High 'Dudgeon': a wood used especially for dagger hilts...
By Froggy
You know, I guess we all have our illusions dispelled the older we get; we grow up, we learn how the world works. And then we learn how the world really functions. I learned it from one of the most innocuous vantage points: the middle class suburbs of Denver, Colorado. I later moved downtown when I was 19, but even being off on my own, dating, putting myself through school, going to the city hospital, living by myself didn't reveal anything I didn't expect.
I wasn't really following politics at the time unless it was important. But I grew up in the 1960's and 1970's, so a lot of things were important. I knew there was corruption in politics. I knew all about the winks and nods, payola and graft, double-dealing and nepotism that infested local and national dealings.
From Papa Kennedy buying his boy a seat in the White House, the death of the 3 civil rights workers, to G*d-knows-what McNamara and Johnson were trying to do in Viet Nam, the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the 4 assassinations of John, Malcolm, Bobby, and Martin, to the Mei Li massacre, legalized abortion, Kent State, Watergate, the hostages in Tehran, Iran/Contra Affair, AIDS... and those were just a few of the things happening in America during those years, my years.... Of course, since then we've lived through a lot of things with the muslim attacks--9/11 was certainly a watershed... and I know there's more.
I don't know when America changed. Amidst all this, I thought of my old neighborhood in the suburbs. I realized that the park across the street that we'd play in from dawn to dusk all summer, if I had kids, I wouldn't let 'em kids loose in it, now. No, now they'd need a watcher, someone who didn't take their eyes off them for a minute. There'd be no 16 mile bike rides to Red Rocks Park alone, no 20 mile walkathons like when I was 14, no practicing school musicals until 10 p.m. and then walking the near-mile to the house, no being dropped off at a big mall with no set time to be home. And I'd have to tell my kids about 'bad touching' much sooner--and more graphically--than I ever thought I'd have to. And the LGBTQI community keeps adding letters that my kids would be taught all about in grade school...
And it's really so much bigger than that. I respect the police--but I don't automatically trust them the way I use to. I love our military and the people who have served--but now I have to ask some if they're always doing the right thing. My doctor--and I respect him, too--sees me based on the cost of the services--not on my need. He gives me 'phone appointments' and an email system--and just puts in an order for my blood tests twice a year. What happened?
Now, Watergate looks like a prank at a high school class picnic. We actually have a president we don't even know the real name of! Senate seats are being bought and sold like season tickets at a Bears game. We have people running the country who we didn't elect--and the people we did elect are just working to cobble up money for the people they pay to elect them again--with a heavy cut off the top for themselves, of course.
Our Attorney General won't prosecute crimes, our Congress won't draw up a budget, our Border Patrol isn't allowed to secure our borders, our Secretary of State won't negotiate a treaty that actually benefits us, and Little Timmy Geithner spends his days printing greenbacks on unneeded stocks of NYTimes groundwood pulp. And speaking of the state of 'journoListism' today, we have to get our most accurate news--and sometimes, any news at all--from Britain's Telegraph, Daily Mail, and Canada's National Post! America's top newspapers and tv/cable news shows are like a club of friendly Marxist puppies all racing for that first piece of BaconBaconBacon... Here! that will sell our country down the river for good.
Where is my country? Who can I trust? Who in the public eye--newsmen, professors, senators, teachers, auto makers, cabinet secretaries, chiefs of staff, CEOs, insurance companies, preachers, movie stars, editors, cable tv hosts, union members, American Idol judges (!), and a president--isn't in it just for himself?
I wonder if G*d intended the destruction of all our illusions at the end of our life? It sure feels like the death of something.
You know, I guess we all have our illusions dispelled the older we get; we grow up, we learn how the world works. And then we learn how the world really functions. I learned it from one of the most innocuous vantage points: the middle class suburbs of Denver, Colorado. I later moved downtown when I was 19, but even being off on my own, dating, putting myself through school, going to the city hospital, living by myself didn't reveal anything I didn't expect.
I wasn't really following politics at the time unless it was important. But I grew up in the 1960's and 1970's, so a lot of things were important. I knew there was corruption in politics. I knew all about the winks and nods, payola and graft, double-dealing and nepotism that infested local and national dealings.
From Papa Kennedy buying his boy a seat in the White House, the death of the 3 civil rights workers, to G*d-knows-what McNamara and Johnson were trying to do in Viet Nam, the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the 4 assassinations of John, Malcolm, Bobby, and Martin, to the Mei Li massacre, legalized abortion, Kent State, Watergate, the hostages in Tehran, Iran/Contra Affair, AIDS... and those were just a few of the things happening in America during those years, my years.... Of course, since then we've lived through a lot of things with the muslim attacks--9/11 was certainly a watershed... and I know there's more.
I don't know when America changed. Amidst all this, I thought of my old neighborhood in the suburbs. I realized that the park across the street that we'd play in from dawn to dusk all summer, if I had kids, I wouldn't let 'em kids loose in it, now. No, now they'd need a watcher, someone who didn't take their eyes off them for a minute. There'd be no 16 mile bike rides to Red Rocks Park alone, no 20 mile walkathons like when I was 14, no practicing school musicals until 10 p.m. and then walking the near-mile to the house, no being dropped off at a big mall with no set time to be home. And I'd have to tell my kids about 'bad touching' much sooner--and more graphically--than I ever thought I'd have to. And the LGBTQI community keeps adding letters that my kids would be taught all about in grade school...
And it's really so much bigger than that. I respect the police--but I don't automatically trust them the way I use to. I love our military and the people who have served--but now I have to ask some if they're always doing the right thing. My doctor--and I respect him, too--sees me based on the cost of the services--not on my need. He gives me 'phone appointments' and an email system--and just puts in an order for my blood tests twice a year. What happened?
Now, Watergate looks like a prank at a high school class picnic. We actually have a president we don't even know the real name of! Senate seats are being bought and sold like season tickets at a Bears game. We have people running the country who we didn't elect--and the people we did elect are just working to cobble up money for the people they pay to elect them again--with a heavy cut off the top for themselves, of course.
Our Attorney General won't prosecute crimes, our Congress won't draw up a budget, our Border Patrol isn't allowed to secure our borders, our Secretary of State won't negotiate a treaty that actually benefits us, and Little Timmy Geithner spends his days printing greenbacks on unneeded stocks of NYTimes groundwood pulp. And speaking of the state of 'journoListism' today, we have to get our most accurate news--and sometimes, any news at all--from Britain's Telegraph, Daily Mail, and Canada's National Post! America's top newspapers and tv/cable news shows are like a club of friendly Marxist puppies all racing for that first piece of BaconBaconBacon... Here! that will sell our country down the river for good.
Where is my country? Who can I trust? Who in the public eye--newsmen, professors, senators, teachers, auto makers, cabinet secretaries, chiefs of staff, CEOs, insurance companies, preachers, movie stars, editors, cable tv hosts, union members, American Idol judges (!), and a president--isn't in it just for himself?
I wonder if G*d intended the destruction of all our illusions at the end of our life? It sure feels like the death of something.
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