Time to get back on track

In 30 some years I believe I have seen a lot. But you may say, "you ain't seen nothing yet". The tales of the Gettysburg Address, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez, and many more before me are inspiring. The Lady Liberty, Ellis Island, Plymouth Rock loudly proclaim the spirit of freedom, compassion, human dignity. "To kill a mocking bird", "Geronimo", "Black like me" make us think of courage, fairness and justice. A great people and its past leaders were diligently working to build a more perfect union by eliminating injustices one by one. But in the last three decades have we gradually drifted off our track and veered off the much-cherished American goal of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness for all?

Now, we worry more about the unborn, but would not give a damn about the living dead (in poverty). We do not like the happiness of other people of the same sex living together. So, we try to destroy them, instead of minding our own business and following our own ideals. We spend billions for killing machines, yet we find a 3rd world in our own backyard. We try to shrug it off by generalizing that these are simply bums or criminals. Our CEOs earn obscene amount, while we fret at the idea of raising minimum wage. We are busy building more prisons, putting more people on death row, adding more police force while patting ourselves on our back calling ours a civilized society.

We stomp on individual freedom in the name of security and patriotism. We fret at religious fanaticism of others, but we ourselves blur the line separating the church and the state. We invoke God (because we are the only righteous bunch) in every opportunity we get with a mask of hypocrisy. Our leaders drag the country to wrong wars sending our children to the battlefield. From Vietnam to Iraq, vultures fly above the battlefield. We don't want (justifiably so) others to have nuclear arms, but we have a big stockpile to take out many Hiroshimas.

We want our style of democracy in the rest of the world, but only 16% of our people vote in our own midterm elections (some local government candidates win an election getting only a few hundred votes). Our election process has become a rich people's game. Party politics, and not the people or the country, reign supreme and the ruling party realigns the congressional district boundaries to fit its need. Arrogant conservative talk show hosts pose like "know-it-all" trying to brain wash others and knocking down those who don't agree with them. Conservative extremists and their leaders believe in "my way or highway". "Conservative" has been framed as good and "liberal" as evil. Our teachers and parents had told us that "conservative" meant not willing to change with time. The country has been divided into "right" and "left" or "red" and "blue". We forget that it is supposed to be one nation with liberty and justice for all. We watch helplessly in dismay.

Will the people with reason demand a course correction to get back on track and continue to strive for that perfect union?