Tired. Everyone's tired. These past fourteen months and still counting, still being warned of new dire future possibilities and probabilities. Confusion about truth and lies in the body politic. American values seen discarded on the roadside. Major changes domestically as well as in foreign policies. A world spinning so fast that even were one to want to get off, it is nigh unto impossible. Enough! Enough with the overkill re racial feelings, anti racism, and all the buzzwords that now just about kill us and any interest we have in remedying racism and its consequences. I am not even sure we know exactly anymore what racism is and when to cut it out already. Enough with the Big Lie and the lie theory of government. Patience is at short shrift and yet we keep trying, pushing the envelope, testing the boundaries.
First, I read of blood chits and yes, I agree, we are way behind in honoring them, in paying our debts to those who have helped us, courageously, put themselves in the path of danger, unto loss of life and harm to their families. Basically, this is what a blood chit says: "Help me return to friendly territory, and my government will reward you." We have disregarded and dishonored that promise through war after war and then wonder why no one wants to help, serve as interpreters, guides or simply a friendly face. It is because when we pull out of a country, we leave behind detritus. We sell billions of dollars worth of equipment as scrap, letting it fall into the hands of the enemy, and costing the taxpayers of America billions and trillions as we replace what should never have been lost!
Worse, when the planes pull out, all the threats to those friendly forces of locals come true, the exact reverse of the fairy tale wish of living happily ever after. We leave these people behind, disregard our promises, blowing them off, ignoring their panic, at their misplaced trust in America, as we leave them, desert them, abandon them, to gruesome fates and awful debts. Blood chit? Bah! Humbug!!
This pattern of lying, of accepting lies and false promises has become a plank of the GOP platform. A growing number of politicians disregard the voters and their votes and spout the Big Lie, our own homegrown Hitlerian imitation, the one that leads to peril, to American Fascism. No, Trump did not win. No, Trump did not even come close. No, there is no merit at all in these baseless claims and lawsuits, all being thrown out of court by increasingly irritated judges. Yet, there it is, creeping and crawling into American lexicons, debates and worse, conviction of its truth and the accompanying lies about Jan. 6. That lie maintains that it was either an anti fa organized violent attempt at rebellion or it was peaceful, no big deal and everyone's memories to the contrary. The GOP has fallen to the level of the very perpetrators, now claiming innocence, peaceful origins, lying through their goddamned teeth!!
Finally, we come to the fatigue hitting America. Yes, there is racism, overt and covert. Yes, true as it is, there has been progress. More is needed. DWB cannot be a capital offense. Law enforcement need some retraining. But..... people are tired of the growing victimhood that is the new meme. Everyone is now claiming this status, pushing their own troubles, forgetting that it all stems from the same dank and moldy source.
We need to remember who we are - all humans on the planet earth, all subject to the same whims of Nature, the same threats to our existence, the same consequences to our actions. That is all. We are more alike than not. That is the lesson. That is the simple cure. Overwhelming us all with page after page of black faces in ads, in TV shows, in movies, in articles, all saying and claiming the same thing, the overuse of the term 'invisible'. Now Asians.
Perhaps if we stop using these terms, stop the overkill, stress the similarities, publish the accomplishments of ALL peoples, all races and ethnicities, by groups from other ethnicities, perhaps then we would realize that by emphasizing the likes rather than the 'unlikes', we can make progress. But now, now we are in for a tiring overkill, testing the already tried patience of those who already know the truth, riling those who do not, and just about forgetting the positive goal - acceptance and appreciation of all by all. Simple, yet so difficult. Seemingly even further away from being reached than ever before. Even as we ignore all the positive that has already happened.
So, gotta' say it. We are losing our way. We are on the wrong path, the wrong instructions being followed, and the consequences are dire. Can we all take a deep breath or two, pause the rhetoric, think about what is and what is not of value, what we wish for, hope for? Then find a new set of directions, cut off the Fascists at the proverbial pass and remember, take pride in being America.
Let us honor the blood chits we so lavishly doled out. Let us honor our word as Americans, recognize those who have done well for us, both within and without the nation. Can we at least try?
No comments:
Post a Comment