The nation's "infrastructure" is falling apart.
Americans know little to nothing about their rights or how the government is supposed to operate.
Nearly one out of every three American children live in poverty, ranking us among the worst in the developed world.
Patrolled by police, our schools have become little more than quasi-prisons.
In our present surveillance state, that burden of proof has now been shifted so that we are all suspects to be spied on, searched, scanned, frisked, monitored, tracked and treated as if we're potentially guilty of some wrongdoing.
Americans can no longer rely on the courts to mete out justice.
Americans have little protection against police abuse.
These are problems that will continue to plague our nation--and be conveniently ignored by politicians--unless and until Americans wake up to the fact that we're the only ones who can change things.
As always, the solution to most problems must start locally, in our homes, in our neighborhoods, and in our communities.
We've got to refrain from the toxic us vs. them rhetoric that is consuming the nation.
We've got to work harder to build bridges, instead of burning them to the ground.
We've got to learn to stop bottling up dissent and disagreeable ideas and learn how to work through our disagreements without violence.
We've got to de-militarize our police and lower the levels of violence here and abroad, whether it's violence we export to other countries, violence we glorify in entertainment, or violence we revel in when it's leveled at our so-called enemies, politically or otherwise.
Remember that when you strip away all of the things that serve to divide us, we're no different underneath: we all bleed red, and we all suffer when violence becomes the government's calling card.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the oppression and injustice--be it in the form of shootings, surveillance, fines, asset forfeiture, prison terms, roadside searches, and so on--will come to all of us eventually unless we do something to stop it now.
Unless we can learn to live together as brothers and sisters and fellow citizens, we will perish as tools and prisoners of the American police state.
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