Imagine, if you will, a malaise our forefathers believed would never exist within our nation’s borders. May I welcome you to the Twilight of America and its freedoms should we, the people, not enact and undertake far-reaching changes.

Rather than caring for and supporting our military veterans, we may stand mutely by while 22 of them die by suicide each day. Where essential services for those vets with needs may take months, sometimes years, and more often than our government wishes to admit, are never given at all.

Young men may face danger when stopped for minor traffic violations, or simply because they were in an unexpected place.

A badly beaten person may not be afforded justice because of their appearance, orientation, affiliation, sex, or because their attacker is of a sort more highly esteemed.

A pregnant woman and her children may come under threat of bodily harm at gunpoint when they have committed no crime.

A senior couple may be forced to adopt a grandchild, because both her parents are mentally ill and cannot obtain treatment or medication because they are indigent.

A mother with two degrees who works excessive exhaustive hours in healthcare may only make $10 an hour while her disabled son makes $13 an hour at a home improvement warehouse.

Children may die at school when some unauthorized shooter invades the campus — a shooter who may be an untreated mentally ill person.

Many buildings sit vacant for numerous years when they may be better used to provide shelter to the homeless.

Prescriptions may be so expensive; they deplete a family’s resources to such a degree they cannot afford other necessities.

Desperately needed medical procedures that sustain life may bankrupt those who believed their insurance and their savings would carry them through any crisis.

Many may deal with gnawing grumbling bellies because there is no sustenance to be procured. Some of these are children, starving children.

Politicians may not care about the people they are meant to serve but only focus on sowing divisive seeds that will cause unrest and destroy compassion.

Teachers may be poorly paid, overburdened in crowded classrooms, lack needed materials and supplies, and be continually expected to produce students who excel.

These are only a few examples: injustice and inequality are widespread. The corporations and governments over us have become callous, disregarding the rights and needs of citizens.

If we do not put aside our differences and join forces to bring change in our society, the demise of much of what we hold dear about America may occur sooner than we imagine. We have come to the edge of a precipice where our choices and actions may save us or send our beautiful 243-year experiment into the obscurity of those dreams which die.

© Jo Ann J. A. Jordan
Sunday, June 16, 2019

This is a bit dark, but if we do not speak, we cannot improve. Some of these examples are from people who opened up to me without any request, people talk to me.