Coffee with Chuck

Song: Get Up, Stand Up (1973)

Artist(s): The Wailers

Album: Burnin’ (Deluxe Edition)

Thoughts: America broadly functions as a business. The people we elect to represent us and make business decisions often call the United States the Union. Every year the President gives a State of the Union speech. However, I find this talk of union to be empty and a fallacy. The word union derives from the Latin word unus which means one. Thus a union should strive to be united in one. But these efforts do not take place in America as the representatives of this country rarely work together to make decisions that would better the lives of it’s citizens. Additionally the 50 states that make up America all have their own constitutions which are all very different from the National constitution. America is a very inconsistent country. It is this inconsistency which makes the praxis of unity an impossible pursuit. Therefore, in this union it is almost like the citizens have signed their union card but the United States is like “we can’t offer you benefits”. America continues to fail to deliver the promises of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Because of these empty promises there is a large lack of faith and a distrust of the representatives and we are seeing this play out everyday. So my questions are what does it mean to be a citizen of the United States of America? What does it mean to belong to this union? And how much responsibility do we put on to our representatives?

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