Is it just me or did our country, as we know it, change radically during the past year. I know the pandemic had a major impact on all our lives, but I sense something even more sinister has happened and is still happening. I’m talking about the extreme divisiveness in our country today. We can’t seem to agree on anything and even more alarming, we’re ready to go to blows with anybody who disagrees with us.
Can you believe American parents are fighting (throwing punches) over whether or not their child should wear a mask to school. We used to be able to argue this sort of thing out, take a vote, and do what the majority decided. You grumbled if you disagreed with the decision, and if you really disagreed you could start an opposition movement. But you went with the flow until the decision was changed. Isn’t that the American way?
What’s going on in America today is some form of anarchy or civil disobedience. I don’t know what to call it but it’s shaking the underpinning of our once great nation. Notice I said “once great nation” because we’ve fallen a long way in a short period of time. Take for instance the insurrection at our capitol on January 6th. Those violent citizens, if you can call them that, were shouting “Hang Mike Pence” among other equally appalling slogans. They were actually advocating hanging our Vice President and doing extreme harm to Nancy Pelosi and any other government official they could find in their raid. That was a clear and unambiguous intention to commit murder, the murder of our Vice President.
I find the whole episode of January 6th extremely disturbing, but not as disturbing as those jerks in our congress who want to sweep this tragic event under the rug and pretend that it never happened. We had a lynch mob out to hang our Vice President and large part of our congress think that was okay? I’ve heard that these idiots are afraid to take a stand on this issue out of a fear of irritating Donald Trump and ruining their reelection chances. Is that who we’ve become?
A lot is going on in our once great country besides arguing about the worst riot in American history. Let’s see, we have airline passenger violence completely out of control. We’ve had well over 3,000 incidences of unruly passenger behavior on our commercial flights so far this year. So when we’re not beating up our flight attendants, what else are we doing?
We’re killing each other, that’s what. 2021 is set to be the worst year for gun violence in two decades. We’ve had nearly 300 mass shooting across our country and another 10,000 Americans have died from gun violence, up 24% from last year. Can you believe 300 more Sandy Hooks and El Paso Walmarts and we’re only half way through 2021.
So when we’re not storming our capitol, beating up stewardesses, or shooting each other how are we spending our time?, Beating up Asians Americans, that’s how. Asian hate crimes were up 164% for the first quarter of this year. A man was arrested in San Francisco for stabbing two Asian women in a totally unprovoked attack while another two Asian women were attacked in New York City by a woman who demanded they remove their masks, then struck one of them in the head with a hammer. Is this who we are or what we’re become?
And, many Americans seem to be returning to their distant, and shameful racist roots. The recent protests and public reaction to George Floyd’s murder and the Black Lives Matter movement have re-sparked notions of racial superiority and fueled the growth of our white supremacy groups. These neo-Nazi imbeciles hate all nonwhites, Jews, and all immigrants and minorities regardless of their color. They aspire to build a new nation, a nation of an embattled white majority. A nation they couldn’t run if we gave it to them. They would only end up hating each other, because hate is all they know.
We looked on in horror as The Proud Boys, The Oath Keepers and QAnon in their barbaric outfits and waving seditionist flags stormed our capitol last January. Where did these lowlifes come from and why do we let them continue to spread their hate and violence? We’ve got to finally put a stake through the heart of these and the other hate groups. Is the KKK still alive and well in America hiding under these new names?
Nowhere is our new divisiveness more visible than in our congress. We’ve always had radical extremes on both ends of the political spectrum opposed to each other, but the bulk of congress would just do what they thought was right or what they thought would get them reelected, but not now. The two sides of the aisle are at each other throats as if we have two totally different governments fighting for power. It’s amazing they get anything done—or are they?
Is this the legacy of Donald Trump: violent and deadly eruptions over anything and everything we disagree with, the resurgence of white supremacy and neo-Nazism, a return to the isolationism and anti-immigration of many years past, and a government that would rather fight than govern? If this is what we’ve become, I want no part of it.
I’m so disgusted with all of this, but I don’t know what to do. Howard Beale (Peter Finch) said it best in the film Network when in the middle of his newscast stood and shouted, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
Too Much Tequila, Too Little Sunscreen 