bill mayersA Confederate Yankee

By William D. Mayers

(Town of Sullivan, NY – Jan. 2013) It will be the defining issue of our times: can we come together in an atmosphere of mutual respect and work on the excruciatingly serious issues we face as a nation, or shall we sink ever-further into the stinking sewer pit of barbarism, savagery and intolerance?

The country has not been this divided since the Civil War. We have staked out positions on a variety of topics and figuratively mounted cannons on the ramparts, vowing never to retreat, and from there hurling invective and false accusations like grenades, little caring who might be caught in the mindless shrapnel.

Race relations. War on women. Reproductive rights. Sexual abuse of minors. The un-winnable war on drugs. Gun control. Immigration reform. Entitlements. Climate change. For crap sakes, there’s even people heaping abuse on the heads of grief-stricken parents of the child victims of the Sandy Hook massacre, insisting it never happened!

What the blazes is happening to America?

We don’t need this. We are a nation with the proudest history. We placed on the Statue of Liberty the phrase “Send me your tired, your hungry…” We used to revel in the fact that people of other lands seeking freedom hoped to come here.

That is much less the case now; America is no longer the welcoming, shining city on a hill.

Gun control. This is what it was like 152 years ago as the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter: hatred and intolerance had become like volcanoes, spewing their destructive rains indiscriminately.

Abuse of women: we’ve become, with the eager participation of the nation’s press, very good at hiding the evidence, as we have with instance after example of the sexual abuse of children.

Slavery still exists in America, and it’s every bit as ugly as it was in the year 1859.

Climate change is real and virtually none of the world’s scientists deny it. It truly threatens the very existence of humankind on the face of this “third rock from the sun.”

Yet politicians of every stripe, including those who accept this science, ignore the reality and do nothing.

What are we truly afraid of? I’ve seen more paranoia over the past few years than seems at all reasonable. It’s as if being asked to turn out a few lights and driving the speed limit or limiting ourselves to a smaller arsenal of personally-owned firearms capable of slaying elephants and dragons threatens the imminent collapse of the universe.

AMERICA! We’re so much better than that! So much better…

William D. “Bill” Mayers RT, RN, of Sullivan is a retired senior U.S. Army Corpsman. A certified healthcare professional since 1964, he holds two professional licenses, including that of Registered Professional Nurse licensed in New York, Alaska, Virginia and Louisiana. He has four children, two stepchildren, two grandchildren and is an avid analyst of current events.

By martha

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