In Dec 2011 the phrase “American Bedrock” popped into my head.

    I knew it meant something special, but I was not sure what, so I made a twitter account, which is how I know the date. But I really did not know what it meant. Though it fairly soon became clear in my mind that bedrock was what you seek to build upon, and American Bedrock would be the foundation that was needed to build a solid, thriving and growing society in our country, for all of our citizens. Or at least that was what I was feeling it was meaning to me.

    When it comes to bedrock, in America, the term most often generates a string of words like freedom and liberty, independence or self-reliance. All these amorphous words that supposedly make America special and different. Other refer to our founding documents, like the Declaration and Constitution, but this makes things no less confusing.

    Then I realized that the real American Bedrock is the people.  The great dynamic, resilient, creative American people. Through the good and the bad of our history, America has had an outsized effect on the world. The American People have regularly and repeatedly stood together and pulled together, to rise up through war and hard time.  But perhaps not anymore? Perhaps the American Bedrock, the American people, are too broken, too fractured to come together to bring the change we need. How do we coalesce when so many pieces seem so broken and when we really boil it down, what is the change we need?  What is the recipe for bringing our fractured polity together?

    Looking back, we see America rising to global leadership in the 20th Century, through two World Wars, the Cold War and afterward.

    But we can see now that the real peak was the first almost two decades Post WW2.  This may well have been the high point of our society. (For most perhaps, but surely not all.) Riding high on that then recent history, our country was looking to the future with very idealistic eyes.

    Pres. John Kennedy, spoke at his inauguration on Jan 20, 1961:

“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you–ask what you can do for your country.

    My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

    Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.”

     This was a powerful mission statement, but that idealism was short lived and violently shattered. The intervening 60 or so years have seen idealism melt away, by growing political violence and deepening division.

     It seems it even became a joke before we could realize it was going on, or perhaps realized how deep the cracks were. In 1991, 30 years after Kennedy spoke the words above, and at this point just over 30 years ago, the character George Costanza on the TV show Seinfeld yelled at a woman about pay phone etiquette: “You know, we’re living in a society! We’re supposed to act in a civilized way.” Continuing to other characters, “Does she care? No. Does anyone ever display the slightest sensitivity over the problems of a fellow individual? No. No. A resounding no!”

     While that was written as a joke, perhaps the joke is on us. Now here we are 60 years after Kennedy and almost half of surveyed Americans are not sure we can maintain our Democracy, many eligible voters do not participate at all, and the surveyed fears of kids in grade and high school is heartbreaking.

    Division only gets worse if you do not try to bring things together. I think one of the things so many have in common is the belief that there is nothing they can do to change it and it’s not worth trying, but what I say is, that if all those people who think it is not worth trying, would give it one more try, we would surely change things.  There are literally MILLIONS who do not participate at all, and they are the ones with the power to change things.

    Right now, at this exact point in time, the sound of millions of Americans registering to vote will bring a wave of fear to those entrenched in Washington who thrive under a broken system. Millions of people all across the country standing up and saying they are sick of it would scare the hell out of them, Democrats and Republicans.

    Nothing happens without action, and we all must act for the good of the country we want America to be, or else it will cease to be.

    But what is the action?  Simple, the action is Participation! We have seen several times in the last couple of years when people rallied to stop the roll back of women’s rights in KS, WI, MO and OH to name just a few. We must now rally the same and greater participation, so that at this time of great division, the America People can determine what kind of future we want for our Country, and thus, for each American Citizen.

So, what do we do?

    We each make sure we are registered to vote. Do it now! If you have not voted in a while, re-register or otherwise confirm you registration is active. I feel that just seeing spikes in the voter rolls will start to temper those actions of those among our supposed “leaders” who chose a more radical path.

     Then we need to look to ourselves and our children and discuss what kind of country and world we want to live in. This is where we dream of how we want it to be, how it would be for us in a perfect world for our family. Then we talk to our neighbors about it and then we talk to those who want to be our leaders about it. 

    And then the hardest part is looking inside and contemplating what we want our Country to be.

     It is often said, in America if you work hard and do the right things, you will be successful and live the American Dream.  This is the implied social contract that we have all been working so hard to fulfill, but I think many are finding it a one-way deal.  – finding it is not meeting their expectations. Having worked so hard for so long, and things like retirement or being confident of your children’s future still seem out of reach.

    But let’s ask the bigger question -why is this “contract” implied?  Shouldn’t it be clear what we citizens get for what we give?

    In this time of division, we must each consider what we really want for ourselves, then we must speak with our fellow citizens, and learn what they want for themselves and their families, and we must look at the broader world and see what common ground lies before us, and can we find an American Bedrock as a foundation for rebuilding our fractured society.

    But the key is action. And action is as simple as registering to vote and participating in our nations civic life by having opinions on what kind of country you want to live in and communicating those opinions to your fellow citizens. And most importantly, communicating them to those who represent you locally and nationally, and those who hope to.

     Those who live well off the broken system do not want us to be engaged and participating.  They want us frustrated and pissed, ranting against the broken system, and each other, rather than working together to fix it.  

     The first step for each of us, is being sure we are registered to vote.

     The second, harder step, is sitting with ourselves and considering, what do I want my country to be? In the near future, and in the future for your kids or the kids you love.

Ask yourself; What is my American Bedrock?