Dark Ages in America: Now?

We allow the ruling class to pit us against one another. Most recently it’s been over gay rights. First, somehow gay people getting married causes straight people to not be able to marry, and now, when that no longer works, LGBT equality is somehow a threat to a person’s individual religious beliefs. And now the ruling class is clamoring for religious freedom laws to allow a person to discriminate against ANYONE, for any reason, just by claiming they have a deeply held religious belief. And we reward these people with election wins.

There’s an old meme circulating again on Facebook which starts, “What a crock…we can’t say Merry Christmas…we can’t call it a Christmas tree…If you don’t like our customs, and it offends you so much, then leave.” I’ve called out the people on my list who have re-posted this by challenging them to give me one instance where they were unable to use the greeting “Merry Christmas,” or call their tree a “Christmas Tree.” I never get an answer. I point out that their use of the meme obviously means they have an issue with Jewish people, for example, as they don’t share those “customs,” and so are they asking Jewish people to leave? I further point out that Native Americans often don’t, and certainly didn’t before we pushed them off their lands, have those same customs, so how would these people feel if asked to leave by Native Americans. I get no answer, but these sorts of things support this idea, created by politicians, that everyone is somehow under attack by everyone else…and we are less for. Muslims are trying to take over America and implement Sharia Law; Blacks are living off the working white; Immigrants (code for Hispanics (especially Mexicans)) are taking jobs from Americans; Gay people are like Nazis bent on taking away Christians right to discriminate. And the ruling élite are able to tear away those things that once made this country great, and hand them over to the 1%.

Based on absurd and unsupported beliefs, usually founded in religion, parents demand educational curricula that supports their belief systems, rather than scientific and historical fact. We have attempted to resurrect symbols from America’s racist past. Since it is becoming less acceptable to be openly racists or openly anti-equality for LGBT people, suddenly immigrants of any type, and especially those of the Muslim faith are the enemy.

We are no longer concerned with the poor and downtrodden. We’ve allowed the ruling class to turn those into enemies. We believe those are the welfare cheats, and the lazy, and not what most are, people who need a helping hand. And the people crying the loudest to deny the humanity of the least of these, are the very ones who claim the loudest to be “Christian.”

The undercurrent to all this is that religion seems to be overtaking science and fact, and make no mistake, the ruling élite are encouraging and supporting this, because they can manipulate these beliefs, and use the culture wars for their own benefit.

I truly wish I didn’t feel this way, but a dark time is coming in America. The wealthy are raiding the government treasury, and all the wealth of the world is rapidly being transferred to the 1%, while they string us along with the belief that if only it weren’t for the “takers,” we’d all be wealthy. People arm themselves in the silly belief that they will fight off a coming government “takeover,” without realizing their government has already been co-opted by the ruling élite, and will, when required, roll over these people. But likely, they won’t have be rolled over, as they’ve fallen for the false stories.

I believe we have, at most, two more election cycles. If we don’t get serious about electing thoughtful and intelligent people to office, as opposed to the person who can create the most enemies, convince us that others are to blame for our problems, and insist that just giving over more of our money to corporations will fix everything, we are, as a Republic, doomed.