Irony And Sacrifice
I suppose many wondered who would topple Trump from his temple of vitriol against almost anyone. Other Republican Presidential candidates tried. Congressional Republican leaders tried. Former Presidents tried. Women as an identifiable group tried, as did blacks, hispanics, gays, common workers, immigrants—oh, just about anyone not a mirror image of “the Donald” tried. To no avail. The more despicable and crude his insults, the higher his poll ratings went. Yes, just about everyone who was frustrated about anything, and wanted to tell off a few particular groups, had found their perfect smash-mouth candidate.
One thing is for sure, regarding an election in which nothing is for sure, that its savior would not be an American Muslim. I mean why would any political party trot out any Muslim at their political convention to rally Americans to their party’s cause? Muslims are our enemy. The only argument is whether all, or just some, are our enemy. True, this particular Muslim male would not be allotted a prime time TV slot—which may have explained why his middle aged unattractive wife, wrapped in full Muslim garb, would be allowed to stand beside him in a dutifully mummified manner (I suppose similar to Nancy Reagan, etc).
Speaking hesitantly, but intensely, this ‘misfit’ nailed Trump to the Cross. His anger was palpable and focused. His son, an American marine, had died by taking a bomb meant for his fellow American soldiers. “Have you ever read the Constitution?” this mystery Muslim queried Trump, as he fumbled to pull out a copy from his pocket. “Here, you can borrow my copy” Most Americans can’t remember ever reading the Constitution, let alone having a copy in their pocket. “Look up liberty and equal protection of the laws” he emotionally intoned.” Then came the take-down: “You have sacrificed nothing!!!!”
The audience went wild. That’s it! that’s it! we all felt—“what has Donald Trump ever sacrificed for anyone or any group in his life?” He simply inherited vast sums of money and amassed wealth off the backs of others via multiple legalized bankruptcies—stiffing contractors and investors over and over while his personal wealth grew. Gaming the system was the extent of his talent.
Later on, much later on, I realized, in actuality, how myself and most Americans have never personally really sacrificed anything for our 50 years of invasions, or the welfare of the less fortunate. We borrowed the money for every invasion. Trillions of dollars. We have the largest, most deadly, and most advanced military power ever, with hundreds of military bases all over the world. Yet we haven’t won any war since World War II. OK, maybe Reagan’s Grenada War is the exception. So what, we are still the richest country in the world. Except 2-5% of our citizens now own 90% of our wealth. What has changed is that most of us don’t have to sacrifice at all for any wars, or our current military strength. What? Well then, who sacrifices or suffers for our military might and adventures? The current generation borrows money for military invasions, government pension plans, health care and whatever else can be kicked down the road. So far the next generations decline to pay or sacrifice also. The poor certainly suffer since it has been a long time since our urban, suburban, and rural ghettoes have had good schools, good health care, safe neighborhoods, have not been on the front line of our War on drugs, or not comprised the bulk of our paid mercenaries to partake in our military invasions.
As a result of all the above, we are painfully destined now to watch the chickens come home to roost. Not close up with any face to face reality, but we watch it from afar, everyday, all day long on our media gadgets. It seems a tad weird that someone like Trump, with all his wealth can buy, seems to be the angriest American on the planet. Most of us, through observation, via the grapevine, through personal experience, or information pipelines understand, in some sort of abstract way, that wealth can’t bring happiness. But few of us accept that reality, and live our lives as if it were otherwise. The vast majority of Americans understand, through reality, that being poor can’t bring happiness either. But we still believe wealth can.
For this to become a planet of peace and prosperity, we have to somehow thrive on diversity, we have to have a more reasonable distribution of wealth, we have to protect our climate, we have to protect our natural resources, we have to end the current mass destruction of other species, we need to implement global minimum wages, we need to practice global responsible reproduction, we need to sacrifice our own materialistic greed to help the less fortunate, and we need to ensure that all children have a proper formative environment. We have the wisdom as a species to do this, but we have wrapped ourselves in self-serving ethics, self-serving greed, intolerance to diversity, an insistence that individuals can procreate at any rate desired, and like Trump, we are not willing to sacrifice or discipline ourselves for the greater good. We want more and better things, more and bigger tax cuts, and if some still have good wages, or pensions, or job security, etc,—well, we need bring them down a level or two. In spite of amazing inventions that can do a lot of the work done by humans, we still stick to a 40 hr work week. We scoff at any notion that the buying power of the lowest paying jobs should keep up with cost of living. We ignore modern science that tells us those young people with chronic high levels of stress hormones will have damaged physiology by the time they reach adulthood, including all sorts of mental and emotional malfunctioning.
In short, a lack of sacrifice to protect the rights and needs of the less fortunate, is common to more and more of our citizens, replaced by a very constricted sense of family values. If this trend continues the future will be a blood bath, the likes of which America has not seen since the Civil War. We, as citizens, are becoming well armed with weapons of war, along with gadgets to ensure all combatants will be capable of co-ordinated attacks—all fueled by religious, economic, and cultural intolerance in a background of human overpopulation, limited natural resources, climate change, poor wages, chronic stress level environments, and so on. Just the number of major global problems coming at us from so many directions has us paralyzed into inaction. Many of our problems today are too complicated and past the comprehensive abilities of the average voter, registering democracy useless. Feelings run rampant, and become the dominant force over logic and understanding. A Donald Trump, overflowing with feelings, appeals to more and more people. Anger and and hostility to diversity are seething just below our surface calm.
When I attack the current use of the term ‘family values’ it is done so in a particular context, and that context will be the subject of the next musing.
