The very real possibility of a New American Revolution
The patriot in me does not want to write this, but the veteran in me tells me that I must. I think that our country is facing the very real possibility of a New American Revolution.
There is a problem with this country. In our streets the police assault citizens for exercising their constitutional right to protest. In our government buildings our elected leaders are taking money in exchange for swaying public opinion with lies. Our elections are funded by big business, which do so to gain political favors. Our richest citizens enjoy over 80% of the total wealth in the country while the rest of us scrabble for the scraps from the master’s table. The pay ratio of CEO’s to average workers is 475:1. Our news organizations report false news to point public opinion towards their party of choice.
Our citizens are jobless, without health insurance, homeless or living in poverty, and to top it off they are losing their political voice. Voters are being suppressed across the nation, and unions are losing their ability to support their workers. Veterans are coming home from decades of war to denied benefits and lack of jobs. Our American system is failing.
Our leaders are ignoring our cries, stating that we are “directionless, lazy, or that we want something for nothing”. They could not be more wrong. The powerful in this country have been bleeding us dry slowly, sucking the life blood from our wounds. The corporate regulation implemented by decades of progress has slowly melted away, allowing CEO’s to rake in millions while they lay off workers and use corporate loopholes to pay little to no taxes. The Founding Fathers fought against the tyranny of England because they felt that the system was corrupt and that the oligarchy that was ruling their lives was unjust. Now we see the same corruption and tyranny in our leaders, as their puppets assault our citizens in the streets and legislation is voted down despite public support. We see the new oligarchy for what it is today. The super wealthy are the only ones who can hold high office. They inherit their wealth and enter politics just like their fathers. They are born into privilege, and they race to the top because they are able to garner enough monetary support to run. Corporate money streams in invisibly through Super PACS and other groups disguised with patriotic language. These rich men and women enter our political system by lying to us and pulling the wool over our eyes, before using their office to help their rich buddies and to pay back their financiers with legislature that pads their wallets. They then leave office after a decade or so and join lobbying firms that undermine our system and influence legislation their way. The average Joe is blocked from running for office unless they are running for local office, and the two party system is incredibly flawed yet nobody wanted to do anything to change it. The United States has a highly corrupt political system and needs to be dismantled completely and rebuilt.
I think we need to realize that our government and those in power may not go for this kind of extreme plan. Change doesn’t come easy, especially change this big. How far are we willing to go? How much are we willing to sacrifice? Our Founding Fathers stood up against corruption and put their lives on the line to do so, and they had the same drive and wishes that we currently have. This movement may turn into revolution. It’s already going that way. The police, at the behest of millionaires, are trying to evict us and the media is trying to de-legitimize protestors with poor reporting. They want to paint us all as hipsters, miscreants, law breakers, hippies, and criminals. This is far from the truth. We are writers, poets, artists, veterans, teachers, lawyers, students, baristas, retailers, businessmen, and more. We are law abiding citizens who clean up after ourselves and are not asking for a hand out from anyone.
We are being ignored. It is our duty as Americans to ensure government serves the people first and foremost, and now is our time to act. We can no longer sit idly by and hope that those in power will hear our cries and help, we have to act now to force change. It’s time for the government to realize that the people are now awake and we are strong. They fear us, and they should. Our numbers are growing, and no amount of propaganda or fear mongering will cease the growth. With every tear gassing, brutal beating, pepper spraying, or other violence we grow and become more resilient. We…will…not…stop.
The values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have long been challenged. All men are created equal, except for anyone who does not conform. Fear rules our society, fear of those who are different. Fear of Muslims, fear of homosexuals, fear of anyone with a different skin color or political opinion. Our political system has devolved into an “us versus them” playground full of crying four year olds. We need to take the country back. We need to make this country the place it was meant to be from the start. A free nation run by the people, focusing their efforts on supporting the common good. That promise that this nation was founded on has somehow been forgotten in the long years since it was created. We have lost our hope, we have lost our desire to create and build, and we have become apathetic and accepting of this lost hopefulness. It’s time to bring it back, it’s time to charge the paddles and resurrect our passion for true equality.
Our leaders try to make us believe that somehow it would be better to lower all taxes and cut programs that we all depend on and use to help us live our lives. They try to tell us that Social Security is a scam and needs to go away, while doing nothing to make it more solvent for the future. They try to tell us that they need to cut Medicare and Medicaid funding, as well as unemployment benefits. They want us to believe that if they do this and cut taxes, everything will “work itself out”. Anyone with any knowledge of economics will tell you that this is an insane notion. You absolutely cannot do this and expect it to work. Cutting costs while also cutting incoming funds just lowers both and we are right back where we were. Less money AND less spent. They want us to believe these lies, and they think that if they repeat it enough that we will believe it. And the sad fact is, that many of our fellow Americans have taken these things as truth. We live in a nation of lies. They want us to believe that one set of values is correct for the entire country. They want us to think that our government is stalling because of one man, when we all know that everyone is at fault here. They want us to believe that we are in the wrong for protesting. They want us to believe that our efforts are futile. They want us to think that it’s our fault that we aren’t making more money, that it is our fault that we don’t have healthcare, that it is somehow our fault that we aren’t being more successful. The American dream isn’t what it once was. Not everyone can succeed in this new American system, and most jobs currently available are those without hope for advancement and with extremely low pay. Even veterans like myself, veterans WITH college degrees can’t find jobs that respect our service to the country in any way shape or form.
Don't even get me started on the complete and utter denial of people to ignore the fact that population numbers are reaching critical levels, fresh water is becoming more and more scarce, dead zones in the ocean are sprouting up and growing, oil reserves are dwindling... Those in power want us to ignore this... focus on the next Super Bowl instead... go shopping on Black Friday instead... consume...ignore us...obey us. They want us blind to all that goes on, while they milk us for every dime we have. It's insane.
If we were more focused on doing what is right and not what would make us rich, we could solve the energy crisis. We could solve the water problem. Instead we make flatter TV’s, we make new tablets, we focus instead on technology that will bring in more money. We don’t push to better mankind, instead we push to better fill our pockets. We could engineer great change and create a utopia if we applied ourselves. Progress can be made, but we can not falter. The language of the Constitution says quite clearly that if our government reaches a level where it is no longer functioning and no longer serving the people... then it is the RIGHT of people to remove that government and replace it with one that is more effective. I honestly think that we are on a one way train, headed over a cliff. Something big will happen and we will go over the edge. When we do, revolution is inevitable.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
~The United States Declaration of Independence - July 1776 ~
