Granbury's Old Fashioned 4th of July Celebration - Event ...
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Talking like schizophrenics or eager vacillators we, us, you, them, me, they advocate: following Bernie, fearing Trump, not fearing Trump, hating Hillary, not hating Hillary, abandoning Bernie, supporting Hillary, fearing Trump, not fearing Trump, meditating, marching and on and on. It's a confused, disturbed Liberal/Progressive, rapidly mutating, semi-psychoanalytical trip of anxiety and a bit of self-loathing swirled in a sweating cocktail glass. Hillary is a stale cocktail onion. Trump is a turd stuffed olive. Bernie is an attractively wrapped Christmas gift, waiting -- it's just July.
What's a Liberal/Progressive American to do?
Move? Wave flags? Scream? Light up some bottle rockets? Enjoy a hot dog?
How about looking in the mirror.
I got out my calculator a minute ago and discovered that it's been forty-eight years since the Democratic Convention of 1968. It's been forty-four years since Watergate. It's been thirty years since the Iran-Contra affair. Life has been full for all of us over the past almost half century. A lot of us have been around for the whole enchilada. Many more for parts of it. There have been almost fifty years of mortgage payments, illnesses, car notes, grocery bills, insurance payments, college tuition, burials, taxes, alimony, child support, dental bills; Life.
Life got in the way. Life is a relentless, meth addled taxi driver. Life dulled and back-benched our inner activists. Life both bludgeoned and lit up our intentions -- squashing or hiding them in a whirlwind of winning and diapers and loving and falling.
I had a late middle aged fellow come into my place of work yesterday. He was a very engaging and pleasant fellow. Having recently retired from a life in the oilfields -- encouraged by being laid off. He has taken up his long dormant youthful artistic pursuits. He is very happy to be augmenting his social security payments with sales of his work at art fairs. He said he would keep it up until, if and when, Trump is elected.
"Trump is gonna change things," looking directly into my eyes, not looking away or appearing to even be aware that he was saying things that had a real good chance of being controversial standing in an art gallery. "I can't vote for Hillary, that's the same old same old," he said. Then he went on to recite a list of folks he knew and others he had heard about that had lost good jobs, couldn't send their kids to school, had to sell their homes, moved in with their children etc., etc. Looking back into his eyes I started to protest, to question him, but recognizing sincerity and calm there, chose to be quiet.
"I don't even listen to all that bologna he talks about. I just know that he is gonna change things. Hillary isn't going to change a damn thing," he said, walking out the door. I expected to be agitated, angry even, after talking with him. I wasn't. I was just sad. Everything he said was true. America had let him down. We had let him down. Progressives and Liberals championing or acquiescing to neo-liberal politicians and policies let him down. Not participating let him down.
Life got in the way.
(Article changed on July 4, 2016 at 08:17)
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