sirmitchell:

I’m having a really hard time understanding my country right now. I’m seeing an overwhelming amount of apathy, laced with immaturity, on a level that is unbearable.

Democrats, Republicans, and every other bastard in Washington (minus a few like Kucinich, Paul, Sanders) do not give a single shit for any one of us unless it makes them richer, or more powerful. For years they’ve continued on a path that makes them, and their friends richer, while letting the people they are elected to represent starve economically & figuratively.

Two months ago today, a small group of people started to protest, they’ve had enough. They decide to finally take a stand, in a way no politician has in decades. The small group, begins to grow. Do we welcome them with open arms? Some do, some don’t care and the rest condemn them. Call them lazy, smelly, unpatriotic, hippie scum, liberal idiots with no direction. I’m sorry, I thought this was the fucking Land Of Opportunity. What kind of bullshit American Dream exists where you graduate school with $80k in student debt, can’t find a job, can’t afford health insurance and when you stand up to protest, you are met with rubber bullets, pepper spray, and batons. Yet hardly anyone cares that their friends, family and neighbors rights are being tossed in the shitter. We have a President who openly supported Egypts right to free assembly, but doesn’t seem to care one bit that police across the country are playing batting practice on peaceful protesters. It’s entirely unacceptable. 

I think it’s about time we redefine what “patriotic” is, because it’s not about wearing t-shirts will Bald Eagles breaking through them on fire holding an American Flag in it’s talons while shooting fireworks and drinking Bud Light, the official beer of freedom. Patriotism is caring enough about your country that you will stand outside for two months straight in an attempt to make a better, stronger, smarter country where everyone can succeed, and not just the ones who can afford a lobbyist in D.C. 

Look at history—America has never been a universally trustable country.  We’re supposed to have been founded on principles that we’ve violated countless times. Freedom of religion, but here’s money on which a god is endorsed. Equal rights, but if you’re Japanese we’re locking you up while we atomize two of your cities.  Freedom of speech is guaranteed, except for a while when it was illegal to talk shit about the government’s latest war.  I know I don’t even need to talk about that time we randomly decided all men aren’t created equal and that it was OK to own people.

One thing that’s been consistent, probably since America Day 1, is our country’s friendliness toward businesses.  Pick up some real history books (ok this one) and learn about how the American government has always protected the rich and how American wars have always been a racket.

I don’t think it’s time we redefine “patriotism” at all.  I think it’s time we redefine what is important to us as a species.  Is it better that America respects human rights? Or that all governments on planet Earth do?  Is it more important that the planet’s economy is strong? Or that we have something that maybe isn’t an “economy” at all that can better protect human rights and guarantee human advancement?

What we’re seeing now is the tipping point between Capitalism/Globalism kinda-sorta-working and it utterly crumbling around the ears of 99% of the Earth’s population.  Does anyone really want to protect/support the country that was the Number One proponent of the Capitalist/Globalist system for nearly a century? 

America has always been a tool for the rich.  All our borders give us is an excuse to not care about the rest of the world.

Let’s redefine ourselves.