Time to look back on the past year, and ahead to the next year, if that's the kind of thing that floats your boat. I'm a historian, so obviously looking back is more my style. But I have to tell you, there's no great thrill in it. On the personal level, things are OK, even good. Both me and my beloved are healthy, our kids and grandkids likewise. Nobody lost their job while millions were not so fortunate. I got the poetry book published, and I finished all the writing tasks I was assigned. And as parent and grandparent, I still receive daily the gift of seeing my offspring mature and learn and grow. And I'm blessed by being loved by them. I've seen way too much family estrangement in my life. It's a poison and a curse, and I thank God I've been spared it.
On the not so ebullient note, I will note only one bit of information about the past year. I read today that--would you believe I just went to go find where I read it, it's either the local (small size) paper or the current USA Today, and I cannot find it? The reason I took note of it was because it stated some truly frightening percentages of people who are siding with the teabag nut cases. As I recall, people expressing agreement with Democrats were 35 percent, with Republicans 28 percent, and a little over 40 percent (!) for the teabaggers. Or was it "identified with"? Hell, I don't know and I cannot find the reference on line. This is really frustrating thing for a historian, but what can you do? All I can say is that if we now have 4 out of every 10 Americans in sympathy with the inchoate and frenzied howls of the teabag people . . . well, we're in worse trouble than I thought. (It just doesn't sound right--and it is my memory, after all, we're relying on here--but still . . . it seems to me that anything over 10 percent of the people in league with those screechers just cannot be a good thing.)
And on that sorry note, let's have a new year. Please.
4 comments:
Baysage, you have to face the facts sooner or later: we are worse off than we thought.
If things are inchoate, we need new and better things to replace them. I would rather work with tea baggers than the East Coast elite and the Cheneys and Halliburtons with their history and ethos of war.
Rather a tea bagger than an educated banker whose idea of "a good thing" is to destroy peoples' IRAs.
The basic fact is I could live with a tea bagger, but a Cheney would get me killed, and a Wall Street banker would steal everything I have.
I really don't want to contemplate the possibility of things being worse off than I think. As you know, I'm not exactly what could be described as a cockeyed optimist. You remain more optimistic than I, if you think that at this stage in the deterioration of American society you think it possible it could design anything "new and better."
Of course you're correct about the villains of Wall Street and the warmongering capitalists, who murder us with aforethought. Live with the teabaggers instead? I'm not so sure teabaggers would be willing to let me live, they could murder me in a moment of high pique, a frequent thing with them. Which is why I consider them so utterly frightening. Their rage is unfocused, and all of these nuts are armed.
Well, hmmm...
You are missing my point: I am living in the post-American Society age. It is all for the ones who will come after this mess.
It is not happening right away, but when it does, it will go quickly. So we need direction, goals, and security for our families.
(I guess I sound like a mad survivalist...but I did not choose this.)
Actually, my friend, I try not to think about the kind of world and country we are bequeathing to our progeny. It is so nightmarish that I do the most natural thing, the Scarlett O'Hara move: I'll think about that tomorrow. Not really, but the reason I try not to dwell on this is that I'm like you: this is the post-American world, and it has not gotten nearly as bad as it is going to. Direction, goals, and security are all among the desirable things that post-American society makes extremely problematic. And for me impossible if they involve violence.
If there is one thing I am not, it's one who bears the slightest resemblance to a survivalist. It runs counter to my whole nature.
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