Many of us have come to a place where politics are very important to us. Others feel politics have always been important to us. Still, others think we’re in a place where more Americans have to be involved because our political condition is so precarious and unconventional.
Whichever it is, the passion is so unusually strong and divisive that, for those of us who have strong relationships with family members or friends who don’t agree with our particular political outlook, silence is more than golden – it’s imperative. Even social media have become such that a simple chat on kites can go renegade political without warning.
We deserve personal peace, familial harmony, and a non-confrontational coffee clatch. Politics should never divide friends and family, but there are still issues to be addressed. We can still work on them in our own best way – quietly, if necessary, but hard truths will still make people uncomfortable. Whether discussed or denied, the problems must still be addressed if America is to remain strong. Words are our most powerful tool – so powerful, in fact, that what is implied without them is just as powerful as what is openly stated with them, and information must be shared.
Step one to recognizing any issue and its solution is always research. Some Americans deny or ignore the research, even the research clearly supported by effects that we, ourselves, are living with every day. The research may be just too uncomfortable. Some believe only what reinforces the opinion they’ve already grown comfortable with. Some believe only what comes from a favorite news channel.
It’s hard. We know. We Americans have been embroiled and divided before. We Americans love our country. That’s a good thing. Loving it blindly even unto our own detriment is not, and loving it without being willing to work for moderation, is not.
The hard truths must be spoken and holding to that, it must be said, then, that several invasive forces have huge impact today on America’s politics, and are dividing and confusing their opposition, which is always the goal of the antagonist.
America is currently, and has been for several decades, functioning with a major security breach. We have 10 massive conglomerates that have wormed their way into seats of incredible power in our government. The evidence, even if no one wants to do any research, is easily detectable for those willing to see it, or those long enough in the tooth to remember America before the coups d’etat.
The issues affecting our people and the conditions creating those issues stare us in the face. We live with the fallout every day and that is why, if we look, we will be able to see for ourselves what’s going on at the behest of the corporate regime in America ... but we must be willing to look, to see and to accept what we find.
The fuel, finance, commercial food, pharmaceutical, chemical, health-care, health insurance, arms manufacturing, military support and military supply conglomerates in this nation today need a shearing.
These few, massive, highly wealthy, unacceptably powerful and avaricious groups have honed financial support and lobbying – and their power in it – to a razor sharp, full-time, lifelong skill. All this is now enhanced even further by the growing privatization of even more government functions, including the critical education system and the atrocity that is the private/for profit prison complex.
These conglomerates are not influential over all members of government but they shouldn’t have power over any. Yet, our government operations are greatly influenced and impeded by these cartels. The control and demands of any special groups with an inequitable share of power over our officials, as opposed to the power exerted by the people whom those officials are supposed to serve, should never even be an issue. The will of the people is the only power that should be controlling any and all American leadership. In a true democracy, only they should have any influence on government.
It’s ugly. We know. Many of us not only don’t want to believe it, we don’t; we can’t; we won’t, believe it – despite the discomfort it inflicts on all of us, every day. Therein lies the greatest strength of these corrupt and influential cartels.
Let’s remember, the powerful tobacco conglomerate, solely in the name of profit, for decades, denied smoking was carcinogenic. So, too, do these powerful conglomerates deny their oligarchic influence over our Democracy, and they, too, advertise in many ways.
As always, it’s up to us to change it.
