DIVIDE AND CONQUER
By Hal O'Leary
It's a strategy as old as the human race and maybe earlier
than that among the other species. It's known as "Divide and Conquer," but
never has it been practiced with more eloquence and success than in present day
America. Not only have the American people been divided, they have been
shattered into multiple warring factions rendering each not only incapable of
coping with the oligarchy that has made of the constitution a "G. . .D. .
.scrap of paper" as G.W. Bush is reported to have described it, but has blinded
the factions to the omnipresent and real danger of having the nation reduced to
a third world status. Never has this strategy been more effectively used. I
would like to point out just four of the issues currently being used to divide
the body politic. These are abortion, gay marriage, immigration, and gun
control. They are nothing but side-shows perpetuated through the media by an administration bent
on manipulation.
On the question of abortion, the "Right-to-Life" faction has
been so radicalized that even murder is not too extreme in their effort to
abolish abortions. So radical are they in their religious fervor that they
oppose any and all practices that would reduce the number of abortions. The
Pro-Choice faction offers Planned Parenthood, as opposed to conception left to the fates; Contraception,
which does work as opposed to abstinence, which does not, and sex education to
combat the ignorance responsible for unwise sexual behavior. All of these are
proven methods for the reduction of unwanted pregnancies and subsequent abortions.
How can there ever be a solution when the other faction obstinately and
vehemently rejects them on religious grounds that reason cannot overcome?
The gay rights issue when it comes to the question of
marriage is really a non-issue.
There are simply no legitimate grounds for denying a certain
segment of our population the constitutional rights and privileges afforded to
others who just happen to be in conformity with the majority when it comes to
what constitutes a legitimate marriage.
The beauty of our system is that it is designed to protect minorities.
To insist that the significant-other of a gay hospital patient can be denied
admittance afforded to legal family members only is not only stupid, but cruel
and inhumane. To suggest that a gay couple's relationship lacks commitment,
sincerity and yes, love is to deny their very humanity. Two of my closest
friends in this world happen to be a gay couple, denied the right to wed, who
have just celebrated their thirty-third anniversary together. This is
considerably longer than many heterosexual couples can manage in this all too
hectic society.
In short, we are a nation of immigrants. The first ones came
over on the Mayflower. Unfortunately, they immediately declared war on the
indigenous people and set about to
displace or even eliminate them, a rather egregious beginning, but now
we celebrate them and their privileged descendants as the first and truest
Americans. That being the case, I find it difficult to even consider the question of legality
when it comes to who might be more deserving of citizenship. I do admit that it
might be necessary to establish certain procedures to insure an orderly
admissions policy, which by the way has undergone timely revisions in
accordance with changing demographics,
but the hue and cry seems to be over the terms legal and illegal. It would seem
that arriving at a reasonable policy to satisfy all but the most fanatical
would not require more than an adequate desire and the application of a little
common sense. However, this issue continues to command an unreasonable amount
of our time and attention.
Speaking of time and attention, can you imagine the furor,
dissension, intolerance and downright hatred caused over the issue of gun
control. This too is a non-issue. With over 300,000,000 guns in the country,
can anyone with a modicum of realistic thought even imagine that guns can be
kept from the hands of anyone who wants one? The Chinese let the genie out of
the bottle in the 15 th century with the discovery of gun powder, and
there is no hope of putting it back. No technological advancement in the
history of man has matched the innovation and urgency of the march to a more
efficient means of killing. This is an issue for which there simply is no
solution other than to develop a society in which killing becomes so abhorrent
that a desire to commit such an act would become unthinkable. We American, of
all peoples, are a far cry from doing so.
That last sentence brings me finally to the point that I set
out to make. These really rather benign issues are compared to things
like the certain destruction of our middle class which will eventually lead us
to a third world status. Does not the trashing of our Constitution with
indefinite detention, abolishment of habeas corpus, invasion of privacy and
even outright assassination of American citizens, all without due process,
present a much greater threat to the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness we
profess to enjoy? Even these dire realities cannot begin to equal the
horrendous misery and death, not to mention costs, brought about by the state
of perpetual war finally achieved by and for the express purpose of satisfying
the greed of the already obscenely rich.
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