United we stand, despite our differences?

There are 50 days until Election Day. The amount of trashy attack adds in increasing. The adds may diminish after the election but will the attacks? Early voting starts in four days. Are you ready to decide? Some are planning to vote a straight  party ticket, regardless of candidate qualifications. Those voters make me concerned about the emphasis placed on our “right to vote.” Aren’t rights supposed to be accompanied by responsibilities? Shouldn’t voters be responsible for knowing whether the candidates for whom they’re casting a vote are capable and qualified to fulfill the office?

For example, according to “Article II, Section 1, Clause 5:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.” 

Those are pretty sparse qualifications for such a significant position. Look at some of the consequences that’s brought about. People with memories so short or faulty they don’t even remember, or didn’t know, the Constitution they swore to uphold got to be chief executive of one of the most powerful countries to ever exist.

should farmers only grow corn and soybeans?

Photo by J. Harrington

We’re facing comparable problems in Minnesota with statewide positions and many of the Legislative and Congressional races. There are more and more folks who no longer support separation of church and state. There are those who fail to understand that “might makes right” is antithetical to living under a government of laws, not men. They seem to forget that pendulums swing in both directions, right and left. Intolerance for others tends toward monoculture. Increasing numbers of studies demonstrate that loss of diversity weakens an ecosystem. Isn’t it likely something similar is true of a country, state, or community? Would you want to eat vanilla ice cream, three times a day, forever?

Trail of Tears: Our Removal

By Linda Hogan

With lines unseen the land was broken.

When surveyors came, we knew

what the prophet had said was true,

this land with unseen lines would be taken.

So, you who live there now,

don't forget to love it, thank it

the place that was once our forest,

our ponds, our mosses,

the swamplands with birds and more lowly creatures.

As for us, we walked into the military strength of hunger

and war for that land we still dream.

As the ferry crossed the distance,

or as the walkers left behind their loved ones,

think how we took with us our cats and kittens,

the puppies we loved. We were innocent of what we faced,

along the trail. We took clothing, dishes,

thinking there would be something to start a new life,

believing justice lived in the world,

and the horses, so many,

one by one stolen, taken by the many thieves

So have compassion for that land at least.

Every step we took was one away from the songs,

old dances, memories, some of us dark and not speaking English,

some of us white, or married to the dark, or children of translators

the half-white, all of us watched by America, all of us

longing for trees for shade, homing, rooting,

even more for food along the hunger way.

You would think those of us born later

would fight for justice, for peace,

for the new land, its trees being taken.

You would think

the struggle would be over

between the two worlds in this place

that is now our knowledge,

our new belonging, our being,

and we'd never again care for the notion of maps

or American wars, or the god of their sky,

thinking of those things we were forced to leave behind,

living country, stolen home,

the world measured inch by inch, mile by mile,

hectares, all measurements, even the trail of our tears.

With all the new fierce light, heat, drought

the missing water, you'd think

in another red century, the old wisdom

might exist if we considered enough

that even before the new beliefs

we were once whole,

but now our bodies and minds remain

the measured geography.

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