America Unhinged

By Helaine Chersonsky

I love this country; My generation grew up loving this country. We were born as the Second World War got under way and grew up during the fairly innocent fifties and the turbulent sixties.

In the past five or six years, I have reflected upon the times that have now come upon us. One impression was about the time G. W. Bush ran for his second term as president in 2004. I drove cross-country from Arizona to Massachusetts for a short-time unsuitable job. I began the drive to Massachusetts in September, just as the maples were beginning their annual dress-up event of orange, gold, and russet. I frankly and unabashedly admit to praying for President Bush’s victory in the presidential race. I prayed through every state from Texas through Pennsylvania and up into the Pocono Mountains of New York. Even though my life was turbulent and unsettled at that time, there was a sense of peace throughout our fair country.

I wrote the following paragraph in December 2008, before President Obama took office. “All is calm, all is bright says the hymn “Silent Night.” That is what it feels like in the leeward calm before storm Barack Obama takes office. It’s a little unreal, sort of like ostriches with their heads in the sand, pretending as if disaster is NOT around the corner, although the daily newspapers, especially the Wall Street Journal, talk about the financial crisis. But the New York Times has ramped down its coverage of the financial debacle on Wall Street in preparation for the “mighty Obama” taking office. It would seem that only the Wall Street Journal now covers financial matters, now that the New York Times and other newspapers have done their good work in jettisoning capitalism and freedom.

Flash forward to August 2009, with a return to turbulence, almost akin within the last six months, to the “Summer of Love and Drugs” of the 1960’s and the war protests of the sixties. Only this time, the protestors are not being whipped into shape and funded by the Left; now hard-working American workers and patriots are taking their time to go to the town halls, to the state capitals and to their Congressmen and women. And they are being met with ridicule, assaults and invective; this is straight out of the Left's playbook, where the primary purpose of verbal attack is to accuse someone of what you, in fact, are doing in order to deflect awareness of what and who is really causing the problem.

There may be a connection to the current situation in America where there is growing unease and a sense of lawlessness, sometimes perpetrated by illegal immigrants who have violated the simple rule of law by coming across the border without documents; sometimes by American citizens. In America, it seems to me that there is a growing malaise involving the sense of the loss of control of our country by its citizens and constituencies and growing lack of application of the rule of law throughout American society; and the loss of the application of Constitutionality to court decisions.

I applaud the American citizens who are voicing their disapproval of Obamacare and Congresscare at Town Hall meetings. It is well past the time when American citizens who have previously disengaged from the political process begin to make their voices heard.

American government seems to have gone off the train tracks of the American Constitution, and many Americans are increasingly concerned. I remember the long lines of cars waiting for gas and the American hostages held in Iran during the “misery index” of Jimmy Carter’s presidency That is when bells started to ring about the current political situation in America. Who would take advantage of a chaotic society? Who would use a “crisis” of confidence in government to bail out big businesses, insurance companies such as AIG and to nationalize the three major American auto makers? Who is “stimulating” the economy by giving billions of American tax dollars to banks in the TARP payout? Is this helping or hurting American society? Do you trust the current government to act with the best interests of its citizens in mind? And why are we alienating our traditional allies such as Britain, Israel, Honduras in favor of dictatorships such as Iran, Russia and Venezuela. Or does anyone not see that these are dictatorships?

As I typed the last pages of a script my son has written, several sentences stood out in my mind. To me, it is a call for our generation; the generation that has enjoyed the fruits of both war and peace waged by the last, the “greatest generation.”

“It is time for us to let go of any petty differences that hold us back. We have a common purpose; we need to work for it.” We, who have been given so much need to make our sacrifices for our amazing country. America is a land propelled by individuals. Let us, as individuals, make our voices and our thoughts known.
These are just questions I pose to Americans everywhere in our society. I am profoundly troubled by “government” spokespersons who speak out of both sides of their mouth and who cannot be trusted to tell the truth about anything because of their agenda. It’s time for the truth to be heard throughout America. The New Testament says, “Ye shall know the Truth and the truth will make you free.” First, find the Truth in your heart and welcome it.