By Patricia L Johnson and Richard E Walrath

The other day a stranger began a conversation with me about the weather, but immediately proceeded to talk about the sad state of our country. The gentleman asked me a question that, at the time, was totally above my pay grade, because not only did I not have an answer, I didn’t have a clue.

He asked, “how in the hell did we get where we are today?”

When I got back home I called my writing partner and the two of us spent a considerable amount of time on the phone discussing the various possibilities and finally concluded what seemed reasonable to both of us.

Social Media is the culprit, brainwashing was the method used and it all began almost 20 years ago. At the time we didn’t have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest, etc. What we had was email and you would constantly find messages in your inbox making some sort of accusation. Embedded in the email would be tidbits of truth followed by paragraphs of lies and the sad truth is 20 years ago not that many people were interested in politics, so they didn’t know fact from fiction.

They would read the email, be taken aback about what they read and immediately pass it on to everyone on their contact list. The more ridiculous the lies, the quicker it was passed around because if there’s anything American’s relish, it’s the ugly truth (or in this case misleading data).

Were other countries involved in the brainwashing back then or was it simply various groups with their own personal agendas? We’ll never know. What we do know is 20 years of brainwashing worked. With the addition of social media sites more and more lies were spread until everyone in this country is angry about one or more issues, and many, if not most, have an opinion  resulting in a country so divided Humpty Dumpty and all the king’s men would be hard pressed to put it back together again.

Years ago, Richard and I had a very popular website where we would post articles and hundreds, would write comments on our blog. What we didn’t have was the extreme anger that is prevalent in most current postings. Folks had opinions, but their comments were constructive and not filled with hatred because a person believed differently than they did, were a different color than they were, a different race, or a different religion.

Richard made a comment the other day about the songs that were in the top 100 on the charts. He stated music started going downhill about the same time everybody began to tweak, twist and Twitter and a country without music is a country without a soul. The same can be said about a country without proper leadership. We are now a country without a soul.

If we continue as we have been, we WILL end up in another civil war and we’re better than that. We ARE a county of immigrants, we ARE a country of kind, good, hard working individuals that just want to have a better life for our children than we had for ourselves, but at the rate we are going that’s not going to happen. We are constantly bombarded with lies and if it doesn’t stop we’re going to end up with a battlefield in our own backyards,

Is there an answer? We think so. Sitting next to your computer, tablet or phone spilling out your most intimate feelings about any and every subject in the world to hundreds of thousands who could, quite frankly probably care less about how you feel, isn’t going to change your life for the better. There is only one group of people that can help change our country and that is our elected officials, but they can’t or won’t change anything if they don’t know how we feel (and quite frankly, in some instances they don’t give a damn how we feel, but they need to know).  When was the last time you wrote to your Members of Congress and told them how you think or feel about any of the issues?

I suggested to someone they contact their Member of Congress the other day and I was met with “he’s not going to do anything for me”.  No, he/she won’t if they don’t hear from you that’s a guarantee. But, if they are not available, their employees will listen, and they will take note of your thoughts on the various issues at hand. Remember something, it is their job to represent YOU and they cannot do that if they don’t know exactly how you feel.

Click on the following links to contact your Members of Congress

• Representatives
• Senators

Don’t forget the midterms are upcoming. If there is any time your Representative is going to listen to what you have to say it’s over the next few months.

We seem to have forgotten the one word that has carried this country through all our trials and tribulations and that word is RESPECT. Once it finds its way back into our vocabularies we will be well on our way toward the country we once were and will become again.

© Johnson and Walrath