Saturday, February 8, 2020

What comes after pixie dust?


I rarely mention politics on these pages, which has me wondering if I can pull off today’s assignment……..talking about politics, without getting political.

No matter what our age, but especially in late-life, our ability to fight-the-good-fight, to tilt at offending windmills, is limited. I’ve been told, and so have you, “Don’t waste your energy trying to change or control what you can’t change or control.”

I take that to be good advice, especially when I am tempted to take my few remaining bullets and defective armor into battle against firmly entrenched adversaries. At my age I need to choose my battles carefully, or avoid them altogether.

So, welcome to America, land of the free and brave. Having grown up in a nation that likes to pretend it is always getting better, solving its problems and moving ahead, this seems like a good time to remind myself that pixie dust and good intentions will only take us so far.
Some of the challenges we face today seem intractable. For instance, no matter its cause, climate change is apparently responsible for a toxic blend of violent weather, higher temperatures, and rising ocean levels. We may not agree on the “why” of it, but the “results” are there for everyone to see, feel…….and live with.

Another of the potential battles we hear about these days is our nation’s wealth disparity, which also seems beyond our control. You have seen the numbers……the wealthiest 20% control 90% of the nation’s wealth……while the poorest 20% are an average of $6,000 underwater. The “middle-class dream” we grew up worshipping is being squeezed back into the tube. ”

Though it is hard not to be concerned about the impact of that disparity on our grandchildren’s future, as one who writes about late-life, and lives it too, I fear for those of my peers who face an ever-more-expensive world with ever-shrinking-resources. We read about how many of our citizens cannot raise $500 to deal with an emergency……and we know that large numbers of those unfortunate ones are living out their Golden Years, without a hint of gold.

You can add another lump of coal in our national legacy……the health-insurance disparity so many of our people face. No other nation in history has created medical care as good as ours. Yet in doing so we have produced a system which delivers that care unevenly, offering more or less according to arbitrary  privilege……sometimes to the point of offering no health-care options at all.

And finally, what about the most obvious sign of our times, one that plays a role in climate change, wealth disparity, health-care inequity, and many other of our national ills. That would be the ugly and dysfunctional political divide we see all around us…….jagged divisions that some say are the worst since the Civil War? 

Take a moment to imagine two well-fortified fortresses, each sitting on a high hill, separated by a wide and deep canyon. As long as they stand alone like that, two parts of the same whole, neither of them can create the future they want for their people.......not when their individual success depends on joining forces to exploit their united potential. 

But how can that “coming together,” a necessary ingredient for making the most of our nation’s potential, possibly happen in today’s demeaning climate of hatred, name calling, and mockery? What if neither side is willing to begin the bridge that spans their differences?

I said earlier I would talk politics without getting political, then proceeded to produce a series of political realities. But I am not here to take sides. As often happens I am preaching to myself, reminding myself that some circumstances will be part of my world for as long as I live.
I may do what I can to ease the impact of climate change, but the trend will continue, perhaps until it cannot be reversed. I can bemoan the inequities of wealth or health-care disparity, and pray that we are not consumed by them, but absent a drastic turnabout they will continue to widen.
As for the Great American Political Divide, it is tempting to suggest that only Jesus himself could resolve that impasse…….except it seems that both sides claim to have enlisted him into their cause, to help them do battle with the other side, which also claims he is with them.

Bottom line…..I hope I am strong enough to follow my conscience and do the best I can, while at the same time recognizing that for the few year I have left those well-established trends, and many others, will be part of our nation’s landscape, perhaps taking us to a future I do not wish for my descendants. 


What do think? Am I right about that? I hope you’ll let me know.

12 comments:

  1. Gil, Glad you decided to take up your armor and step into the battle. I like much of what you say -- you identify many of our problems very well -- but I think you strive much too hard to be non-political. The battle is a political one and we have to take sides, always being willing, of course, to come together in honest dialogue and effort. We know conclusively that the predominating factor in climate change is human activity spewing carbon into the atmosphere; there is no legitimate argument there; yet the Republican party accepts its leader's claim that all the scientists are conspiring in a giant hoax (good grief!). You correctly speak of the climate of hatred, name calling, and mockery, but then erroneously imply that both political parties are equally responsible -- there is clearly one party primarily responsible -- the Republicans -- and we have to recognize it. It is, for example, our Republican president who specializes in branding his opponents with nasty nicknames and mocks them incessantly; his party fully supports him in his awful behavior. I fear, Gil, that you fall into the equivalency trap where one just says both sides are equally bad -- that is false -- there is one side that specializes in the vitriol. There is one side that wants to maintain economic disparity. There is one side that wants a health care system that delivers care unevenly. The people of good will are just as clearly aligned on the other side and if we want to preserve any sort of decent nation and world for our grandchildren, we must join them and not be wishy-washy about it.

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  3. Don - thanks for your reply. I can read your passion for the points you make

    However, what I wanted to address is the sad fact that the problems I identified, along with many others, have become what I fear are permanent features of American culture. And I wanted to make that point without getting sidetracked by "them vs us," and "who is to blame" considerations.

    I don't believe I implied that any or all parties are equally responsible for anything. I simply wanted to make the point that the conditions I identified do exist, and I believe they will continue to disrupt the social discourse for a very long time.

    Trying to assign responsibility for that sad state of affairs is creating an answer to a question I did not ask.

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    1. I agree with you on this reply Gil. I will speak out and act as I am led spiritually and agree or disagree as needed without going to war. R

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  4. I will have to disagree with Don. When it comes to politics I have friends that agree with my position and I have friends that do not agree with my position. We do things together, have fun, laugh and cry about many subjects. We know where we stand on politics and just don't broach the subject. None of us point fingers, name names, make accusations. At least when we are around each other. If someone is the opposite of my position there is a 99% chance that I am not able to make them believe the way I think and by the same test there is a 99% chance that they are not going to change my position. So why ruin a great friendship over something you can do nothing about. Politics are solved in the voting booth and no other place. Why get high blood pressure and lose great friends over it. When you are in a group talk about something other then politics. The state of the country and the world is in a constant state of flux. Always has been and always will be as long as the human mind is involved. That's my story and I am sticking to it.

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  5. The Unknown comment came from Myron Bredahl . I obviously did not push the right button to identify myself

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  6. Myron, Thanks for your comment. Do I recall that you came out of West Salem? If so your words seem awfully wise and sane for a West Salem guy. Still, it turns out "talking about politics without getting political" is hard for some folks to do. What worries me, the point I wanted to make is .....The Great Divide is wider than I realized, and it is likely to impact our nation's life for a very long time, because it seems that too many folks cannot walk the middle path you have spelled out. Apparently they feel the need to be all in on one side or the other.

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  7. Gil -- and Myron, I understand your point. I too have friends on the very conservative side of things and we largely avoid discussing politics. But they know where I stand -- I don't shy away from expressing my views when appropriate. I think it's important that I let it be known in non-confrontational ways the person I am and what I believe. And I'm always ready to discuss in a civilized way our differing views -- that's something I miss, the willingness of people to calmly and rationally discuss issues. Such discussion is essential, I think, to a functional democracy, and when we don't engage in it, our democracy is doomed. Politics is not limited to the ballot box -- it is critical that we be well-informed when we go the ballot box and that requires discussion and listening and some mental effort. And, Gil, when you talk about the "middle path" as the desired route you are saying that each position is equally valid; sometimes that's true, but often it is not. I have become increasingly pessimistic the past decade, but I'm still not willing to say our society has to be the way it is. Men and women of good will can change it.

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  8. Ah yes, the middle road. In my mind the middle road is not about the validity of either position. Instead it seems to me the only path to compromise.....the place where those men and women of good faith can come together. Without compromise we will remain in gridlock......two entrenched positions unwilling to seek a common ground, unable to engage as you suggest, and making it more likely our society will remain as it is. Sadly that middle lane doesn't have much traffic these days. Hopefully something can change our. people's willingness to come together. That's. something to pray for.

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  9. You pulled it off...wrote about politics without getting political. I could have done that in a hundred years. That being said there is only one person in my offline life that I talk politics with. With family and friends its an unspoken rule that the elephant in the room remains anonymous. I do worry about and feel sad about the world we're leaving behind for future generations.

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    1. Thanks for checking in, Jean. I guess what frightens me the most is that our younger people may come to accept the division we see today as their new normal. In that respect it feels like we've let them down.

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  10. You've certainly identified some of the issues creating such controversy in our nation. With forces at work to stimulate adversity between the two major opposing views having rational discussions can be problematic. I think if we'd take some of the social issues that have no business of government we could more readily resolve some matters.

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