The Eventual Anger

I am no psychologist.  I am a bit of a student of human nature, and it occurred to me this week that there will be a rather upsetting period of time for a rather large group of people coming soon.

There are an awful lot of people who may never realize the level of deceit which a recent former president has used to ... well, convince them that he was and remains their champion.  I was never one of the fools with the wool, blankets, or anything but my glasses over my eyes with the orange buffoon, but the number of fools who fell for his shit are beyond disturbing.

I do see a number of things I can point to and aid in explaining it.  After all, some twenty or so years ago the Republicants pushed through this "No Child Left Behind" bullshit.  Rather than teaching the history and the nature of the world at large, teachers were forced to teach to the test.  That is, everything I absolutely hated - but was good at - in school came roaring into the prime spot.  That is, the raw regurgitation of dates and events does nothing to help someone understand why a thing happened.

One particular bit of history which does land pretty close to home is the level of crap surrounding World War II.  I had a historian for a father, and I do have something of an addiction when it comes to this habit of reading.  I need to read lots.  It keeps my mind ... well, calm, frankly.  The more facts I have to collect, digest, and understand, the happier I am.  So when I run across bullshit conspiracy theories such as Roosevelt let the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor in order to permit the United States to enter World War II, I know that the country needed that "unifying moment" event, but Roosevelt had family in the Navy, had a fair amount of history with the Navy, and the armed services, and while he could not serve due to his polio, another thing I know a little bit about, there is simply no way he would sit aside doing nothing.  

Sure, in hindsight, we can see all the pieces coming together.  Japan's conquest of much of the Pacific region, their desire to "own" the Pacific, their need to control as much as possible, and their absolute fear that if America entered the war, they'd be wiped out.  As it turns out, they were pretty close to right, and got, frankly, what they deserved, which is the other item regarding World War II which tends to irritate me.  Some folks, including my wife, are thinking that the dropping of TWO atomic bombs on Japan were excessive.  

While I can't say that the loss of life was warranted, the simple facts were that given the expected invasion of the Japanese home islands was expected to take the lives of over a million people, well, I dunno about you, but I am extremely glad it didn't happen.  Some folks will point and say it was because we did not respect the Asian peoples as much as we did the Europeans.  Not true, I don't think, because I think a lot of Americans were coming to realize that while we did not have the same sort of concentration camps Germany had during the war, what we did to people who were American Citizens was pretty shameful.  And thus, dropping two bombs and killing some two hundred sixty thousand civilians was an ugly but preferable bit of mathematics to at least a million during the initial invasion.

So when it becomes clear to some people that the orange idiot lied to them about a whole lot of things, they're going to be very, very angry.  At themselves, for being dupes, for falling for his crap, and for continuing to fall for his crap.  They will be upset for many years, and probably take it out on the Republicants for many years.  

Then there are the people who won't ever realize how stupid they were.  They'll continue to believe the drivel which comes from that idiot, no matter the rather obvious evidence to the contrary.  I've never been President, nor will I be.  I will never handle confidential or classified documents.  I have enough anxiety about HIPAA with my day job that I don't talk too much about what I do daily.  But this idiot obviously took documents he wasn't supposed to take.  I don't know what was on them, but to have them in the basement of his Golf Club Home, well, there's a bit of a dumbshit move.  I cannot for the life of me imagine that there are not foreign national employees working at his home, and have access to the many areas the orange buffoon won't clean, either.  I'm sure they've had the opportunity to look at these things.

So he's compromised our national security.  He's taken documents which he is not to remove, and he did.  He's gone pretty far beyond what he should have done, and he's still trying to get away with lying to people.  There's nothing wrong with our election system aside from the fact that it has, up to this point, been placed in the hands of people who we expect to be honest.  The state right next to my own had people who tried to set up and overturn the results of the election.

Which brings me to my final point, that final burst of anger which will eventually come out.  And that's the whole push to rob people of the right to vote.  The entire American system relies on two bedrock concepts.  The first is that every single citizen of this nation has, in their hearts, the desire to see the land continue to be a nation where each and every person has the same number of opportunities, the same level of responsibility, and beholden to one another for carrying that work out.  

Were that not true, we would all be building our own homes - we wouldn't be trusting and handing over astronomical amounts of money to people who are trained and expected to follow the rules which we have in how to put a safe home together.  I'm a fan of the Holmes on Homes TV show where this gentleman comes into a home with obvious problems and then he and his workers examine the home, often by tearing out walls and opening things up, only to find that the people who did the work were either incompetent, lazy, or deliberately deceitful.  Which is how the world ends up getting quite messed up.  

And it goes a lot further than that.  It's becoming rather painfully obvious that, for the last forty-odd years, we've all been fooled by a policy which was supposed to give all of us a better shot at doing better.  Instead, we're told we're just not working hard enough, while at the same time, a very small segment of our population has managed to far outpace the rest of us in their accumulation of wealth and comfort.  I know far too many people who are barely getting by.  I know many who are barely surviving paycheck to paycheck, and are a flat tire from a major financial disaster.  There are far too many people homeless these days, because we're not making enough homes to provide for the population that's continuing to grow up and try to move out of their parents' homes.  

We know by now that nothing trickles down except for crap.  Money tends to stick to the hands which grab it first.  Sure, I'd love to be rich, but my fantasies about winning the lottery start with investing anywhere from 50-90% of the win so it continues to grow, and giving a good chunk of it away.  Sure, I'd give some to some institutions I've benefited from over the years, but I'd also drop a big chunk of change on the local food shelves.  I'd spend some time with the folks trying to build homes for those who are less advantaged, and I'd start buying some of those homes that are being bought instead by corporations which are turning them into rental homes.  I'd do the same thing - but rather than rent to travelers for vacations, I'd find young families, families like we were, struggling to get it together, to keep it together, and make things happen.  I'd work out contracts for deeds with them, I'd make arrangements that wouldn't leave me richer, but it would give them a roof over their heads.

I'd set up an organization to help folks who need the help.  Here in America we're entirely too dependent on automobiles.  It's the size and the layout of the country.  We need cars.  And all too often, those cars are also a rather intense disaster when they stop working or parts fail.  I'd work out ways to make sure people could not only afford their repairs, they may even learn how to do their own.  Because, let's face it, if you have a certain set of skills, who knows what can happen.  

Too often when my children were young major car repairs caused us financial difficulties.  This influenced both of my children, my son is a mechanic.  My daughter is quite handy with her own repairs, could do her own brakes if needed, but she's also much more careful with her own money.  She's doing much better than her mother and I were at her age, which I attribute to learning from our mistakes.

And that also shows that she understands that she's got a future, if she stays careful.  And there are too many in this country who are trying to make their futures help, while at the same time there are people who do not like they way they vote, so they shouldn't vote.  Look, if someone does not have a voice in the system and a say in how it runs, you know what they do?  Whatever they can to get ahead.

Now, gee, I wonder why there are so many crimes being committed.  People are feeling not only disrespected, but disregarded - because there are too many folks who lie to them, abuse them, or tell them they're not worth listening to at all.

And the more people who feel that way, the more likely it is that the system will fall completely apart.  I hope in my lifetime, and that of my children, grandchildren, and their descendants, it won't.  But in order to make sure that it continues to work, we all need to make sure everyone has a voice, and equal votes.  Because if they don't, they don't see a problem with burning down the house.