America's Digression

We have become a materialistic society re-living the turmoil's of the past, only this time we are all equipped with digital cameras instead of picket signs. The nation is once again faced with a division of its people. For we have reached a fork in the road and half the nation is passionately supporting the right while the other, the left. It seems as if the path we are on is but a circle and we have just started the second lap, our surroundings though changed slightly during the journey are undeniably the same. For we have come to this fork before and we can't but help to point out the similarities with a sense of de ja vu.

To one side of our path the pain and anguish of international turmoil are witnessed by our footman, only this time the enemy is the invisible force of terrorism instead of the invisible force of communism. With but half the country supporting the decision, our footman observes the occupation of a nation "for their own good". The sense of American pride fills him, as it had the first time around. We are helping the less fortunate, allowing others to receive the dignity and honor of freedom, the same freedom which we hold so dear. We continue with a light heart until, like before, confusion occurs. Who is it we are fighting? Are we welcome?

Avoiding the confusion the footman turns his face to the other side of our slowly decaying path. Home is what he sees, the place in which we vow to instill upon all citizens equal rights. The first time his feet had hit this path he saw the contradiction through the treatment of those segregated and the bestowing of second class rights on African Americans. This time around our footman is astonished. For with all the improvements in modern society he should be viewing a wonderful place of freedom and equality. Though now he sees that the second class citizens of the past have been replaced. No longer is it color which holds the difficulty for mainstream society, it is sexual orientation.

Appalled he turns his head yet again. Through the blaze of new bombs left in shadows of old, scandal and innocent executions torture his eyes. The My Lai Massacre, witnessed in the first lap is forever burned in his mind, and now the horrid images of the Abu Ghraib prison, the acts of torture and abuse of these prisoners, each photo more sickening then the last, imprint themselves as well. America the beautiful, with its reputation of peace, is crumbling.

Forcing himself our footman looks back on the nation's people, hoping for a sense of comfort. Instead he watches the stripping of the right to pursue happiness. Denying marriage based on a person's sexual orientation is now sprawled over the front page. An amendment to our Four Founder's constitution is proposed. No longer is it protests for sitting at a counter, it is now protests for the recognition of marriages, the recognition of bliss. Our footman, though happy to see that it has not reached a point as severe as the Race Riots, is still ashamed that the land of the free isn't for all.

With fear in his heart, our footman looks back to the other side. "You will not receive anything from us but coffins after coffins ... slaughtered in this way," is the first thing he hears. An American has been beheaded, and there is more to come.

Our footman can no longer continue. Expecting a lap of peace after one of such turmoil, he has been proved wrong. What next? He wonders. A draft? Boys, not even old enough to drink, fighting a unfathomable battle? Coffins being sent home by the hundreds?

What happened to progress?