This started out to be a rant about Syria but so many other things kept dovetailing it seems to have become just another general curmudgeonly dissertation on why I’m not too happy with what the younger generation has done with the world they inherited from us senile old farts. Granted it wasn't perfect when you got your hands on it but I really thought you'd do something to... if not make it better, at least not make it worse.
I’ll say one thing about this Syrian situation though, it sure has brought the Cult of Obama worshipers and groupies out in force.
Look, once and for all, Barack Obama is NOT God. He’s not even the Messiah that so many of you want fervently to believe he is. He’s just a man… a good man even… who gets up in the morning and puts his pants on one leg at a time and pees between his feet just like you and even me, believe it or not.
If the military/industrial/financial complex wants us to bomb Syria, we’re going to bomb Syria and all the Twitter “activism” taking place is nothing but the age old art of distraction playing the role it has always played when a government wants con it’s people into doing something they might not otherwise want to do. Think Tonkin Gulf for the 21st century. As good Democrats, you DO know what that was, right? Or maybe you had to be around back then. It was the epitome of “convenient provocation” for its day. (And to my way of thinking, it ultimately brought us Sarah Palin but that’s not really pertinent here.)
Now before anyone starts grabbing at their fake pearls and screeching that I’m attacking their political demigods, do something that many of you seem to have been unable to do since 2008 and that’s stop and think about life in the underbelly of the real world for a change. You know, the part that 99% of our politicians and beltway pundits and more than a few of our smug middle class Twitter types have never had any part in and have no desire whatsoever to actually know anything about.
Then know that when Fascism has finally enshrouded this country for good it’s not going to be just because we have Republican sellouts or even Tea Party wannabe brown shirts in this country though they will of course have a huge role. It will be due also in a large measure to people on the nominal “left”who let their fawning adoration for a charismatic politician… ANY charismatic politician… Remember the Reagan Democrats back in the 80s… take precedence over a careful examination and consideration of the actual issues in any situation. I hear it every flipping day. He’s our president, It’s our DUTY to back him up no matter what he does or doesn’t do. I’ll tell you right now that I’m having trouble believing that much pure bullcrap could be stacked that damned high and still not topple under its own weight.
My Great Depression/Dustbowl Okie folks’ generation gave us Social Security and the New Deal, mine gave us Medicare and Medicaid, the Civil rights and Voting Rights acts and LBJ’s Great Society. You don’t have to preach to us about it, we were the ones out there DOING it. What’s the majority of yours ever done? I can tell you part of it.
This generation of voters is busily pissing away every damned thing my generation and those before fought and bled for and doing it one Medicare/Medicaid cut or one cost of living increase or one decent manufacturing job or one pension at a time. You sit on your couches in your middle class living rooms, sucking up suds and tweeting blow by blow coverage of whatever games and whichever race is on that day and when the fun’s over you blather a few poignant little jabs at the right wingers or maybe the “Emos” if you’re turned that way, or maybe you make a lovely little post to express your utter devotion… not to this country or this society but to your president… who is after all more than the sum of the country and it’s people… and then you wander off to bed all moral and smug and self satisfied, figuring you’ve done your duty as a good little modern day activist.
Activists were the people who went out and WON the battle for civil and voting rights fifty damned years ago, not those who stood around flipping angry tweets, usually to the choir while today’s activist SCOTUS made a mockery of everything we fought for and better people than me even died for. All you did was stand around saying “They won’t do that” until they had done it and then it was “How dare they?” until the next shiny object appeared on the horizon. More examples? Sure. I could fill a damned book with ‘em.
When Viet Nam was over we made a vow we would never allow this country to become involved in another undeclared unjust war for profit again. Bullshit! We have had nothing BUT one damned invasion, bombing, shelling, droning and occupation after another and the American people are not one dime richer or better off because of any of them. And yet every time some silver tongued snake oil salesman starts pimping us to the MIC/Wall Street bunch, we all line up for our turn in the barrel because if we don’t they can’t guarantee our safety or whatever the bullshit of the day is.
Goddammit, if someone ever really comes after your ass, the flipping government can’t guarantee your safety anyway. They didn’t do it when we were attacked by the Saudis… yeah, most of them including OBL were Saudis… on 9/11 and they can’t do it now no matter how many people they’re spying on. You’d better be figuring out some way to do that yourself, hopefully without letting your 4 yr old play with your little organ substitute..
We’re not only still treating our Viet Nam vets like crap after four fricking decades, we’re allowing Washington to create entire new generations of shell shocked vets to do it to and nothing’s changed in 40 years. These people aren’t having it any better than the guys in the 70s. And you tweet angrily and bleat hashtags beating the drums for another war when you can’t even take care of the veterans from the LAST 50 years of Bombing for Dollars, another war this time to save Syrian kids… “save the kids” always gets to those who want to feel noble as long as it doesn’t cost them anything personally because it instantly demonizes the other guy… but when you can’t even get your own damned congress or administration to save AMERICAN kids from our own home cloned terrorists it starts to ring hollow and you can’t help but wonder how bombing those same Syrian kids with cruise missiles or rocketing them with drones is going to save them from their own leader. I remember Hue you see.
We fought for environmental rules that would allow our kids on into the far future to have wholesome adequate food to eat and clean water to drink. All that has been pissed away,,, every agency created to bring it about gutted and taken over by lobbyists and execs from the industries they’re supposed to be regulating… by a generation that appears to be more concerned with making sure it gets its own healthy slice of the pie than making sure there’s enough pie for everyone. In the meantime most or our water is being poisoned, our natural resources stolen and we can’t even find out what’s IN the food we eat. They destroy the land pollute our oceans, foul the air… Your reaction? What else? Post angry 140 character bitch notes and bleat more hashtags.
We worked our damned asses off so our kids… YOU… could have a decent flipping education and maybe be able to make your way in the world a little better than we had been able to. You’ve stood around making angry tweets and bleating hashtags while the right has virtually gutted public education and made it damned near impossible for a poor kid to even go to school and even those that can have to worry more about where their next meal is coming from than getting an education and big city mayors close 50 schools at a time while using tax money to finance flipping baseball fields.
We fought for labor laws and regulations that guaranteed every American an opportunity for a decent job at a living wage in a safe working environment. Tell me “Xers” and “Yers”, where are all those jobs today? That’s goddamned right. They’re in the communist country whose leader once bragged that China would defeat America without ever firing a shot. Well, look around people. They OWN us. Or at least damned near half of us. That’s why OUR kids are doing the dying while THEY exploit Afghanistan.
Explain to me one more time about all those jobs that have been restored under the current administration. Bullshit! They weren’t restored, they were replaced by low wage, no benefit, part time jobettes as Jim Hightower calls them and the reason job NUMBERS aren’t lower than they were six years ago is the people who hold 2-3 of them just to try to make ends meet. What are you doing about it youngsters? Posting pissed off tweets, bleating hashtags and punting it down the field for the next generation to deal with? Counting on the electorate to have enough sense to vote their own interests next year and in 2016? Why the hell would you think that? The one certain thing in all this is that the working poor in this country are no better and many are worse off than they were in 2008. Can we have a hashtag on that?
Again, what’s YOUR contribution been to say healthcare for elderly and disabled MC/MA recipients? Reductions in services, increases in out of pocket costs, chained CPI, 5 minute limits on medical appointments in a for profit privatized public health clinic, no referrals to specialists? Oh you didn’t know all that? Actually there’s more but I’m pretty sure you need to go fire off an angry tweet or bleat a hashtag and this is already far too long. Like I said, I could fill a book with things people like me busted our humps for just to see you cast them off as if they were nothing but bargaining chips to try to appease those who are robbing you blind every damned day. Keep giving them what they want and expecting them to stop demanding more? WTF?
If I’ve pissed anyone off enough to unfollow or block, hopefully you’ll let me know so I can say bye bye. While it wasn’t my sole intent, I’m pretty sure that it’s not going to make a lot of difference in my thinking and if I’m going to be attacked as a “commie” or a racist, simply for disagreeing with your president I don’t need the hassle anyway. If the right succeeds in destroying democracy once and for all it’s because a hell of a lot of people claiming to know better helped by standing around building their little Twitter cliques and doing little else instead of kicking asses and taking names. G’night!