Politics ain’t my bag.

My take is that we have one party in this country, the money party, and all the bullshit the people running for office spew at voters is just that. They don’t follow through. And the people who buy into it, year after year, cycle after cycle? Well, you can’t really blame them for clinging to the illusion that everything will be okay as long as they vote against those other guys, the ones who are out to destroy the American Way of Life.

And they are, only it isn’t just one party or the other, it’s both. They're one and the same, and they’re succeeding by keeping us divided, which they do by convincing us that that the other guy is evil.

They are the other guy. It's all vote-pandering rhetoric. But people believe this stuff, even though they mostly agree politicians are liars.

And that brings me to the point of this post.

We need to lose the either-or mentality. No rational person capable of critical thinking can tell me they completely agree with everything the Reds or the Blues supposedly represent. Most people are somewhere in the middle. But they get no air-time, so everyone in that gray area is either disgusted and says fuck it, or goes with whoever spouts off the loudest about whatever issue is closest to their heart, ignoring the universally important stuff.

When it comes to government, black or white is bullshit, folks, because very little is that simple. Life doesn’t fit in a convenient box, no matter how badly you want or need it to. Things that are that straightforward are beyond the scope of legislation, and we have a constitution recognizing this. And still the politicians spew, poking at hot buttons.

The result?

Buying into the bullshit, the big issue we based our decision on evaporating as soon as the election is over, never to be mentioned again by the guy in the suit with the porcine eyes who told us he was going to make addressing it his primary mission, we leave ourselves vulnerable to the manipulation we’re subjected to every second of every day. We get billboards along the highway telling us we stand united, when in reality we’ve never been more divided.

It isn’t about politics, it’s about being human. Unless you’re one of the venal few who are driven solely by the desire for wealth and dominion, that’s all of us. Together we are the majority. The only true minority in this world are the people running things for their own benefit, the interests of We the People of no concern at all. Their sins are not venial, they’re mortal, folks. Remember the money-changers? Yeah, well, we voted them into office last election, and the one before that, and the one before that. Look into their eyes next time they smile into the camera and ask yourself what you see. Be honest when you answer.

Makes you wonder beneath what patch of sand or under what rock they lay their cold little eggs, doesn’t it? You can’t help but wait for a forked tongue to come flicking from between their lips to taste the fear it is their business to spread.

And the rest of us inhale that fear, eyeing each other suspiciously over the invisible barriers we’ve allowed these creatures to erect between us. We tell ourselves we’re different, but we’re mostly not. We all want to be happy and successful and wish the same for those we care about.

Recently this was driven home hard. I was speaking with an attorney in southern Missouri, where I live. The guy’s honesty was quite un-lawyer-like, and I don’t just mean concerning his trade, but about life and himself as well. He was telling me how there’s a dividing line across the state, and south of it, people carry a bible in their back pocket and own at least one AR-15. He said he was from north of that line, and hadn’t fit in so well. So he moved. We talked about some of the harsh realities this nation faces, or rather, refuses to. We had to chuckle, you know, to keep from weeping. 

A day or two later, Victoria and I were in a pawn shop talking with the owner and his wife, both lifelong locals from farm and ranch families. During our conversation some of the same stuff came up, as did gardening and raising or hunting your own meat and not liking to eat toxic food, having no faith in toxic leaders who care only for money and its accumulation, or their corporate masters who poison our land and our hearts and minds in the name of increased profits. Skepticism of a public that continues to ignore it all while they run around chasing the next shiny gadget and the latest-model SUV.

That was when it hit me. All of these people who would doubtless be labeled right-wing conservatives had offered the same opinions on some very big, very weighty issues.

Yeah, so what? Right?

Well, their opinions exactly mirrored those held by more than one person who would be labeled left-wing liberals. That’s right, exactly.

Why? Because all this labeling mostly comes down to social issues, which are important, sure, but far from overriding when life and liberty are under attack by people who claim to represent the best hope for it while doing their best to erode it. Then it doesn’t matter who you have sex with, which church you belong to, what color your skin is, how many years you've been walking the earth, or what mortal tax bracket you fall into.

In that situation, there’s a hell of a lot of common ground shared by that “conservative” lawyer and that “liberal” comedian, and you and me, and everyone else, because we didn’t sign up for America by Globalcorp. That ain’t the nation they sold us on when we were kids and we bought wholesale as adults. In truth, I don’t think that America ever really existed. But the idea did, and it lives still, inside us.

If we ever want to see the real thing, we’d better start recognizing that common ground, walk out in the middle of it and take hold of some hands. Bring your bible and your AR-15 if you want. You might need them. Bring your hope for peace and love of earth too. Bring your significant other, and your children, and most of all what honesty you can muster. Bring every fucking thing you've got, people.

Bring it.

Together.

Or stop lying to yourself and get used to the reality of the biggest billboard alongside all our roads being the one that reads, Divided We Fall.

SR