Two days. Just two days more. That was the prevailing attitude yesterday as people spoke of ending this horrible year. Honestly, to me it seems akin to the magical thinking of toddlers. If one covers the eyes, then one disappears. Not seeing the other person in the game means not being seen either. So they think and that is fine for toddlers, kind of like the thinking of our illegitimate President, but a mite more mature!
However, we are supposed to be grownups, are we not? We are supposed to remember to confront reality, accept the way it is and then work from there. Instead, though, we have the magical thinking that belongs in a fairy tale setting, a happily ever after ending, despite all the clues pointing to a different ever after. Turning that damned calendar page will neither magically nor instantly change the environment, reduce the illness killing off people all over the world, over 326,000 as of yesterday right here in America.
I hate to be a killjoy, and I am just as afraid of the virus as anyone else, hiding, basically, from it since March, but truth is truth. The young do not die we are told and yet how many stories do we read of the young dying. We are getting a handle on it, we are being told, but it seems to me that the handle is not working very well, is it? Example par excellence? Here in Florida, where we appeared to be doomed to be afflicted by the worst politicians ever, we had an instantaneous breakdown of the process to register for an appointment if one were 65 and over. Finally, call back next week was the final answer. That was not the answer Jeopardy would have accepted!! Nor will we! How stupid can one be when setting up an inadequate system when , especially in Florida, where the over 65 population is enormous!! A turn of the calendar page will not cure that incompetence! Nor in the rest of the country.
Perhaps there will be better things after the turn of the calendar page on the 20th of January. Biden has already appointed three leaders to the pandemic issue, trying to get a grasp on it ASAP. Sooooo much better than somebody else we know! But we must remember that there is no magic here. It will take a long, hard, and dangerous slog to get through this virus and its apparently oncoming relatives.
When will we be able to say that we have indeed fought off, thrown off, the awful vibes of 2020? Not as long as people like Trump are elected to office. The man is nuts. Pure and simple. Now he has fallen into an even deeper hole of fantasy by accusing the poor guy from Georgia of having a brother who apparently works for the Chinese, is a spy for them. That sounds terrible, right? One itsy bitsy teeny tiny problem, but we won't let that interfere with the idiocy of Trump's camp who will accept this statement whole hog, will we? There is NO brother!! But never let fact or truth get in the way of fantastical accusations! Trump speaketh!!
Nor will January 1, 2021, change the attitude of so many re 'others'. Here is my theory about the hate epidemic that has swept the world. We have allowed the noisy nonthinkers to prevail with and via their noise. Look around and one can see groups of mixed kids and people, Black, White, Brown, Red, whatever and all in-between. Here in the South one sees interracial couples and families all the time and no one gives it a second thought or glance or even a first one.
So what is the problem? US. We have allowed all the squeaky wheels, the ones with no working intellectual brain cells, the ones with axes to grind, the squeaky wheels, to be the apparent real picture of America and the world. Wrong! Yes, there are plenty of that type, too many, and for shame already! Enough! But, a great big but, if we sit back and allow them to make lots more noise, none of it joyous, then, well we will get what we earn and that is truly unfortunate, to say the least. This will not be cured with a new year or calendar date. It will only be cured with a defined campaign against it. Beginning with adults who pass on hatred to their children. Not an easy task, but it can happen, with lots and lots of hard truths and work.
C'mon! Let us stop and think and face and accept reality. No magic cure. No magic bullet that will kill all negative thoughts and beliefs. No magic pill that one can swallow to negate all prejudice and hatred, that can morph all the negative cops into fellow companions with the good guys who are getting a bad rap. No easy-peasy device that will reassure Black people that they will not be targeted, nor Brown people speaking Spanish somewhere to be questioned. That will take work - lots and lots of it. And while we are at it, folks, the biggest growing issue of hatred is the growing rise of anti-Semitism, on campuses, in violence, in dive bars, wherever one can find willing ears looking for scapegoats rather than looking for real answers.
What this turn of the page can give us is a renewed sense of optimism, a refreshed sense of the American we can do it spirit. While the slate can never be wiped thoroughly clean, it can get a darned good and effective job, so let us dig in, roll up the sleeves, take a god stiff drink of vanishing clean water, breathe deeply of the polluted air that we must address, and get to work. There is much to be done, much time demanded, and more calendar pages than one or one year. But again, c'mon and join in. That is the only way we can succeed in changing the meaning of all the days to come.
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