First, I need to tell you that I’m very frustrated today, so I give you my advance apology for potentially scattered text you’re about to read. I’ve started and changed today’s blog five times. Actually, I changed it as many times as MSNBC and CNN changed their breaking news headlines today.
Second, Ban is a Deodorant-not something we do to people in the land of the free. If you haven’t yet come to believe that Donald “Your fired” Trump is currently the most dangerous person in the world, hopefully the firing of Sally Yates has scared the bejesus out of you. This is life imitating bad [Apprentice] art. Only dictators and bullies lash out at people who [legally] defy their wishes. Houston, we have a SERIOUS problem!
Third, our country is in an acute crisis. In my 57 years I have never seen such partisan political conflict. We have actually been in a moderate crisis for the past 50 years, although some may argue that number is more or less. But the partisan political facts (real ones, not alternative) demonstrate an ever-widening national divide that has no end in site. How do we fix it?
Frankly, I don’t see a fix in the near or distant future. In fact, for the last eight years I’ve been loosely talking about the concept of facilitating a national divorce. Say what? Indulge me for a minute and use some ‘big picture’ conception as you read on. We have factual irreconcilable differences in our social values, economic ideology, foreign policy and immigration policy. And every time the Washington administration changes or the balance of Congressional partisan power changes or the Supreme Court composition changes, these policies shift back and forth. Remember the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. That’s exactly what we have been doing ad nauseum. Additionally, we have a growing divide in the number of ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ that has created a de facto dictatorship of the 1% who hold 90% of the country’s wealth. This is insane.
As tensions exponentially mount in the wake of 45’s presidency let’s just consider the concept of an amicable, national divorce due to our irreconcilable differences. It works for thousands of personal divorces every day so why not the country? The end result is the end of the USA as we know it and the birth of the United Conservative States and the United Progressive States (the naming is open to suggestion, especially considering the latter name’s acronym is UPS). The terms of the divorce can be negotiated to include dual benefit trade agreements, defense agreements and shared natural resources. Which states or citizens become members of each new union can also be negotiated and/or grandfathered until the process is completed.
Yes, this is a radical concept that raises many operational questions. But details are always negotiable. Wouldn’t it be easier, let alone saner, to negotiate a national divorce than to continuously waste time and money fighting over the same policies, values, laws and political appointments? And why not do it now before things get worse and while the country is more divided than it has been since the Civil War? I’m guessing that the state of our union will continue to deteriorate, especially during the next four years. Just look at any news station–yes, even Fox–and all you see are people protesting in the streets, politicians fighting for position, families being torn apart by unconstitutional executive orders, numerous lawsuits being filed (that taxpayer dollars will defend) and the fundamental gap between red and blue growing wider by the hour.
Sometimes it takes chaos–and we are absolutely in the midst of it–to create new order, much like nature-induced forest fires destroy all the dead trees so that new ones can grow. Conversely, the USA has continuously chewed on the same dead wood hoping that it results in new pulp. Not only is it insane, it is pulp fiction.
Do You Know the Muppet Man? 