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Edited on Sun Sep-09-07 08:35 AM by SoCalDem
When have we really ever been "united"? Going all the way back to our beginnings, we were not united. There were british-sympathizers who were brought "under control" or shamed into submission. Did they ever really embrace the new country's ideals, or did they quietly swallow their pride and get along to get along? Did some of them work behind the scenes to undermine the new country?
Slavery was not a "unity issue". People who used it gleefully would NEVER ever agree to give it up, nor would the abolitionists ever ever start buying slaves. The war to end slavery started in dis-unity and ended with dis-unity and massive destruction. All these years later, can we really say the unity emerged from that war? The only 'unity' that has emerged in that regard, came from MIGRATION of "others" into former slavery areas , and the passage of time.. A big scab finally covered that wound, but it's still raw and oozing with pus just under the surface.
Hundreds of years later, that scab can be knocked off very easily.
The opening of the west was certainly never all that unifying. Ranchers always fought farmers who wanted to fence and control; water for crops. The Native Americans certainly were not very unified in their acceptance of being driven off their lands. The imported laborers we brought in , to build the railroads never felt all that much unity when they were discriminated against , and treated like beasts of burden.
The industrial revolution did not bring much unity either, except for the unity of the robber barons who were united in their stranglehold on the workers they exploited.
Americans may have been united to some degree during WWII, but that was not by design. It was an natural response to a life-death struggle, and the resulting prosperity made it easier for the unified feelings to remain for a while at least.
At the core of every person, there is a central belief system that exists, no matter what. It may be pushed aside for a time, but it always re-emerges . When I hear politicians blathering on about how they plan to unite people or how they are the only one and true "uniter", it annoys me beyond belief.
It's a childish, utopian ploy, and it NEVER works, (unless you plan to be in a perpetual state of war).
Are we to believe that redneck racists would embrace Barack Obama? or that right-to-choosers could embrace a guy like Sam Brownback? or that corporatist lackeys would ever unite behind John Edwards? or that anti-abortion zealots would unite with Hillary Clinton?
We are a push-pull society. Each election cycle is about UNdoing what the previous administrations have done, or tried to do. What should be a building-upon , is instead, a tearing down and re-doing of things. Every president wants to make his/her own mark on history, and because they can, they immediately set out to change things as much as they can, as fast as they can.
It's a very dis-uniting thing to do, and we keep on doing it.
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