As a Journalist, a Minister, and a Lifelong Learner, I am trained to look at the systems that govern life. In America, those systems are currently in a state of catastrophic “parallax”—the image we are sold of a unified, free nation does not match the raw data of the lived experience.

The Biological Lie of Race

• The Genetic Reality: Welcome to America, where we are taught that “all men are created equal” and where modern science has proven there is no biological basis for “race” in humans—that we are one single, interlinked species—yet we continue to build entire legal, social, and economic hierarchies based on the amount of melanin in a person’s skin.
• The Stolen Foundation: Welcome to America, where we stand on soil we took by force and treaty-breaking from Native Americans, then tell the descendants of those original inhabitants to “go back where they came from” or “respect the law of the land.”
• The Hypocrisy of Heritage: Welcome to America, where we discriminate against Black and Asian citizens whose labor built the transcontinental railroads and the Southern economy, while celebrating “pioneer spirit” that was subsidized by government land grants and ethnic cleansing.

The Mathematics of Disposable People

• The Surplus Citizenry: Welcome to America, where we have 330 million people but only 164 million to 170.5 million jobs. We are a nation where nearly 160 million people are technically “surplus” in a system that defines your right to eat and have a home exclusively by your employment status.
• The Productivity Gap: Welcome to America, where worker productivity has skyrocketed since the 1970s, yet real wages have remained flat. You are being “optimized” like a piece of software, producing more wealth for your employer every year while your own purchasing power evaporates.
• The Debt Engine: Welcome to America, where we tell people to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” while simultaneously charging them 20% interest on the “bootstraps” they had to buy on credit just to get to a job that doesn’t pay a living wage.
• The Wealth K-Curve: Welcome to America, where the top 1% now controls over 31% of all household wealth—the widest gap in three decades—while the bottom 50% are told that “inflation” is the reason they can’t afford eggs.
• The Retirement Lie: Welcome to America, where we have a “booming” stock market that 90% of the wealth from is owned by just 10% of the people, while the average worker’s 401k is just a gambling account for a retirement they will never actually reach.

The Medical & Scientific Dissonance

• The Vaccine Paradox: Welcome to America, where we have developed mRNA technology that can literally eliminate cancer and stop global pandemics, yet we have a populace that claims vaccines cause autism based on a debunked study from a disgraced doctor who hasn’t practiced in decades.
• The “Sanctity” of Life: Welcome to America, where the “Right to Life” ends at the birth canal. We will spend millions in legal fees to protect a zygote but won’t spend ten cents to ensure that same child has lunch at school or a home that isn’t a tent in a parking lot.
• The Obesity-Hunger Paradox: Welcome to America, where the poorest people are often the most obese, not because they are “lazy,” but because the government subsidizes corn syrup and processed chemicals while making a fresh head of lettuce a luxury item. We are starving and overfed at the very same time.
• The Work-Life Death Grip: Welcome to America, where we are told that “hard work” is the only path to success, yet the hardest-working people in the country—those working three jobs just to pay rent—are the ones most likely to die in poverty.
• The Healthcare Lottery: Welcome to America, where we have the most advanced medical technology on Earth, but we are the only “developed” nation where a single medical emergency—like a cancer diagnosis or a major surgery—is the leading cause of personal bankruptcy.
• The Purity Trap: Welcome to America, where people will protest a mask for “oxygen deprivation” while living in cities with air quality so poor it causes permanent lung damage, and drinking water from infrastructure that still contains 19th-century lead.

The “Socialism” for the Elite

• The Billionaire Safety Net: Welcome to America, where “Socialism” is a dirty word until a bank fails or an airline mismanages its billions. Then, suddenly, the taxpayer is the “silent partner” in every corporate failure, while remaining a complete stranger to every corporate profit.
• The Military Handout: Welcome to America, where we “don’t have the money” for high-speed rail or universal preschool, but we just signed off on a trillion-dollar defense budget to protect a “global order” that most Americans can’t afford to participate in.
• The Farmer’s Irony: Welcome to America, where politicians romanticize the “independent family farmer” while handing 70% of agricultural subsidies to the top 10% of massive corporate monocultures that are currently poisoning the very soil they claim to love.

The Educational & Infrastructure Failures

• The Zip Code Destiny: Welcome to America, where we claim “education is the great equalizer,” yet we fund schools primarily through local property taxes, ensuring that a child’s quality of education—and their entire future—is decided by the wealth of the neighborhood they were born into.
• The Degree Trap: Welcome to America, where we demand a $60,000 degree for a job that pays $40,000 a year, and then call you “irresponsible” for taking out the loan the system forced you to sign.
• The Crumbling Future: Welcome to America, where we spend $15 billion to add a single lane to a highway that will be congested again in six months, while our bridges are rated “structurally deficient” and our public transit is treated as a “welfare program” rather than an economic engine.
• The “Christian” Nation: Welcome to America, where we claim to follow the teachings of a man who fed the poor and healed the sick, yet we actively vote against the very programs that would do exactly that.

The Legal & Civil Parallax

• The Right to Bear Arms: Welcome to America, where it is okay to carry a firearm for personal protection—until you support a political party or movement that I do not.
• The Protest Dichotomy: Welcome to America, where “Free Speech” is a shield used to protect hate speech, but a sword used to cut down students protesting for human rights on a college lawn.
• The Border Wall of Hypocrisy: Welcome to America, where we want to build a wall to keep out the very people who harvest the food we eat, clean the offices we work in, and provide the labor that keeps our “inflation-adjusted” prices from spiraling out of control.
• The Tracking Paradox: Welcome to America, where we are terrified of a government “chip” in our arms, yet we voluntarily carry high-resolution cameras, microphones, and GPS trackers in our pockets—and pay a monthly subscription fee for the privilege of being tracked by corporations.
• The “Small Government” Bedroom: Welcome to America, where we want the government “out of our lives,” unless the government is needed to monitor what happens in a private bedroom, a doctor’s office, or a library’s “restricted” section.
• The Digital Repair Law: Welcome to America, where you “own” your $1,200 smartphone, but you are legally a criminal if you try to open the case to fix the battery yourself.
• The “Freedom” of Incarceration: Welcome to America, the “Land of the Free,” which holds the highest per-capita incarceration rate on the planet—turning “liberty” into a commodity sold by private prison corporations.
• The Veteran Gap: Welcome to America, where we spend billions on “Defense” to create veterans, but “cannot find the budget” to house them, treat their PTSD, or keep them from dying by suicide at a rate of 17 per day.

---

Editorial Conclusion: The Stitches Are Failing

When you analyze these facts—the 160 million job gap, the biological myth of race, the $27,000 family healthcare premiums—you realize that America isn’t a country anymore; it’s a private equity firm with a flag. We are a nation of individualists who demand conformity, and “freedom-lovers” who are obsessed with what our neighbors are doing behind closed doors.

As a Journalist for The Stanley Garland Citizen, my job is to point at the flickering neon letters and tell you the sign is broken. We are living in an illusion. We can’t fix a foundation that we refuse to acknowledge is crumbling.