AMERICA IS A LIVING ORGANIZATION THAT CAN ADAPT TO A CHANGING WORLD

…A Veteran’s Memorial in a small American Town

 

America can only go forward, it cannot go back.

 

As one Washington editorial writer recently wrote, “The concept of the United States was a marvelous idea, but hyper-partisanship, incessant media coverage tied to their broadcast ratings and basic greed has reduced US politics to a parking-lot brawl.”

 

When one looks at this year’s Republican primaries in particular, it would be hard to argue with this writer’s statement.

 

But first, it is important to focus on the real foundation and understanding of what has led the country to where it is today.

 

What we are dealing with today is a massive combination of globalization that requires virtually every nation to have to rely on each other for trade, their lively-hood and their basic survival.  Massive immigration has changed many nations, especially the demographics of the United States and other Western nations, to where America is perhaps no longer the largest, “melting pot of the world”.

 

But today, we have an individual that is trying to turn back the clock and to ignore the changes that have been occurring within America for decades.

 

Oh yes, we still see the positive political ads that offer different individuals, from a Nun in her habit, to a steel-worker on a New York skyscraper, to a field worker in California to a technician in Silicon Valley, and they all are saying, “I am an American”.

 

But then an older white guy billionaire, Donald Trump, scowls at the camera, says we are no longer a great country, that we are “Going to hell in a hand basket,” and he is going to take us back to, “making America great again”.

 

If you look at the core of Trump’s supporters, they are not the vast combination of what this nation has actually become.  They are a minority group of blue collar, white, Anglo-Saxon, Judeo-Christians that are yelling at the Trump rallies for getting their country back.

 

These Trump supporters don’t want a unified American union.  They want to deport all those non-whites that have come into this country, as did most of the former members of our own families, generations ago.  But, now they want to shut the door on what has made this country great through its great diversification.

 

What Trump say he wants will never happen, but Trump will never admit that no one is going to round up 11 million people and send them back whence they came.  He also isn’t going to block all Muslims from entering the United States.

 

But to please his Anglo white base, it doesn’t seem to bother them that Trump is still trying to convince them, that is exactly what he’s going to do.

 

There is real hope that all this noise is just that, noise that will eventually disappear and we will all get back to what life in America is all really about.

 

An example of that truth was offered this last week in many small towns across this country on our Memorial Day weekend.

 

At our local city’s Central Park, as with many American towns, there is the American Veteran’s Memorial.  This is where many veterans and family members come on this day to honor their friends, relatives and neighbors that gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

 

As is every year, this event brought all of those family members of those veterans, regardless of their heritage, race, creed or color, that had fought together for only one purpose.  To keep this very diverse country as it is for all that have come here for a better life and for the freedom to live as they desire.

 

This Memorial event was duplicated in tens of thousands of towns across this country, and the make-up of all of those groups was a diverse as is this great nation.

 

But with trouble-makers rising to threatening positions as has Mr. Trump, this has caused some major concern across our nation. 

 

The writer I referred to earlier was on this day at what was called the neighborhood gathering spot, which was the stoop of their apartment in Washington DC.  The comment was made there that now-a-days the, “stoopers were speaking more seriously than they used to, and life is less fun as the future seems more ominous.”

 

Donald Trump is just one example of a misguided force that is trying to say that America has gone wrong. 

 

But what is not understood by many today is that America is not a solid entity.  It is a living organ that is constantly changing.  It is not possible to “go back to how things were”.  This nation can only go forward and it must deal with whatever changes that naturally occur within.

 

America is freedom, it is a democracy and it is an always changing civilization.  It is not “hanging by a thread” as some would like to have you think.

 

The original idea for a nation like the United States was that whatever it was when it started, it would always have the ability to change and adapt to whatever the nation required.  It is an ever changing entity, and that’s why it will continue to work.

 

A Donald Trump type individual cannot reverse that changing order.

 

America was a belief made real by an amazing convention of brilliant minds and it has survived due to the enduring courage of generations who fought and died for it.

 

We must remember that fact, and we must continue to respect that it is up to us to make sure that same idea is allowed to change and improve, and to only look back as a learning experience.

 

This is a must for this nation to continue to survive and prosper.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016