Re: the reader’s comment here on The Grapes of Wrath, there is no doubt that the book challenges the basic tenets of capitalism, and it does so in what is perhaps the most forceful piece ever written in the English language.
The claim here, i.e., that the MAGA folks “believe in nothing” is incorrect, if only because of the trust they place in the infallibility of Donald Trump.
It makes no difference how ludicrous what he says, these people are steadfast in their commitment to the criminal sociopath.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting a woman from Ireland who had come here for a wedding.
She commented that the type of news that Americans receive is far more disturbing than those in her home country. I offered my ideas on this; it seems to be a combination of the desire for huge profits from the media industry, coupled with the insane criminality of the U.S. president.
This theme, that education is indoctrination and is actually harmful to our personhood, is extremely popular now, but largely among our nation’s uneducated people. This could be called “sour grapes,” but some (uneducated) people won’t know what this means.
We’re so screwed.
Supporting the idea that education kills our capacity for creativity and critical thinking has great appeal to many Americans as our society dwindles down into Trumpism, but what are the consequences? A few ideas include our American kids who:
Can’t tell you where Minnesota or France is, and can barely read and write.
Will never achieve any real wealth and will certainly never take any place in our knowledge-based world.
Will be fantastic candidates to support Trump, or, perhaps, the even greater bastard who comes next.
Ten years ago, if you had surveyed Americans as to the viability of selling off public lands to for-profit corporations, people would have laughed in your face. “That’s an outrageously stupid idea, as it strikes a blow to the core of who we are as a people,” you would have heard people say.
Now, just the blink of an eye later, it’s happening right in front of us.
I guess the word “outrageous” is relative. What was outrageous 10 years ago makes perfectly good sense today.
These people claim:
The MAGA folks are thrilled that people living here with brown skin are terrified about what’s happening under Trump. But how sustainable is this? How long will it take until fatal gunshot wounds between the hunters and the hunted become too common to keep track of?
Moreover, is this what we want from our government?
I’m a straight, white 70-year-old Quaker school graduate (largely pacifist) who doesn’t own a gun. But what if this were a different situation, say, one in which I had reason to fear that my family and I could be kidnapped at gunpoint by armed and masked criminals?
Who, regardless of their political/religious philosophies, wouldn’t buy weapons (big ones) and use them to protect themselves and their families?
I keep thinking of what I would do if someone knocked on my front door and told me to come with him, especially before my wife and I became empty-nesters and I still had our kids to protect. If he couldn’t produce a warrant, I’d say, “One more step and I’m going to blow a hole in your chest the size of a cantaloupe.”
My reasoning: I could go to prison, but I doubt it. I’d love to meet the jury that’s going to convict me for defending my own life and that of my loved ones.
We have a choice to make here before this gets really ugly.
It’s just a matter of time.
The story at left is a strange one, though worth telling for a good reason: We all should make sure that money plays its proper role in our lives.
One part of this tale rings particularly true: avoid displays of wealth. As I told my kids when they were growing up, “Unless you’re an extremely shallow person–and neither of you are–it does you absolutely no good to have other people believe you to be rich. You don’t want people trying to sell you stuff, borrowing money, or glomming on to you for impure reasons.
I would describe what Rousseau said about himself here as “gutsy.” Most of us don’t want paradoxes in our mental lives; such “cognitive dissonance” as it is called is an uncomfortable phenomenon.
If Dickens’ hope as expressed here is going to come to fruition, it will be because decent people actively made it happen.
When I was a little boy my grandfather told me, “Try to leave this world in better condition than the way you found it.”
