Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Irony

From Album 5
No, I'm not defending rioting -- or Barry Goldwater. My point is that we all might want to be a little more careful with our rhetoric and actions (cough Cliven Bundy cough). For generations now, the right wing has insisted on saber rattling, and don't seem real upset when that gets twisted into all sorts of ugly rage...provided it's the "right" (or rhymes with "right") people. When less desirable folks get fed up, it becomes "put the thugs in their place." Sadly, it's unlikely we'll see any real change.
Posted by Michael at 7:38 PM

3 comments:

  1. charlie ehlen8:45 PM

    Michael,
    Oh man, you are so very correct in this comment today.
    It just makes me even happier that Dad taught me the way he did. Those with a better tan than I have also have the same, as in equal, rights to get pissed off at injustice done to them. Oh, I doubt I have ever before, nor ever will, fir in with those "right" folks you mentioned. Yeah, I'm way too damn liberal for that. By the way, old Karl Marx was a chicken s**t. He didn't go far enough with his radicalism. Maybe if he'd been a Marine before he found being a radical was cool he might have gone all out. LOL, no, I do not mean to build myself up. However, being a Marine would not have hurt his being a radical, it didn't make me any less of a one, might have made me more radical in fact.
    Oh well, and so it goes. Cold? I see the forecast for here is mid 80's by the weekend or early next week. Still, this IS Louisiana, best to keep a jacket near by.

    ReplyDelete
  2. charlie ehlen7:15 PM

    Michael,
    I just wanted to add another bit. One of my long time email friends sent me a link to a story on Baltimore at WSWS.com He asked for y opinion of the article. I read it and sent him my thoughts. Either he or the article mentioned the Watts riots of 1965. Oh man, I do remember that as we lived in SoCal from spring of 1959 when Dad took us out there as his job wanted him to be the diesel engine mechanic for the company. I was still in high school when the riots broke out in Watts. The lesson, you cannot treat human beings like crap and then not expect that at some point they will rebel against the oppressors. The safest bit of the Watts riots, this country has learned absolutely nothing, not one goddamn thing about human beings or what we used to cal (maybe still do) race relations. When you look at the unemployment numbers for teens and young adults and we know how much any sort of social programs have been cut all over the country, not just here in Loosey Annie, well, what is happening in Baltimore is almost too easy to predict.
    That the country is so messed up, socially (i.e. cuts to human resources, health care, decent paying jobs, etc.) should be a national shame. I have not been out much this week,haven't felt up to going anywhere this week. Chronic pain sucks on toast and the COPD doesn't help either. I wonder how many, if any, other people feel even remotely as I do about this mess we have made for ourselves and what or even how the country will ever find a way out of this mess. Do we, as a country, have the collective will/desire to make life better for ALL the people who live within the borders of the USA? We do not need fine sounding speeches or fancy word salad from the ruling class, we need real action, person-to-person action. Take the time to say hello to other people. Be polite to each other. Hell, follow the old "golden rule", without the religion bit hung onto it, and treat ALL people you come in contact with the way you want to be treated. Simple, and yet, seemingly so very, very damn hard for some to even try.
    And some people wonder why I refuse to attend any church services except for thee funerals of family/close personal friends. Church (synagogue/mosque) is for hypocrites.
    OK, end of rant.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Michael8:04 PM

    You're right that we haven't learned a thing...and goddamn, that makes me...I dunno, frustrated, furious, sad...because, as I've said before, it's NOT a zero sum game. Oh sure, the fat cats would have us fight over crumbs, and do...but they're the ones with more than crumbs. And they could STILL have pretty goddamn nice things while tossing us just a bit more. Hell, I've got most of the material things I want, and that really isn't much. I'd like more time, maybe more company here and there (though as I age I accept and even enjoy some solitude...and Tigger's plenty good company too)...but...everyone's desperate to judge others, and find fault, to justify beating them down...and...shit, I dunno, but it looks to me like pretty massive projection: the fault lies WITHIN us, so get used to it, get comfortable with flaws -- we've all got 'em -- and figure out something good in yourself and be, if not happy, at least content with that.

    But...again, no: too many people want others to be miserable. So you get the drug wars, the "humbling" arrests (just learned that from a David Simon interview I read)....the rough rides...the killings...and then the victim blaming ("thugs.").

    Makes me want to stay even further away. But...you've still gotta believe. There are good people out there. Like yourself, for instance.

    Well, gotta go. Take it easy.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)