Happy New Year. One feels apologetic after addressing someone with that greeting, now needing to qualify it, saying this New Year has to be better than the last. In the spirit of self analysis, or criticism, I once again look at my writings over the past years. I’ve always said that writing this blog is not an act of self promotion, there is no advertising, no dialogue invitation (other than my email address if one wants to write me). It is an exercise in accountability and remembrance. I’ve joked with friends that it provides an alternative memory bank, particularly when it comes to books, cultural events, and travel destinations, the details of which are too easily forgotten as time inextricably moves on.
We all have our opinions and our passions. For nearly 15 years I’ve guardedly worn my heart and mind on my sleeve, and while looking back there are things I regret saying, but for the most part I’m satisfied. Sometimes, I’ve even been prophetic, and now I’m alarmed by some of the things I write and think, those going to a dark, dark place. Perhaps that direction is to be expected as I age, and feel its physical and psychological impact.
However, most of all I fear that the “American Experiment” is beginning to look like the creation of Victor Frankenstein as we slip from democracy, to anacrocy, to oligarchy, destination autocracy. We have abandoned the concept of “the common good” and are in a civil war, the polarization of just about every major issue. This has been mostly played out in a grand political charade but incidents such as Charlottesville, and the attack on Congress last January 6 foreshadows where this might go as a hot war. The proliferation of guns almost ensures some kind of armed conflict, most likely that very kind of guerrilla warfare.
We can’t even see eye to eye about COVID, extremists exploiting the issue as one of individual freedom. I have written about this and our ex-President; the thought of his being the leader of our country could have been the punch line of a joke not very long ago. His popular support ironically is not what he’s done for his followers but instead his giving voice to his follower’s hatred of the virtues of where we thought we were moving, into a more tolerant, ethnically diverse, educated society.
It is bad enough if we only had to be concerned about the Trumpublicans mastery of propaganda and Gaslighting. The liberal press writes much about the evils of Gerrymandering and I agree. But, worse than Gerrymandering is the recent attempts to appoint local election officials, or representatives to the out dated, unnecessary, democracy-threatening Electoral College who are “sympathetic” to Trumpublican causes.
This sets up the real possibility that fair elections can be overturned as being illegitimate. Then we will be a banana republic. If election fraud does not work there are always guns. Is it no wonder I am in a dark place?
At least a cultural light was on in this blog for a long time, but with COVID, many of the theatre and the musical performances which we used to attend in the past, and I enthusiastically wrote about, have been discontinued or migrated to Zoom (not the same).
My reading life has been disrupted by the chaos of our times and although I still try to escape in reading, I find myself less motivated to write about what I read. Similarly, the piano: still working on improving my skills, but writing about it right now is a different matter. (Stephen Sondheim’s death in 2021 was a shock and I will write about Sondheim eventually; what he has meant to me musically and personally).
Travel has been shut down, or dangerous, as the civil war plays out, the unvaccinated, the unmasked, claiming their “freedom” transcends everyone else’s. Thus trips I might have written about are no longer to be experienced.
As a society we’ve politicized everything and consequently progress with managing COVID has been disrupted. Years ago we were able to eliminate most smoking in public places which is clearly a danger to the non-smoker, but that took decades for “freedom-loving” smokers to accept, and the Covid issue is even more volatile and equally consequential.
They accept the licensing of motor vehicles, but not of guns, again equally dangerous if in the wrong hands, or being military grade. I have written more than 30 entries over the years on the need for sensible control of automatic weapons, and covering incidents such as the recent Kyle Rittenhouse murders as examples of the consequences of no congressional action. Even since the horror of murders of children at Sandy Hook in Newtown, CT, now almost ten years ago, we’ve done nothing other than recite the hollow words, “thoughts and prayers.”
It’s open shooting season on the soil of our once sacred nation, each and every one of them intolerable, destroying spirit. I’ve written to our so called elected representatives who answer with form letters or emails extolling “freedom and the sacredness of the 2nd amendment” as if it was handed down from heaven.
I am getting to my point. Every year I seem to write less. The definition of “banging one’s head against the wall” is “to attempt continuously and fruitlessly to accomplish some task or achieve some goal that is or seems ultimately hopeless.” Yes that is where I am at with “freedom lovers” be they of guns, ignoring science, pursuing conspiracy theories, or undermining the very essence of our laws.
Ah, laws. Another bête noire. Here we are at the 1st anniversary of one of the ugliest days in American history, and our Justice System moves in glacial slow motion. Of course we must be thorough, but at the expense of never bringing the masterminds who are responsible to Justice?
When I wrote my 100th entry in this blog I posted a playful entry “How is my driving?” Now that I;m posting my 726th entry, I no longer ask that question. A better one would be, “why am I driving?” I am struck by my first entry from last year ironically beginning “Could we have a worse start to a year that follows the worst year in memory?” Talk about déjà vous. I include that entry below as the same themes reverberate:
Saturday, January 9, 2021
The Revoltingly Horrid Year Continues….
Could we have a worse start to a year that follows the worst year in memory?
A quote President unquote, whose name I cannot even speak, continues behaving like an unhinged mobster boss. His attempts to coerce the Georgia Secretary of State to throw their lawful election is just one more manifestation of his never-ending quest not to be labeled a loser, which he is and has always been. His behavior then was criminal, impeachable.
But wait, that has been forgotten now as this deranged man stood safely behind a bullet proof shield and urged his slavish rabble to storm Congress just as it was ratifying the Electoral College Vote to name Joseph Biden the next President. He yelled, Stop the Steal! He promised he’ll be there with them every step along the way. He didn’t clarify that he meant that metaphorically, as neither he nor his followers know the meaning of the word. Instead he retired to the security of his White House Media Room with family members and sycophants to enjoy the siege of his insurrectionists in what we would consider a coup attempt if we were watching a 3rd world government. It was like a Super Bowl party to them as they watched his minions do his dirty work.
Criminal, inciting sedition. This by a sitting President. Unthinkable. Punishable, impeachable,
So his job of demolishing the last vestiges of democracy and decency is complete. He is a deluded anarchist and by pandering to that base he has created a populist persona with a dedicated following, ready to die for him. It could have been a greater loss of life during the siege had those pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails been detonated. Perhaps the deep rumble of explosions and their accompanying terrifying bright lights was what he was waiting for.
We’ve all seen this coming and with every despicable act we (and many elected representatives) have given him more and more latitude. After all it has been reasoned, he doesn’t understand the consequences. He doesn’t understand how government really works….
How easily the behavior of one tragically flawed person can obfuscate so many serious issues which are tossed by the wayside, the pandemic and distribution of the vaccines, the climate, racial issues, gun control, voter suppression, and a national debt from which the nation might not recover. Meanwhile Bitcoins and the stock market rage on while the nation burns, and we wake up each morning, fearing the next disaster du jour.
Good riddance to our Mobster President who, unfortunately, will still be part of the cancer that erodes our society from within, no matter the degree of his exile. Mar a Lago may be his Elba.
