Thursday, January 11, 2007

A Nation Divided

I was thinking about something pretty deeply this evening while I meandered aimlessly through five hours of work at my respective place of employment, and I have come to two conclusions; a) I'm getting very scared, and b) we're all probably fucked.

You see, I work in a grocery store, and I happen to be a cashier. Sometimes, this store is not overwhelmingly busy and I get an opportunity to glance at the covers of a few popular magazines (People, US Weekly, etc.) and the occasional front page of a few local newspapers. Tonight, during a lull in the amazing action, I took a walk over to the newspaper stand and took a look at the front page of the Post Gazette. I'll be honest, I like to say that I'm pretty interested in current events and that I keep up with them, but this hasn't necessarily been the case since I came home for break from school. This is because when I'm there I have access to the New York Times and USA Today for free everyday, and since I aspire to someday be a competent journalist, I check them out. Since I've come home, I've become very lax about what's going on in the world, and I've begun to live in my little hometown bubble again (except for knowing and loving the fact that the Florida Gators are now the National Champs in the two most popular college sports, and that Manchester United tied New Castle yesterday, and that the Pens have dropped two in a row), so I was plenty shocked when I saw the lead article of the paper. It said that President Bush has vocalized his plans for Iraq to the now Democrat led House and Senate.

These plans, as I could have guessed, involve sending more troops to Iraq, so as to wrap up the proceedings there as quickly as possible and then start to bring home the troops. The Democrats are very much against this, hoping to bring home a few troops as soon as possible, as opposed to sending more forces to war.

I can't say that I'm educated enough on all of this (sadly) to have a definitive opinion on what is right and what is wrong, and what should and ultimately will happen. This isn't what I'm writing about right now. What I want to address is the fear that has risen in me at finally realizing that our country is split more or less in half. The Democrats and Republicans can't seem to agree on anything, and this is extremely frightening. We live in the UNITED States of America, not the DIVIDED; this badgering of one party against the other seems to solve very little if anything, and it can't be healthy for the present or the future directions that this country is haphazardly headed in. I know that they call these parties the left and the right for a reason, but aren't both arms linked to one body? We are, last time I checked one nation, and I've heard too many times to count the slogan "United we stand, divided we fall," and if we don't unite on at least some things very soon, things will fall apart, and I really think that Chinua Achebe was trying to say something.

The bottom line is that we are involved in a war, for better or worse, and our involvement has ended many lives, and doubtless by the time something happens, more will be lost. They are being lost for something bigger and more powerful than the elephants and donkeys fierce rivalries and sudden refusals to even compromise.

So, I'm terribly frightened by the current events, and if it wasn't so intriguing, significant and gut-wrenching, I wouldn't follow them...I would just crawl back into my little hometown hole, where it doesn't seem like politics and government are such a battle, and we aren't all unfathomably fucked to somehow suffer the consequences of grown men and women fighting over a sandbox.

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