So…I read this a couple days ago:
It was poignant. It seemed very soulful. I was going to share it, but something stopped me. So I re-read it…and then I read it a third time. It’s been playing over and over in my mind for the last couple days.
I’m looking for an answer to what would seemingly be a simple question. “What Happened?” I can’t figure out how we got from a nation full of people who would willingly sacrifice everything to ensure not only the survival of the species but the perpetuation of our way of life to….well…the mess that we are today. You can lay the blame at the feet of a multitude of things and combinations of things, but it’s been my experience that there’s always one root cause that sends a situation into a spiral. I’ve been on a quest for that one root cause.
I turned that quest into a research frenzy. Surely someone with a mind greater than mine has already thought this through and answered that simple question. So I read…and then I read some more. I’ve read more in the last couple nights than I’ve read in months. Depending on who you choose to believe, our society started to crash once the Aliens integrated themselves into our society…or with the advent of the computer and our ever-growing reliance on technology…or with the implementation of the social welfare programs of the Depression era….televisions, Russians, alcohol, drugs…you name it and someone out there has a theory on how it wrecked the American society. One very well-written article even attributes the degradation of our society to the nations’ highway and interstate system combined with the affordability of the automobile in the late 60’s. All the reading failed to convince me that anyone had hit the nail on the head though. Hell…everyone already knows that the Aliens that landed on the outskirts of Moscow in the Depression Era brought us the technology to build the televisions and computers anyway.
I’m probably not going to hit the nail on the head either. I’m convinced of that. I think the truth of our history is so convoluted today that we may never know exactly what happened. I don’t believe that Aliens have integrated themselves into our society. Any higher life form would just look at us and shake their heads, roll up the windows, lock the doors and keep driving on by. Televisions, Computers, Alcohol, Drugs, Cars and Highways…those are just things…merely tools for all intents and purposes…they’re only as good or evil as we humans decide to make them.
So I started to dissect history. What they tell us is our history, anyway. As I tore through the lessons of history I kept coming back to one word…Trust.
When FDR spoke to the nation in his Fireside Chats, the citizens had no reason to question what he was saying. As a nation we had faith in the simple fact that those we’d elected to office had the best interest of the nation at heart. Whether we agreed with their methods was irrelevant…we could count on them to do what they believed was best for We the People. With few exceptions, from the turn of the century until the 1950’s we were seemingly able to trust the Government. The Government had brought us through World War I, the Great Depression and World War II, the economy was on the rise, unemployment was falling…times were good.
Then, in the 50’s Americans watched the Government turn on it’s own citizens. Senator Joseph McCarthy was seeing a communist behind every tree and he was having them dragged into the halls of Congress and questioned like they were spies. Eventually 8,000 federal employees were forced to resign. Seven committed suicide. Careers and lives of everything from politicians to musicians were destroyed by governmental paranoia.
By the middle of the decade, 65% of American households had at least one television and network signals were reaching all four corners of the country and everywhere in between. Edward R. Murrow exposed the tactics of innuendo and unsubstantiated charges that Senator McCarthy used to exploit the country’s fear of Communism live in many of the nation’s living rooms.
Ya know…at this point I really started to believe the whole television theory. BUT…As I said earlier though, television is just a tool…it’s only as good or evil as man makes it. Television may have been a tool that amplified the lack of trust. Hell, in a lot of ways television facilitated the trust we bestowed on people. But we’re looking for the root cause…and ultimately, it was the people who betrayed our trust.
I could sit here and type all night and tell you things that you already know, but that wouldn’t do either of us any good. So I’ll just hit the highlights of the last 60 years…The Red Scare, Failure to achieve victory in Korea, The Bay of Pigs Invasion, The Kennedy affairs with Monroe and Exner and his involvement with Mafioso Sam Giancanna, the crony capitalism of the Johnson administration, State and Federal failures in the Civil Rights Movement, Chappaquiddick, failure to achieve victory in Vietnam, Watergate, Stagflation and the Oil Embargo, illicit CIA operations in the ‘War on Drugs’, The Iran/Contra Scandal, The Arms Race that damn near bankrupt the country, “Read my lips…No New Taxes”, Whitewater, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”, Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, No Child Left Behind, “If you like your healthcare you can keep it”, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, 3,000 classified emails on unencrypted private servers, Russian hoax, Ukraine hoax, an impeachment debacle, borrowing against Social Security, The Uranium 1 deal, Stormy Daniels, The catastrophe of the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation, FISA Fraud, A Vice President’s son making millions working for a government controlled Ukraine energy company…that’s just a brief overview of the highlights, friends. AND…that’s just the highlights of what we know…it’s hard to tell what we don’t know.
While all that has been going on we’ve watched the personal wealth of politicians soar as we’ve watched our savings depleted by higher and higher taxes. Here’s the kicker though….the old man in the poignant and soulful story I started writing this post about….he’s talking about how great his generation was, right? Most of the politicians listed in the scandals in the previous paragraph were from THAT GENERATION! They were all from either the Greatest Generation or the Baby Boomers (Children of the Greatest Generation) and the shit they’ve done to the country is why my generation doesn’t trust our government any longer. You’re calling the current generation “sissies” but it’s the people from YOUR generation who are closing down the schools and locking down cities. It’s YOUR generation mandating hand sanitizer and masks. It’s YOUR generation and the children of your generation attacking the Constitution daily. Members of your generation are making the rules right now…and what a classy bunch they are…Hell, we all just watched an 80 year old Senator stand in the kitchen of her beachfront home with the doors of her $2500 refrigerator standing open so she could show off her hoard of $12-a-pint ice cream to a nation full of people who are trying to figure out how to pay their bills and feed their kids this month.
“Trust”, Old Man. Your parent’s generation did some great things at one time, you’ll never hear me dispute that…they then produced your generation and together you elected or became politicians who have systematically destroyed the trust of the American people. Don’t try to blame our generation for a mess your generation caused and is STILL causing.
Ya know, it’s a pretty good trick when you think about it. Keep GenX and the Millennials at each others throats and they’re focused on that while the Boomers in power rob the country blind. I started looking for the root of the problem you brought to my attention, and when I got there, I was looking at you and your generation, Old Man.
I’m convinced that’s what stopped me from forwarding that post the other day…somewhere down inside I felt attacked when I finished reading it. So…unnamed old man (that I’m beginning to think was probably fictitious), nice try…but I’m not buying it. However…I’ll give you the same advice an old man from the “Greatest Generation” gave me when I was I a child. Pay close attention when you point a finger at someone and you’ll notice there are three fingers pointing back at you.
By the way….I went back and looked….all the research I spent hours reading…Aliens, Interstates, Russians, Computers, Televisions….all the theoretical reasons our society is collapsing; yeah, they were all written by children of the Greatest Generation….the Boomers. It’s all sleight of hand…write, say or do whatever it takes to keep them from noticing we’re crooked.
Two last thoughts…
1) I really am beginning to believe that story is bullshit. Had he been a little boy during WWII, he’d have been eligible for service in Korea and you’d think such a patriotic man would have served and would’ve talked more about something he had adult experience with…but he never mentioned that.
2) If you want a good laugh….notice that the old man says, “We didn’t attack our President, we came together. We rallied around the flag for the war”. If the quarantine has you bored enough go read the comments on that story….a lot of them start with something like “God Bless You for sharing such a touching and necessary story” and end by bashing the President or bitching about the hair salon being closed. Even the people who believe they get it….don’t get it.