ANTIFA

Anti fascist pseudo organization. A pretend group trying to act frightening. More words than actions, but that’s OK. Rather they use words we can ignore than actions we can’t.


I wrote a long time ago that the far right and far left become the same thing when taken to the ultimate extremes. They both become fascist – over using anarchical methods to control lives of others with whom they disagree. It is an ideological war. Too much government or too little? Which is your poison?


I’ve been a centrist for most of my life. I’ve dabbled in far right (first) and far left (second) and gravitated to the center a long time ago. I respect government and the work they do for all of us. I lament when only the government can get things done that the rest of us ought to be able to do, but don’t, or won’t.


That’s the rub. We can do so much more individually and acting together. We could do this without a government agency being assigned the task, but we don’t because there are risks related to this action we are unwilling to take. So, if it is to be done, we let the government do it. Yes, we ‘let’ the government do it because we want it done but we don’t want to dirty our hands.


While we have slipped this responsibility off on the government, we also tell our ideologically elected officials to underfund the same agency just to be certain that we are not building an overreaching bureaucracy.


The result of that underfunding is an agency crippled in its ability to truly make a difference with the social problem assigned to it. Like Youth and Family Services. Wonder why abused kids continue to be abused? Because the agency assigned to this important work doesn’t have a realistic budget to hire the best trained people, and enough of them, to do the work. This is not country club work. This is hard, slogging work with disintegrating families where violence is an everyday occurrence. It takes trained and sensitive people to work with both the miscreants and the victims to sort out the good and bad, and arrive at a workable solution.


Instead, attention for the victim is often too late. Either death, crippling injuries, or drug addiction result. Or maybe all three. Tragic and avoidable.


The same agency woes are felt in the IRS, Housing, Health and Education, EPA, FDA, NIH and countless others.


We know we need this work done. And done right. But we allow others to play ideological games with the supervision, budgeting and oversight. These agencies are crippled by design. Talk about the ‘deep state?’ That’s the other side we don’t see.


Health, education and housing. These are the big three service areas all of our citizens deserve. Education is the primary investment that will help alleviate the other two needs, but all three need help if social justice is to prevail in America.


That is the face of justice. We want this for ourselves. we want this for our needy brothers and sisters. Why is this so underfunded and messed up when it is done in our name because we can’t or won’t do it for ourselves?


That’s part of the sickness America needs to tend to. And it speaks loudly to us today.


June 2, 2020