Where has today’s leadership turned our moral compass?

Having anticipated for some time a train trip across the fields, prairies and mountains of the west I recently contacted AAA to plan the routing, schedule and cost.

I vividly remember the beauty of Colorado and a camping trip my wife and I and our two kids took through the general Denver region on to points west such as the Great Salt Lake in Utah and the awesome sight and experience of crossing the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and then mixing with the cultural diversity of Chinatown.

We then circled back to the southeast to take in the breathtaking expanse and beauty of the Grand Canyon.  I also look back on an earlier troop train trip across this same vast region upon my return from the South Pacific and World War 11.  What a privilege for 5 days to view the seeming endless beauty of your country after 1 ˝ years away from home.

Even though having approved with the AAA counselor the train route, cost and schedule, my enthusiasm level became strangely disappointing.  Fortunately, and before I paid the fare, slowly, reluctantly, sadly, the answer came.

This country which I claimed as my own when I returned from World War 11 and also when I took my family on the camping trip, does not belong to me any more.  Much of its physical beauty and some remnants of its culture are still intact, but what has been taken away?  It is our faith that our constitution and bill of rights are respected and adhered to and the principle that we defend against and attack only those countries who attack us.

I’m sure most of us have acknowledged with shame and sorrow the history of our decimation of our Native Americans; the shame and travesty of slavery and it’s residual human rights abuses, but at the least I would argue we have acknowledged the horrific stain on our history and have slowly striven to make amends and move forward.

But where has today’s leadership turned our moral compass?  What would I be thinking as I traveled west?  I’m crossing a land where right and wrong is what the White House, the corporate media, and the most powerful lobby in the world says it is.  Of that lobby I will but quote Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa who candidly states, “ To dare to criticize it is to be dubbed anti-Semitic.”

If I were to travel across this land today I would feel much like a rancher who is walking across his range after being cheated out of his land by crooked unsavory family members.

The only distant hope I can muster for my country and my family is when I read the words of Admiral Thomas Moorer, former Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff when he says, “If the American people understood what a grip ‘those people’ have got on our government they would rise up en mass. Our citizens certainly don’t have any idea what goes on.”  I have to believe our time will come. Until then my heart is not ready for a trip west.       

Buz Cormany