I get the argument. Humans are tribal. Problem is, tribes are bound together by genetics. Cherokee, Crow, Apache. They did not tolerate intermarriage . And if you did consort with foreigners, you were expelled from the tribe. So along comes this America and this idea that diverse groups should form a great tribe based on an agreement that freedom and democracy should bind them. Not a bloodline. The first Americans could claim a bond of tribalism based on their European heritage. Once the idea of freedom got out and others wanted some, the gene pool began to dilute. If you accept a fundamental premise that water meets its own level, you understand that humans by nature gravitate to others who share similar traits and features. There is an assumption that familiarity allows us to feel secure. Things that are strange or foreign cause us to be concerned and feel not secure.

Therefore, the heritage that Americans share is artificial. It is created out of a belief and consensus that to be free of oppression and to be equal in the eyes of Justice are enough to make us bretheren. It is also dependent upon an agreement that the great tribe overrides the needs of the smaller, selfish tribes. Currently, the smaller tribes are dominating. And here is the danger zone. Think of how the white man defeated the indigenous Indian tribes. If the tribes had been willing to get together with a common goal of keeping their lands and freeing themselves from the oppressive white man, they might have prevailed. But, tribalism is basic and cannot be denied. By the way, this is such bullshit. But if you believe it, it must be so.

When it became apparent even to the white man that total annihilation of indigenous peoples was impractical, the focus shifted to forced integration. This was attempted by ripping children from their families and forcing them into a boarding school environment. The schools had a decidedly religious component as the indigenous people were considered heathen and in need of redemption. So here is the irony. We attempted to eradicate an entire population by ripping it apart from within. Sound at all familiar? A house divided against itself cannot stand. It was true when Lincoln said it and it’s still true today.

So here’s where it becomes pertinent to our state of affairs now. The public school system isn’t just about reading, writing, and math. It’s a means of socialization. Pledge of Allegiance. How to be a good citizen is part of the curriculum. There is nothing insidious about that. But what is happening to our public schools? They are being undermined and underfunded. How? If you are middle class or better, you want your kids to have a better than even chance of getting ahead in life. To do that, you gotta get educated. It is increasingly clear, that public schools are not just dangerous, but filled with lower class kids, many of them immigrants for whom English is not their first language. They retard the learning curve by forcing teachers to focus on remedial language skills rather than a heretofore expected lesson plan. If you can afford it, and it’s not cheap, you remove your kids from public school and go private.

So, why is that significant. Increasingly, the classes no longer integrate. There is a separation which causes alienation. There is no longer an ability to understand anyone unlike ourselves. Division. It’s not so much tribal as it is social, an ever intensifying caste system and an ever decreasing hold on democratic tenets. The Vegas shooter could no more identify with his victims than if he were from another planet. Alienation of understanding mixed with an inability to identify with the most basic of human emotions. All the slicing and dicing in the world will not reveal misogyny. The Parkland shooter, completely devoid of emotion and human connection, will suffer long, lonely days of a lab rat’s existence. He will be probed, prodded and implored to explain that which cannot be explained. And after execution, they will slice and dice his fevered brain and have no more answers and possibly many more questions.

Unless we as a people can come back to that place where we were able to recognize that in spite of our differences, we were united by a common understanding that to be Americans, that to live in a democracy is the tie that binds, the massacres will continue unabated and with greater frequency. In a way, it is following the trajectory of climate change in an endless and downward spiral which may be beyond our capacity to affect.

There is a new enemy who wants our land and depends upon our tribal divisions to defeat us.  Social media, we hardly knew ya. There is a prevailing feeling of doom, that life as we know it will cease to exist. And if you don’t feel it, you voted for Donald Trump.

#VegasStrong