Come Together, Right Now

The Pledge of Allegiance

"...One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Almost all Americans know the pledge of allegiance by heart, because we would recite it every morning throughout our school careers. Until today, I never gave it much thought, and I've realized that it carries a very important message: That divided we fall indeed.

To Divide is to Conquer

Yet another old, overlooked phrase of wisdom is "divide and conquer." Something clicked when I then thought about the two party system and how it keeps our country divided and causes us to inadvertently work against our own mutual best interests. I've always considered myself politically independent because I believe the two party system is perhaps the worst enabler of government corruption. Consider what we have seen throughout the Obama administration's time. There has been so much bipartisan hatred and collision that congress could not even pass a budget, and the federal government shut down. That alone is unacceptable, and it does not need to be this way. By constantly re-enforcing this  'one side or the other' idea, it causes Americans to accept terrible things that the party they are loyal to does, because they believe it has to be that way, that they must choose the lesser of two evils. Jerry Garcia once said that when you do that, you are still choosing evil. Well, I am here to ask us all, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike to remember the pledge of allegiance, put our differences aside, and work together to better our futures and save our country.

Come Together

From this point on, this is the way I am going to approach my political outreach. I believe that there are issues that effect all Americans. We all have mutual interests, regardless of party affiliation. For instance, it's safe to say that most Americans agree that there is an unnecessary and unfair division of equality today. At least, I know that almost all of my generation feels that way. After factoring in inflation, the average American makes less today than we did in the 60's. Is it just me or are we going backwards here? This is the first time in American history that an entire generation is making less money than our parents did. Up until the financial deregulation that led to the stock market collapse in 2008, if you look at big picture, we did have almost a century of economic growth. Much of that can be attributed to the economic boost during World War II and the cold war years, because, (as every historian knows) war is good for a winning side's economy. Yet, we are still fighting ever-so-pointless wars and the economy is still getting worse. The system is so broken that we're now not only dependent on a perpetual war driven economy, but the economy is not even benefiting from all the horror.

From Wikipedia:

"Household net worth fell from 2007 to 2009 by a total of $17.5 trillion or 25.5%. This was the equivalent loss of one year of GDP.^[7] By the fourth quarter of 2010, the household net worth had recovered by a growth of 1.3 percent to a total of $56.8 trillion. An additional growth of 15.7 percent is needed just to bring the value to where it was before the recession started in December 2007.^[2]"


There is something seriously wrong with that picture. It seems that American citizens have been robbed blind since right after I graduated high school in 2007. Can we at least all agree that this is a fact, and a problem? If we can do that, than maybe we can all work together to fix it. For too long we have been a divided nation. Too often, our government's right hand does not seem to know what the left hand is doing, and I'm not speaking strictly about parties either. I'm also referring to all the covert operations that you pay for with your taxes, which your government then classifies under the same lame grounds of "National Security" (which also happens to be a very old tactic of dictatorial states). It's time to unite. It's our country, and I feel like I am barking in the wind when I try to remind America that the government is supposed to be one by, for, and of the people. Can you honestly tell yourself this is what we have today? I don't think any sane person could. In almost all social media circles, no matter what we are arguing about, it is apparent that more and more people are viewing the police as a threat, rather than a force here to protect and serve us. It's also apparent that more and more people agree that we have a serious wealth gap issue in this country, caused by corporate lobbying and greed.

In 2016

When the next presidential election starts, I am asking America to pause for a moment to put our differences of opinion aside, and focus on what we can work together on to change, instead of focusing on which party will occupy the Whitehouse. Forget about political parties and start thinking about the actual issues facing us as a nation. If that happens, well... who knows what could happen. The future may be brighter for all of us. What have we got to loose?