The cogs in the US electoral machine are already beginning to turn in preparation for the 2020 U.S. Presidential campaign. If social media and recent elections are any indicator, many citizens are beginning to wake up to exactly how in need this country is for a major overhaul.

The question that nags away at me is…DO WE STILL HAVE TIME TO SAVE AMERICA?

These past few years have been filled with the ugliest and the most repulsive trilogy of traits that humanity has to offer...hate, violence, and intolerance.

America has completely abdicated itself as a leader on the global stage in every sense of the word. Internally, can’t remember a time when our country has been more divided. Long time friendships and families are being fractured because opposing opinions can no longer be tolerated.

It’s becoming more apparent every day that the state of our union as well as the direction in which our country is headed does not reflect the will of the majority of U.S. citizens. After all, isn’t a democratic nation is supposed to be a reflection of the will and wishes of the majority of its populace? If this isn’t the case either: a) the system is broken and elected officials aren’t working for the citizens who elected them; or b) citizens aren’t engaged in the political process. In the case of our country, it happens to be both.

Welcome to ‘Murica.

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"... so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men." -- Voltarine de Cleyre

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You need only to begin researching to learn the frightening extent to which corporations have infiltrated the U.S. government in the previous decades. We have many former Monsanto executives working for the Food and Drug Administration, which is in charge of protecting public health. One of these former Monsanto employees, Clarence Thomas, is even an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. A myriad of Wall Street executives have been appointed to our Federal Reserve, the central banking system of this country responsible for maintaining the health of our economy. Do you think these ex-corporate executives are working for the benefit of the average American citizen or their to forward the agenda of their constituency?

Let’s examine how well our almighty corporate overlords are serving and protecting the citizenry of this country.

Despite the United States consistently having the highest gross domestic product (GDP, the total value of goods and services provided in a country in one year) of any other country on the planet, our nation’s infrastructure is crumbling. The U.S. now ranks twenty-eighth in the world in test scores for math and science. Also, an increasing number of Americans are going overseas for medical procedures because they can save a significant amount of money without sacrificing quality. Each year retirees are leaving our shores because their meager retirement funds go much further in foreign countries. Due to the high cost of a college education, more and more of our children are choosing to go to college overseas rather than to start their adult lives burdened with crippling debt in the form of student loans.

The 2015 World Happiness Report ranked the U.S. fifteenth on its list. Pharmaceutical companies are happy to run to the rescue with a litany of antidepressants. In fact, antidepressants are now the most prescribed drug in America (painkillers are a very close second), 1 in 10 Americans use antidepressants daily and that number jumps to 1 in 4 in women aged 40’s and 50’s. Wouldn’t it be better to change our system than to numb ourselves to the anguish of it?

Despite the fact that violent crime has been steadily decreasing since 1991, today the U.S. incarcerates more of its citizens than any other country in the world, including China. American citizens represent only 5 percent of the global population, yet its citizens comprise 25 percent of world’s prisoners. Each year more U.S. prisons are becoming privatized and run by corporations like Corrections Corporation of America that are then offering these inmates as an extremely cheap labor force to U.S. companies and making billions of dollars annually as a result.

‘Murica spends more than half of its annual budget on the military while U.S. teachers are working increasingly longer hours for very little pay. In some school systems teacher’s physical safety is threatened on a regular basis. Other countries are making smart investments in infrastructure like renewable energy, technology and social programs to prepare for a very different future that, like it or not, we will all soon be a part of.

CEO-to-worker pay ratio in this country has grown one thousand percent since 1950 but the average American worker continues to work longer hours and are paid less. Did you know that in 2015 over thirty billion taxpayer dollars were given to subsidize the meat producing industry? As a result this, industry churns out artificially cheap antibiotic and growth hormone laden food that harms us and our environment.

You haven’t heard much about the coming silicon labor crisis in the corporate-owned ‘Murican media but you will soon. An Oxford study forecasts 45 percent of U.S. jobs will eliminated in the next twenty years by a massive wave of artificially intelligent robots and computers who will displace nearly half of the entire U.S. workforce. This sounds like science fiction but it’s not. Other countries are preparing for this shift in employment by putting an emphasis on educating their citizens in math, science, and computer coding. Many developed countries also have a more robust social safety net to help lessen the catastrophic impact of a major job shift such as this.

While a majority of the rest of the developed world enjoys better quality healthcare, education, works less, and enjoys a better quality of life, ‘Murica trudges forward with an antiquated, short-sighted policies designed mainly to generate short-term corporate profit.

According the a 2012 Voter Turnout Report only 57.5% of eligible U.S. citizens voted in the 2012 Presidential election. I can understand how the current state of affairs can make you feel as though your vote doesn’t count but this must somehow change. We must take the reins of our government back by actively participating in the political process and voting out incumbents who’ve done nothing but push their corporate agenda.

Do we still have time to save ourselves? I don’t know the answer but I do know that our odds will only get worse the longer we wait. We need to pay less attention to what the politicians say and more attention to what they do. Americans are better than this and we deserve better. It’s up to each of us to make sure this happen. As American citizens we must transform ourselves into millions of prickly thorns that doggedly hold elected officials accountable for their actions.

No matter where you fall in the political spectrum the only way to transform ‘Murica back to America is from the inside. Each of us need to educate ourselves as much as we can about the candidates and their stances on the issues and become more engaged in the political process. We have a small window of opportunity and it won’t be here forever. If we don’t act cohesively and soon all of our privacies and freedoms will be stripped of us. Don’t squander this chance to save ourselves from decades or even centuries of suffering. We all have one life, one vote, so I implore you to make it count in the coming election and each and every election hereafter.

You say you want a revolution?

Now is the time, the power is still in our hands, and our voices are still mightier than the sword. Transforming ‘Murica back to America will take a tremendous amount of work from each of us and it will have to be an inside job. New blood like recently elected Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and forward-thinking ideas like Green New Deal are interjecting a little hope that we still have a chance. Knowing that we will hand our children the reins of America instead of a lifetime sentence in ‘Murica will make every bit of this hard work worthwhile.

Whatever your political slant, now is not the time for apathy...get involved. Let the dismal state of this country be a wakeup call that sparks an American renaissance, instead of the beginning of our demise. It’s not anti-American to bring these truths to light and work towards a better future for all of us, in fact it’s very much pro-American.

‘Murica is the country we’ve settled for but America is the country we deserve. Making a real commitment to work towards this is the best collective New Year's Resolution I can think of.

(Gif sourced from Giphy.com)

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*I am an American novelist, poet, traveler, and crypto-enthusiast. If you’ve enjoyed my work please sign up for my author newsletter at my website. Newsletter subscribers will receive exclusive updates and special offers and your information will never be sold or shared.

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