Americans are angry. Black Americans, American Latinos, Native
Americans and of course, White Americans. The poor are angry, as are the rich
and middle class, right along with second amendment and gun control advocates,
pro-lifers, pro-abortionists, Southerners, Northerners, Christians,
non-Christians, the Police, the old, the young, the general public, and just
about everyone else in America.
We should be!
I am an old, not quite withered man of 58, and I am angry. I am
also tired.
In my lifetime, I cannot remember a time when this Nation was not
on a war footing. Wars; big, small and even inconsequential have been the
thread of our existence.
What does a legacy of war say about this exceptional Nation?
An exceptional nation that honors our solders as great heroes,
greater patriots in our media, in our entertainment media. Heroes that have
given their lives to protect our freedom, yet our Veterans, with no better
phrase to state it, are treated like crap by the Government they protect and by
the very public which hails them as heroes. I’m angry about that, angry that
the Veteran suicide rate is so fantastically high, almost one every
hour, and
angrier that few claim to even be aware of that fact. I’m angry that we have a
civilian population of young and ageing vets that are damaged.
I’m angry at what we have become as a people, as a nation. I’m
angry at what our priorities have become. I’m angry at those, without knowing
who they are, who have driven a huge wedge between myself and my friends, and
even family members. I’m angry at myself for allowing that wedge to exist, and
I’m angrier at those who refuse to comprise, much less listen, and relish
driving that wedge deeper into the soul of all Americans for their personal
welfare, their personal agenda, and their personal view of what this Nation
should look like.
As a white man that once woke uncomfortably up, the only white man
in a cell, I get that racism exists. That’s on the individual, that feeling of
being uncomfortable wasn’t the result of humans that were born a darker shade
than I, it was because of my feelings, my fear, my sense of being uncomfortable.
We no longer ask why we are uncomfortable, we just blame it on
minorities, the poor, the mentally ill, anyone who we can claim as a scapegoat.
I’m angry that is who we are.
For a Nation of Christians, we fail miserably at being good
stewards of our earth, good keepers of our brothers, in being compassionate of
our judgement of others. Indeed, religion as a whole has become a divisive
wedge, not bringing people together in brotherhood, but instead driving people
apart, in horrible, terrible ways. I’m angry at what Christianity has become,
fractured, divisive, political, fearful, and even, hateful. What was once a
deeply personal experience has become fodder for those who wish to propagate
their beliefs, interpreting the aged words of God as their own, personal belief
system.
Indeed, we do not celebrate age, wisdom and experience in this
Nation, we shutter our elders away in retirement communities, assisted living
and nursing homes, and most visit their mother or father on a holiday or
birthday. Gone is the generational connection of having your elder living in
your basement, or nearby. Gone is the honor of passing in your own home, your
own bed. Gone is the tradition of inheritance, because the state, the
government takes everything to pay for your parents lives lived in retirement.
They will takes yours as well.
Just as we fear diversity, just as we do not celebrate our
elderly, we fear and we ignore the mentally handicapped. They are shunned,
outcasts and forced to live with a stigma that you not only don’t understand,
but don’t want to understand.
Neither Christian, American, much less humanistic.
I was taught we take care of our own, clearly we do not.
Not only do we take care of our own, we’re not good stewards of
our home, a living, breathing ecosystem in the cold darkness of space. While
we’ve raised awareness, raising that awareness doesn’t do much if major
corporations can continue to spill billions of oil into our oceans without
serious consequence, if game and fishing industries can continue to hunt and
fish our companion species into extinction, if shipping can continue to create
a huge garbage dump of our oceans, all without serious consequence. Without
even tagging the fact of global warming, we’re destroying our planet. Add in
the dire warnings of climate change, our future looks dismal.
All of us have reasons to be angry. We live our lives in the midst
of violence. Be it from our police, a mass shooting, a riot, a single murder or
on the screen of our television, we almost relish it for the entertainment it
brings us, until it is our son, our daughter, whose corpse we are invited to identify.
We don’t even have the intelligence, the compassion, the honor or gall to even
address the issue much less talk about it unless we’re blaming our neighbor for
the violence. It’s always someone else’s fault.
I’m also angry that I bought into a lie my father preached to me
as a young son. Work hard, be honest and you’ll find success. I don’t measure
success by living paycheck to paycheck at 58. Yes, I made some bad decisions,
and I take ownership, but I’ve held down a job since I was eleven. My wife, since
finishing nursing school. We’ve both worked hard, decent jobs. I had almost 20
years with my last employer, and Theresa has 25 with hers. Never been poor, but
this is the thing, when we get a paycheck, it’s gone, mostly to bills,
groceries and benefits. We’re not poor, but we’re certainly aren’t going to
have the golden years we once thought we would. Yea, I’m angry about that.
Angry that I’m part of that vanishing, working class American.
There is a lot to be angry about. We are not the exceptional Nation
that you believe we are. Yes, we might be full of piss and vinegar, we might
beat our chests in triumph, we might bleed red, white, and blue but none of
that makes us exceptional to anyone else, except those doing the shouting how
great we are.
Greatness is born of respect, and we lost that when we made the
collective, National decision that to be feared is exceptional, that to be
respected is to be minimal.
There’s a lot to be angry about.
