm, strong peace? Are there no conflicts raging on this globe, above it or below? If they exist, what is their duration, the future for them? Are they internal or have they gone external? New or old?   Dangerous for the world at large? How are we to approach all of this?  

At present time my faith in a better world for the coming generations is quite wobbly. I have faith in the inspiring words of a good friend, a true friend. I have faith that somewhere out there is a Being of compassion and understanding. One who also understands that a world without worshippers is an empty lonely world for that Being.   

I have faith in our almost guaranteed failure. We never seem to learn and repeat the same errors time and time again. The only thing that has changed is the gravity of our errors, the heightened consequences, and the ever-growing enhanced power of our weaponry. Not much has seemed to change in any kind of better permanent manner, either internally or externally, and we must do better. Must.

Tomorrow more specific address to both the internal and external wars of America and make no mistake about it, we are at war. With ourselves.   We are at war with common sense. We are at war as we deny the obvious. How has this come about? Close to 200 years after the Civil War and like it or not, admit it or not, we are in the early battles of another civil war. The world is busy combating the same issues of previous wars, perhaps names have changed but not the issues nor the consequences. Nor the hate. So toxic. 

Not much has changed. Certainly not much for the better.

Say what - indeed! Sadly so.

On the morrow.