Sometimes I wake up in the morning
And find myself at seventy seemingly out of touch with the so-called modern day
world, a world that to me seems to have gone mad. I have tried to understand why this is
and found it is one of those ‘us or them’ situations. Either I am screwed up or the world
is.
Our perception of the world and everything in it is based solely on what we know.
Humans are born with clean slates and their personas are shaped by what they learn.
There are certain things that are universal such as our five senses but almost everything
else has to be learned. It is this learning that is both a human strong point and a weakness.
When I was born Hitler was alive, and the atomic bomb was still months away
from being dropped on Japan. I grew up with the veterans of WWII who were still young
men at the time. They had seen the dark and ugly side of war and unlike so many from
the Nam era would often share their experiences. The WWII vets I was associated with
had no misgivings about firebombing Dresden or Tokyo much less using atomic bombs
to bring the war to an end. They believed WWII was a just war and we had fought it for
all the right reasons. I learned to view WWII as they did and have never shifted from that
view.
I also came to believe that although war was a terrible business and should only
be engaged in as a matter of last resort it was sometimes a necessary part of the human
experience. I also came to understand that when war is declared it has to be prosecuted to
a conclusion where the enemy was absolutely crushed and left with no other option than
unconditional surrender.
This has been reinforced by our actions in Korea, Viet Nam, and the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq where we have squandered blood and treasure yet achieved no clear
victory and in essence left in defeat. I was taught to love my country to respect its flag
which to me stood only for the following. Thirteen stripes representing the thirteen
colonies, the red for valor and the white purity. The fifty states represented by stars
unified on a field of blue. That is all the flag stands for, nothing else. Instead of getting
mad when people burn the flag it signifies to me they are ignorant and have no idea of
what they are doing, unless of course they don’t like the universal values of valor, purity
or the idea of unity.
I was brought up in the era when Uncle Sam still had balls; I knew beyond a
doubt that I was a citizen of the greatest country the world had ever produced. Everybody
was a hero from Christopher Columbus, George Washington Davy Crockett to Dwight
Eisenhower about the only villains were Aaron Burr and the list of robber barons such as
Astor, Carnegie, and Rockefeller and the political machines such as boss Tweed of
Tammany Hall. The United States wasn’t yet complete and we were taught to do our part
to make it so. We were in the nineteen fifties a middle class nation there was little
separation between classes and it was the norm for the plumber to live next door to the
banker, lawyer, or doctor and for the most part they socialized and greeted each other
using first names.
Kids were kids some were brilliant, most were smart and a few were down right
dumb. It was the same for looks and about any other ability attributed to human beings.
Some excelled in sports, others in academics while most of us were more or less also-rans
with a few classified as losers and for the most part they remained losers throughout life.
Children were in certain respects not only molded to fit into society but to take
over society when our turn came. In order to accomplish this we were allowed to be kids
yet even the games we played were designed to turn us into miniature adults. We were
taught to be individuals yet be a part of an ethical group. These ethics were taught at
home, and reinforced at school, church and in public as in those days kids could be called
to account by any adult that witnessed an infraction. It was this knowing that all adults
were united and would drop a dime and inform our parents that kept us from making too
much mischief. If kids did manage to get into trouble they were usually reprimanded and
it was only the most egregious and incorrigible were sent to prison or reform school as it
was felt ‘one bad apple can spoil the barrel.’
We were attached to our circle of friends, our schools, our community, and the
country as a whole. The world at large was made up of far away places with strange
sounding names and languages we learned in the higher grades. College wasn’t a given
and there was no stigma attached to gravitating into an occupation requiring physical
exertion and hand eye coordination. I guess what I’m trying to say is we were individuals
yet homogeneous and felt we were all important cogs in the overall machine.
Looking back I believe the United States reached it’s zenith in the mid fifties and
regardless of our acquisition of gadgets we have been on a steady decline ever since.
There were poor people in the fifties and sixties but for the most part those in depressed
areas such as Appalachia had the opportunity to migrate to northern cities such as
Cincinnati, Detroit or Pittsburg and find decent jobs in industry. Most hourly jobs paid
well enough that wives could stay at home and rear children, college educations could be
budgeted without a commitment to life long debt. Young people that didn’t go to college
had the opportunity to work their way into decent paying jobs which they kept long term.
It is hard to realize that I have been witness to a way of life which has largely
been displaced by a plethora of terms, catch words, and mandated political correctness,
yet these together cannot conceal the slow deterioration of our country. Each day comes
another indication the nation is decline as national, state, and local governments slash
budgets because they can no longer adequately fund education and infrastructure. It tells
volumes when major topics and issues vital to the well being of the country are deflected
by promoting those that affect only small portions of the electorate such as Gay rights,
abortion, immigration, and race that now take up huge portions of the news while behind
the scenes the insidious dismantling of the American middle class goes on unabated. The
middle class has been under relentless assault starting with collective bargaining, the
outsourcing of jobs, and the open support of illegal immigrant labor. Even the switch to
robotics and a part time work force is designed to weaken the middle class. We have only
to look south to see what countries lacking a middle class look like yet we are hell bent
on copying them.
Our fore fathers engaged in an orgy of slavery in order to become wealthy, I
should have thought we had by now learned the lesson that in the end there is no such
thing as sustainable cheap labor. Human beings may be created equal but they certainly
do not remain that way unless there is in place an honest form of governance that strives
to provide a level playing field for all.
If what we are engaged in is truly considered capitalism at it finest then we must
modify it or find a new and more equitable system. The rich come to feel their wealth
insulates them yet history has shown otherwise that it is the spilling of the common mans
blood that pays for the freedom of all. To enrich oneself by honest means may be
admirable but to enrich by depriving others and condemning them to a lesser station in
life is both immoral and an abomination.
I have never been one to hold with conspiracy theories yet the evidence suggests
that either some form conspiracy is in play or those we elect are no longer of the caliber
necessary to successfully govern the country. I don’t like being a prognosticator but from
where I stand if we don’t get our act together this country within a generation will either
find itself a relegated to a footnote in history or subjugated by a power such as China or
maybe even a Caliphate.