I wonder. I truly do. You can wonder with me. Place yourselves in the shoes of someone merely 50, 60 years down the road. Not a long time as history goes, but long enough for one to take a look back, and judge for oneself as to the mental acuity and stability of the people of our time. Will someone be seeking a topic for a thesis, for a written and oral presentation before a board of examiners, come across some of today's headlines and pose a question. The question? Simple enough. “Was the world of that (our) time, overcome by a wave of hidden toxicity or by a hidden wave of toxicity and collectively lose their minds?"
Personally. somewhere within the framing and intent of those two similar questions is the truth. Somewhere, someone, pushed a literal or figurative button and engulfed the world in a wave of insanity. Of dangerous "me-too-ism" and set the world on fire. A conflagration which not only impeded but actually denied sanity, even a modicum of sanity. to display strength and longevity. Instead, we had crowds of people round the world Indulging in Bastille type rioting. Racially biased and based thinking characteristic of lynch mobs of the past. and the equivalent.
Amid the anxieties and hostilities of the times there grew an exponential growth of hostility which knew no boundaries, which fed on all around, proving the truth of the ancient maxim of warning. Hatred knows no borders, no brakes. A malignant stew of ingredients grossly inimical to survival of a sane humanity was engendered. Gross hostility. Savagery. Coupled with a loss of independent thinking power. Voila! The years of the teens, 20s and 30s of the 21st century.
At present, all the while within me and any other sane person who can see through the ugly fog of ignorance and hate is the barely suppressed urge to run out in the streets and cry out, as did the prophets of old. Warning all of the errors of our ways. Warning of the inevitability of what is to come. Warning us as was a king of old time, that our sins and offenses have been counted, taken into account we have been found wanting, deserving of punishment severe and harsh.
It would not be the first time humanity has gone down clearly inappropriate paths and reached the inevitable end results. Certainly, though, we might have hoped that by this point in time we would have had advancement of behavior, of understanding, that we might have reached and practiced higher standards. We have done exactly the reverse. Returned with great enthusiasm to the memes and tropes of times of savagery and destruction, where threats and warfare were practiced far more than talking and accommodation. The results? Harm perpetrated and perpetuated. There are voices crying out, appealing to the remnants of sanity and humanity remaining within mankind within humanity. However, the voices embracing and touting violence and hate are stronger, overpowering. Hence. any movement is made in the wrong direction. Ane here we are today - and yesterday and tomorrow, as far as the mind can divine.
So, here we are. We are at a perhaps final crossroad. If we do not make the right choice and instead walk further down the wrong pathways of life, we are dooming ourselves to be cited as the pariah of centuries. The age which threw humankind backwards, which embraced all that was wrong, all that was immoral, all that was contradictory of the advancements made by humankind with great effort over the ages.
Is that what we wish to leave behind as our legacy to the ages? Is it? I certainly hope not. However, what else can one conclude in this maelstrom of ignorance and selfishness. Of hunger for power. Of hate for all deemed “other”.
What have we done?
What. Have. We. Done.
Are you frantically shaking your head in denial? Perhaps we all need a reminder of what has become so commonplace in this tortured and torturous world of ours. We have become blind to it. We have become deaf to the cries.
How can we possibly explain to future citizens of the world that we trashed the idea of America. That we turned savagely as barbarians upon each other. Chewed each other down to insignificance. And then stomped on the remains.
How do we explain the election, twice, of a manifestly clearly demented old man. Whose body and soul mirrored each other in decrepitude and ugliness. Who put forth the idea that he had troublesome veins in his legs even as the obvious troubling of the veins to his brain were denied. Despite the obviousness of such a condition. Even as the members of Congress swung to his every change of insanity, enabling the harm he perpetrated upon and to this world, this nation, this once proud America.
The same man with others of his ilk, those with no morals, those with huge streaks of selfishness and greed for money and power, who practice debauchery, now govern this nation. Who saw it funny, to scribble one's name as if pubic hair on a naked woman. A rather crude imitation of the name Nina to be found in the cartoons of her dad. A man who, along with his coterie of equal wrongdoers, of toadies, who hopped too the words of their master, with no independent thought, who placed thousands, millions, in direct path of danger. Even unto death. America's President.
What do you accept? That this is who we have become? That which we have allowed. A man and his ilk who use the word evil to describe his opponents. Even as the evil is him.
Do we wish to leave behind as an integral and huge part of our legacy this description of a detention camp for immigrants. Is this what we have become today. In 2025, verging on 2026. Is this what, 250 years of America has created. Is this what America, what Americans, what we have become? Read the description. These moral criminals now in seats of power have left us this as our legacy. Take in this horror that they have created and embraced.
“... There are no pencils, books or television. The lights stay on through the night. When it rains. nearly every day during summer, the tents housing detainees spring leaks and bugs crawl in.... Infrequent showers. Meals little more than snacks. Detainees falling ill. Sleep deprivation. And flu like symptoms.... Unrest over a lack of information and recreation and access to medication."
This is. Alligator Alcatraz. This is how we embrace. treating those who are simply emulating the actions and dreams of our ancestors. Who enabled their hopes and dreams and our hopes and dreams. And those of our children. And what have we done? What have we done?
Is there time to repent and reform? Is there time for a clear realization and understanding of where we went wrong, of what we have done wrong. Of how to truly atone? Can we? Will we? Can we resurrect the truth of America?
Are these truly the yesterdays we leave behind? The todays rank with the ugliness of those days. And the tomorrows bleak. And hopeless. Emblematic of a gray world. Is this what we have done? Is this what we want?
Do we? DO WE?
No comments:
Post a Comment