What to Believe

As a friend passed me the best selling book, “Fire and Fury” about the trump white house, another friend asked, “how can you know what’s true?”  My answer: “I can’t and no one else can either; that’s the context in which we find ourselves; pitiful.”

And so, as the nation anticipates the State of the Union Address by the current white house occupant, one knows that whatever he utters cannot be readily believed. He has done this to himself, to others, for the press and anyone else who wishes to comment, study or write about current events.

If the subject  matter can be extended as a positive or negative on the current administration, the propagandists go to work to discredit the piece. Deny. Re-state. Cover up. Explain. Nothing negative meant or intended, right? Wrong!

The current public discussion climate is pitifully zero. No one believes anyone. If anyone – me included – attempts to explain or open a topic for fair discussion, immediate condemnation, attack, or personal detraction is assigned. Evidently, they don’t trust even themselves to have an open and trustworthy discussion. Blame begets blame. Context becomes twisted with non-contextual elements. History is malformed to fit an inappropriate example now under the microscope. It is a wonder anything factual escapes the maw of the modern day political machine.

And that is exactly why I am not a republican or supporter of the current occupant of the white house. He is so untrustworthy as to go unnamed. Well earned, in my mind. And I’m not alone in this polar conclusion.

The history of political discourse is under study as we speak. Academicians and political scientists are intrigued at our current situation and wonder exactly how we got here. Early indications of these studies go back 30 years of political propaganda authored by republicans as they attempted everything to unseat Bill Clinton. They overstepped their authority and morals in doing this. The tide was turned and the rest followed.

I look forward to more of their findings, but certainly the record will be tainted by intermediate defenses and skirmishes entered into by both political parties as they struggled with the then current moves and countermoves. All of this confuses who said what and when. Also, who said and did what first to get this ball rolling. How very childish.

In a multi-hundred year history this blaming and reaction process becomes too unwieldy to manage. At some point we will need to shout ‘halt’ and start with a new beginning, one that says, forget the past, what do we want for the future?

By the way, that’s exactly what I’ve tried to do with this blog. Some of my rants, of course, understandably vent my frustration with past calumnies; but in the main, I remain positive and hope that we can reboot our national discussion and define who we are, who we want to be, what that requires in our deportment and demeanor. This needs to be a clean break from present standards which pretty much count for nothing.

So, those of you who have dissected and pummeled my blogs in the past, stop; begin with a statement of your ideas, not blame, but ideas for the future. Who do you think the American people are and should strive to become? This is a process of evolving toward a brighter future. To accomplish those ideas, what will we need to do as a people to get there?

These are difficult issues. They are complex. They affect millions of people, intended and unintended. The nature of policy is complex. Respect it and work with it creatively to achieve the standard models of decency.

If you cannot do this – and there are plenty of people like Bannon out there in the real world – just keep your mouths as shut as your minds are. Let the rest of us adults get down to business.

I do not mean this harshly. I have hopes for a heady, spirited discussion that truly aims to arrive at a better place without the baggage of our present problems.

Who’s game for this? All aboard!?

January 29, 2018