We Must Unite

We Must Unite

Choose your faction and be content they say,
Yet I know what my heart truly wishes for.
The answers do not come as simply as before.
All the same, my values I shall never betray.

My country appears to decay more each day,
Like a sickly and disease-ridden street whore,
Yet it is her that I will always love and adore,
Even as she ails in a state of utter disarray.

The divisive politics of today make us weak—
At odds we can only fall deeper into the abyss,
So we must unite or else our future will be bleak.

Is it better to simply accept fanciful delusions?
No. It is the absolute truth which we must seek,
For it is foolish to continue to live in an illusion.
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On a blustery, but otherwise sunny and cheerful day, as I advanced homeward after addressing my business obligations, I began thinking about various things—music, love, flowers, kittens—indeed all of the things which I cherish the most. Yet on this particular day, I suddenly paused in the middle of my thought and caught myself thinking perhaps too much of pleasant things and too little of more pressing matters. Without question, I am a person of peace, yet I am cognizant of the fact that if I am truly to live up to my potential as an advocate of peace, it is necessary, perhaps even urgent, that I contemplate more serious matters along with my usual fanciful daydreams. Indeed, on this particular day, my world of childhood innocence would have to wait. Consequently, I would seek to better comprehend exactly why we humans allow ourselves to be so easily misled by our “benevolent” leaders, and additionally, why we allow ourselves to grow distant from each other on the basis of slight differences of opinion on a select number of issues.

Firstly, I will state that I am a United States citizen. Nevertheless, I consider myself to be a human first and foremost, thus I do not turn a blind eye to the injustices committed by my nation by virtue of the fact that it is my nation—no, as a human who just happens to be a United States citizen, I look out for the welfare of my fellow humans, wherever they may reside on this planet, first and foremost. While I am not totally without a sense of nationalism, I am quick to realize the reality that human beings, flesh and blood, are incalculably more significant and precious than man made conceptions such as nations, flags, and nationalistic credos. Life, above all else, is dear to me.

Hence, I am understandably upset by my government’s appreciably destructive policies abroad. Reasonable and informed individuals have a propensity to assume that simple views, founded upon simplistic trains of thought, can be of no benefit to any meaningful discourse, yet it is my contention that they can indeed be valuable to a discussion. For instance, when I observe the United States central government dictating to a select group of nations halfway across the globe that they are not to have weapons of mass destruction, while the United States itself is armed rather heavily with WMDs, how then can I conscionably turn a blind eye to the utter hypocrisy of the United States’ remarkably arrogant diktat? One could argue that I am oversimplifying the matter by taking such an emotional position against the United States in this particular case, and they could very well be correct. Yet the fact remains: what the United States is doing is, without question, arrogant. And this of course begs the following question: how can arrogance give rise to peace, which on paper at least, is what the United States, or more specifically, the Bush administration and complicit members of the legislature claim to desire?

Maybe this talk of peace is just a facade for something more sinister. Perhaps the ubiquitous phrase “War on Terror” is simply yet another case of doublespeak like the inaptly titled “Patriot Act” which only serves to compromise the civil liberties of the United States’ population. Whatever the case, evidently, my thoughts are not original. People of great influence in the United States have issued grave warnings in years past in regards to this very matter. For instance, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his final speech as president, asserted that “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” Can it be that peace is the last thing on the minds of Bush and company, and that profit, on the back of destruction and human suffering, is the true impetus behind our current foreign policies?

If this is not so, why then is George W. Bush so willing to disregard the will of his citizenry? There is no question as to exactly how unpopular the war in Iraq has become, both in the United States and abroad. Indeed, United States citizens, as well as people the world over, have organized myriad protests which have served to demonstrate their frustration with the destruction being caused in Iraq, supposedly in the name of peace. And the destruction is incredibly upsetting indeed. According to Bush himself, at least 30,000 Iraqis have perished as a consequence of the United States’ actions in Iraq; most would agree that that is a very conservative estimate given the fact that impartial third parties have released figures which were substantially higher. At any rate, there is no question that the anti war sentiment is strong, but that is not to suggest that there aren’t any people left that are still sympathetic toward this war.

Ironically, much of the United States’ conservative Christian population supports the president in his endeavors abroad, even to this day. Yet this fact perplexes me. How can people who observe the ten commandments of the Christian bible so readily support foreign policies which betray the sixth, eight, ninth, and tenth commandments? Murder has been committed in Iraq by the US, theft has been committed in Iraq by the US, false testimony served as substantiation for the US entering Iraq in the first place, and select individuals within the our government arguably coveted that which belongs to our Iraqi neighbors half a world away. Fortunately, more and more of these good-intentioned individuals are waking up each day and seeing just how immoral the “war on terror” truly is.

Yet some continue to sleep soundly in an illusion. And why would these people stand at odds with their fellow humans who stand in firm opposition to destructive and wholly unnecessary war policies? Can differences of opinion in considerably less important aspects of our lives really be creating a false dichotomy and the entire “us versus them” conflict? In US society at least, we do indeed let these trivial differences blind us to the veracity that we are, in fact, more similar to each other than we are dissimilar. Once our stances on issues such as abortion, gun control, and gay marriage, among other issues, are subtracted from the equation, what we are left with is something which bears some semblance to unity. I truly do feel that we all wish to be virtuous and just people and this is precisely why I think we should collectively spend more time looking at the things we do in fact share in common rather than focusing principally on trivialities which only serve to reinforce a culture of division. After all, fomenting division can only be to the benefit of the powers that be. Of course, I’m not suggesting that issues such as gun control et cetera should be disregarded. Rather, I contend that such issues should be addressed accordingly and not be a person’s primary motivation for being politically aware and/or going to the polling booths. Vote with your heart and conscience, and love your fellow man. That is all that can be expected of any one, to be sure.

I don’t profess to be an authority on the subjects I’ve briefly touched upon. Rather I am a person filled with love for my fellow man. Thus I struggle to see why we let ourselves become so entangled in manufactured conflicts and allow ourselves to be coaxed into supporting endeavors which do not reflect our true natures. Instead of submitting to feelings of distrust toward each other, let us love each other sincerely. In my estimation, if more would seek to love than to disparage those they think stand at odds to their ideologies, this world would be a much better place.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Yeah. That's great.

So, what exactly are we discussing here? Your deep, endless love for all the world's beautiful things?

We have another place here for things of this nature. We call it a Journal. This is where you can place all your rhetorical opinions instead of creating bizarre, pointless threads that only confuse everyone.

Not to mention, you're kinda creepy.

So, this thread is CLOSED.

There's nowhere I can't reach.