Un-Civil War?

I thought the American Civil War ended over 150 years ago. (As in 1865 - Corrected.) Yes, scars still exist in the American South as well as on rocks in the battlefield at Gettysburg, PA, but over time most of the country appeared to behave and move forward from its bloody internal past with reasonable aplomb – until now, that is. And over 30 years ago, too.

The words “civil war” are slipping out of the tongues of many a pundit today as the country watches the lines being drawn in the sand of someone’s beach-front home and a rickety little shack in the unkempt woods on the other side of the culture line. It’s a “culture war” actually. The issues involved in the huge clash in political direction are closer to the upheavals of the late 1960’s – early 1970’s than when the South met the North with cannonballs and bayonets.

From what the world has witnessed this year within the porous borders of the land of the free, this country is marching directly into a dangerous cultural polarization that will grow deeper as we move closer to yet another election cycle in 2012. As a civilian and U.S. citizen, I have to tell you the entire quagmire over social issues and funding for same gives me more than a headache. It’s a big fat heartache to see how deep we have fallen into the miasma of bitter cultural divides.

Why, I want to know, are Republicans firing away at the tired and poor? Aside from the obvious that money talks and those who back the mouthpieces don’t seem to like anything that helps those who didn’t inherit fortunes via oil, coal, land, and more, what is with all of the noise about government-funded abortions that would almost shut a country down? Just because you don’t agree on a moral level with something doesn’t give one the right to play games with those who are too old to conceive -- not at all at risk of having an abortion. How does Social Security and Medicare play into all of this idiocy?

I don’t like wars. I don’t like killing people. I don’t like money thrown out of a window on military waste via programs that are antiquated and ineffectual. And, according to our own government's assessment, that’s partially where the government’s money goes. Where is the GOP or even Democrat/Progressive outrage over those wasteful measures?

We may not be as divided as it was during the Civil War when it was as simple as the “North” vs. the “South.” Now it is the war between “Those With Money” vs. “Those Without.”

I realize most of you know this bit of info, but it’s helpful to remind ourselves that the times of protest and stepping up in whatever way you can for true liberty and justice FOR ALL is still at hand.