American Crossroads

I am here.

I stand in a perfect cross, where four roads converge, and I am disturbed. Here, the field is disrupted, and its distortion emanates from both the sources and destinations of these four roads.

The first road originates from a friend (yes, you know who you are) on the web who distributes theories (I won’t say “conspiracy” theories, because they relate to conspiracies as war relates to 4 AM cat fights) about the state of our nation and the forces seeking to subvert her. Think 9/11, signing statements, standing brigades on domestic turf, weak Congressional leaders that surrender the balance of power. They are dark puzzles, large and small, and their solution hides in the realization that we know not what beasts shuffle through the corridors of power.

Second, there is the road that runs from an economic crisis that looks like a random confluence of fate and poor choices, but is a much more shadowed thing. Nothing falls this quickly, nor fails so soundlessly. Nothing defies the action of minds-in-control so completely. Nothing swings around the world with such passion, except for the plans of men drunk with power and technology in the twenty-first century.

Third, there is the road that carries tales from history. It is a voice that shatters the patriotic, fulsome lessons of elementary school, the Civics of High School, and world events from Freshman Western Civilization 111. It lies in wait in dark alleys to assault the purity of American Motives. It rips the blindfold from Justice, and demands that Liberty raise her torch high enough to illuminate the huddled masses growing from her own shores. “Taxation without representation is tyranny”? “Give me your tired and poor”? “We are the Beacon of Light to a struggling world?” Nothing will ever be so simple again.

And fourth is, of course, the road to the 2008 election. Republican vs. Democrat. Hope vs. Experience. Racism vs. Ageism. Stupidity vs. Naiveté. Craven vs. Corrupt. We are lined up, side against side. We throw rocks at our brothers and sisters, on command. We shout epitaphs at our mothers. We cow those we are sworn to protect. We ignore our conscience, and repudiate our Bill of Rights in the name of safety. We read bumper stickers to identify our enemies, and trust our friends only as far as the next “crisis”.

Our world has become a game, and we are hell-bent on winning, though we no longer can read the rules. We are so wrapped up in the exercise of our competitive natures that we cannot see the marionette strings jerking the main characters of this American Passion Play for our distracted amusement. Worse, we cannot feel the stings trailing from our own joints and limbs. Tug. Tug. Tug.

Four paths converging from separate spaces. Four paths steeped in human nature, corrupted. Four paths birthed in “No one would do that here!” and “Why would they betray us here?” Four paths geometrically disposed to run off the end of the Earth. Gone. So soon gone. Unless we stand together here in this crossroads, and force the immoral and ignorant traffic to halt, turn around and scatter to the dark corners from whence they came.