Two Americas!

We've been laboring under a particular myth. For who knows how long, we've believed that America is one; that we are homogeneous and that all Americans feel as we do but may not always express it.
I've got news for you. That bit of trash is simply wishful but unproductive myth. The truth is that there are two Americas.
There is an America where every life lost overseas is a pain that each of us feels and laments. For those of us who care about what happens to this country, we ask ourselves how can we persist in a war that was uncalled for; that was predicated on lies; and in the end, will have cost us our standing and prestige around the world.

It has been estimated that this war will cost us upwards of one or two trillion dollars before it ends. For what? What have we accomplished except to drive the Shiites of Iraq together with the Shiites of Iran in their growing and spreading hatred of America and everything it stands for.

But our caring and our concerns do not end there.

They spill over to the challenges we face on our own border, a border that four years after 9/11 is still porous allowing anyone to come illegally into this country. Americans look out and see their jobs slipping overseas and our country rapidly becoming a retail outlet for Chinese companies to whom we owe trillions of dollars of debt.

We see a country poised on bankruptcy giving tax breaks to the already rich yet unable to fund the level of education needed to keep this country competitive.

We see our seniors faced with being unable to pay for both their medications and food. We see part of the country still torn by environmental challenges that were never met.

In short, what we see is a failed country that has jetisoned its democracy, lied to the American people and squandered our advantages in surpluses and by tough talking grandiose gestures that accomplish nothing but alienate all of our friends around the world.

The second America could not give a hoot about anything indicated above. They are too involved in their games, their computers, their TV agendas to be very much concerned about the real world or what is happening there. These are the people who flaunt don't tread on me flags, carry shotguns in their cabs and live in splendid isolation away from people of color behind gates that further serve to alienate and polarize us as a people. They are the kind who believe that their God is better than our God. This segment of the population with its big Hummers and wasteful ways is not affected by rising gas prices,
increasing food costs, or the "off-shoring" of jobs. They have theirs and what they don't have they will simply buy, take or pray for.

They are self-centered, egoistic, and driven by power and material things. they have never learned about conservation, doing without or considering others. They are the ones who demand the right to bear guns, who want to send their kids to parochial schools so that they don't have to mix it up and feel the government should pay for it, don't mind the environmental destruction of the wilderness or drilling on pristine sites. They are the disconnect haves; the Enrons and all they've spawned, they are the fortunate disconnects who couldn't care less what happens to the rest of us, whether we have a constitution or not, only that they get theirs...

Sadly, this country is a far different place than the one I grew up in and I am sorry that my children or my grand-children will never know about sharing, caring and love for one another as some of us poor kids did growing up!....

It is said that we become whom we emulate. If we wonder why things are the way they are, all we need to do is look around us to see today's roll models. What we see are truly sorry sights who sell their autographs, their sweat and their destructive ideas to the many and the willing!...

And then we wonder why we have lost our way...

Les Aaron