THE CONTINENTAL PROJECT IS COMPLETE RETURN TO A CONTINENT OF ALLIED STATES
by @Lurko Pastrana https://www.facebook.com/lurko.pastrana (via a friend)
I think the issues we are having at this moment in time is that many people (some for the first time) are finally seeing that we never lived in a United States. Minorities do not live in the same United States as the majority; they live under different laws, different enforcement, different courts, and have different opportunities (or lack thereof). None of their experiences are shared with the whole; it is theirs and theirs alone.
In a similar way, the poor do not live in the same country as the well-off, and the well-off do not live in the same country as the truly wealthy. Every legal infraction comes with financial penalties, be they fines, penalties, legal fees, or attorney costs. This divides us into those who can afford to commit crimes with little to no repercussions, and those for whom even a parking ticket can lead to incarceration. (Paint it however you like, it is just debtors’ prison with one extra step.)
Politically, we live in many different Americas as well, having embraced the narrative that every “other” is attacking our way of life and must be fought at every turn and defeated. The only thing that any side seems able to agree on is that things are not how they should be. Unfortunately, no sides can agree on a framework of shared reality from which to address this.
The United States is simply not. We are fragmented regionally, politically, economically, socially and racially. This moment in time is not only about George Floyd, it is about the anger that has been simmering for years under the surface. It is about the growth of “other” on all levels of our society, it is about how those in power seem completely incapable of communicating with (or even listening to) anyone outside their social strata.
People are angry. People are frustrated with the state of our nation and the growing divisions in our own society. We the People where told we have the Right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Well let me tell you we are failing many of our citizens on EVERY. SINGLE. POINT. These protests are, at the root, about the systemic failure of may of our institutions to even acknowledge that the problems exists, let alone fix them.
The violence is a symptom of the fundamental divides that have been growing in our nation, between those that the system still functions for and the growing number that it has failed. Without acknowledging and actively working on solutions to the underlining issues the grand experiment of our nation is doomed to fail sooner then latter.